Alliances for STEM Skills Foundries

Yes, to try and test new curricula or new training and learning methods, Alliances for Innovation may organise learning mobility activities of students, teachers, researchers and staff in so far as they support/complement the main activities of the partnerships and bring added value in the implementation of the project's objectives.

Yes, one organisation can participate in Lot 1, Lot 2 or Lot 3 but with three different proposals. However, through the selection criteria, the Agency will assess the applicant's operational capacity to complete the proposed project(s), which includes human, technical and other resources.

To be included in a proposal as an applicant, a full partner, an affiliated entity or an associated partner you must have a PIC number. The PIC number does not have to be validated for submission of your proposal. In case your proposal will be selected, the PIC number of each organisation involved in your application, except for associated partners, must be validated before signing the Grant Agreement.

You have to download the templates directly from the submission system after creating the draft proposal in the area called Download Part B templates that is located on the left inside of the screen. For more details we invite you to read the online manual on how to submit a proposal.

Respect of the no-profit and co-financing principles is generally assumed in the context of lump sums, therefore, applicants do not have to provide information about sources of funding other than the EU grant, nor do they have to justify the costs incurred by the project.

The grant requested has to be entered in the budget table (tab “proposed budget”) and cannot exceed 80% of the total costs per partner. If it does, an error message will appear .The total estimated costs of the project represent 100%. The EU grant covers a maximum of 80% of these costs. The remaining 20% will have to be financed by the project consortium with own-resources, financial contribution from third parties, or income generated by the project.

If the total costs of the project are estimated at EUR 5 million, the maximum EU grant is EUR 4 million and the remaining EUR 1 million will have to be covered by the consortium.

In the table List of previous projects at the end of the Application Form – Part B, you have to include only EU funded projects that are related to your proposal.

Please insert the total EU grant amount that was allocated for each project.

The number of proposals that will be funded depends on the available budget and the amount of the EU grant requested by each project proposed for funding. For the Call Alliances for Innovation (Lot 1, Lot 2, Lot 3), the total available budget is EUR 67 million (Please see Annual Work Programme 2026PDF.

Under Lot 1: for a 2-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1 million and for a 3-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1,5 million.

Under Lot 2: for a 4-year project the maximum grant is EUR 4 million.

Under Lot 3: for a 2-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1.5 million.

In the Funding and tender Opportunities Portal you have to submit an application form that includes the following parts: e-form Part A - structured administrative information based on the information which you enter into the Portal Submission System. Part B – technical description of the project. The form needs to be downloaded, filled in and uploaded as PDF in the Submission System. The requested annex ‘detailed budget table of the proposal’, which also needs to be downloaded, filled in and uploaded as Excel file in the Submission System. e-form Part C - Key Performance Indicators data for your project on thematic areas, participants, types of activities, EQF levels, etc..

The Part B (technical description of the project) of the Application Form is limited to maximum 120 pages for all three lots, namely: Lot 1, Lot 2 & Lot 3.

No, mandate letters will not be requested. The Declaration of Honour will need to be signed by the selected participants at the moment of Grant Agreement Preparation.

Where requested in the Application Form – Part B, you have to address all guiding points presented in the Call document/Programme Guide under each award criterion. It is up to you how you will organise the answers, in one box or spread through several answers in Part B. Please make sure that all guiding points for each award criterion have a clear and comprehensive answer/explanation and that are clearly presented. Please find below the link to Info Page where you can also find some guidelines on how to fill in Part B addressing all the relevant sub-criteria of the Programme Guide: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/document/erasmus-programme-guide-2026

It is not obligatory to submit the application in English, however the abstract in the Part B of the application form must be in English. Please make sure that application is written in the language of the partnership understood by all participating organisations.

VET providers are determined by national law. Normally, the scope of VET goes beyond the upper-secondary level and covers the post-secondary, non-tertiary level but also the tertiary level (e.g. Universities of applied sciences, Polytechnic institutes, etc.). Also companies where the country has a dual system and the company provides part of the course curriculum could be considered as a VET provider. An entity that specializes on continuing vocational training (often also called “professional training”) is also a VET provider.

No, a pre-financing payment of 40% will be made at the start of the project, a second pre-financing of 40% will be made approximately at mid term, upon approval of the first Periodic Report and acceptance of a technical report on the progress of the project, and the final balance of 20% will be paid at the end, upon review and approval of all the project outputs in each work packages and acceptance of the final report.

A STEAM educational approach may be included. However, it must remain clearly conducive to the development of skills specifically linked to STEM domains. The integration of arts should therefore be justified as supporting or enhancing STEM-related skills, rather than shifting the primary focus away from STEM.

The list of higher education institutions holding Erasmus Charter for Higher Education is available erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu

You can search for an organisation active in VET in the EPALEdatabase. You can also add your organisation to the EPALE Partner Search.

In addition, you can use partner search functions directly integrated in the menu of Alliances of Innovation Topic pages (ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-EDU-ENTERP, ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-BLUEPRINT, ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-STEM) as described in the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal guidance pages. More information on all partner search possibilities in the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal is available webgate.ec.europa.eu.

The results of the projects should be made freely available (see description of the award criterion Impact under "sustainability and continuation-open access" in the Part B of the Programme Guide under Alliances for Innovation action):

"If relevant, the proposal describes how the materials, documents and media produced will be made freely available and promoted through open licenses and does not contain disproportionate limitations"

This also applies when the project is completed.

This action follows a lump sum model, therefore, an audit certificate will not be requested with the final report. Applicants do not need to calculate this cost in the budget.