School Education: STEM Education Centres

The applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be established in EU Member States (including oversees countries and territories) or the third countries associated to the programme: Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye (see section 6 "Eligible participants (eligible countries)" of the Call document). Applicants from countries with ongoing negotiations for participation in the Erasmus+ programme may be included in the consortium at the application stage. However, should the application be successful, they will only be included in the grant agreement if the association negotiations are concluded before grant signature and if the association covers the call (i.e. is retroactive and covers both the part of the programme and the year when the call was launched).

Applicants should not include external hyperlinks in Part B (Technical Description) of their proposal to show information that is an essential part of their application. It is important that all critical details of the proposal are contained in the text of Part B, as proposals will be evaluated based on the information available in submitted application, as core text of Part B.

Yes, in your total cost you can include the staff cost of the personnel working on project implementation.

No, international organisations such as United Nations (UN) are not eligible (p.35 of the Call document).

Yes, the table “Subcontracting” in section 4 of the Technical description (Part B) needs to be completed if you use subcontracting for implementing specific tasks which are part of your project proposal.

Subcontracting concerns the outsourcing of a part of the project to a party outside the consortium. Participants should have sufficient operational capacity to implement the project activities themselves and subcontracting should be exceptional. All subcontracts should comply with the eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants (see AGA – Annotated Grant AgreementPDF, art 6), such as ensuring best value for money (or lowest price), and avoiding conflict of interest; subcontracting project coordination tasks is not allowed.

Please ensure full coherence between the information on subcontracting you provide in sections “Outside resources” (under section 2.1.3) and “Subcontracting” of Part B and the information provided in the Detailed budget table.

Yes. Legal entities (public or private bodies) active in the field of education and training, research and innovation or in the world of work are eligible to participate. The “world of work” is a broad concept, which includes, among others, organisations that provide employment, such as enterprises, SMEs, public services, career guidance services, professional associations, NGOs, etc.

Subcontracting must comply with best value for money (or if appropriate the lowest price) and be free of any conflict of interests. Subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part of projects tasks and must be performed by third parties (not by one of the beneficiaries/affiliated entities). Subcontracting going beyond 30% of the total eligible costs must be justified in the application. Coordination tasks cannot be subcontracted. If the detailed budget table contains ineligible costs, the grant may be reduced (even later on during the project implementation or after their end).

No. Organisations from third countries not associated to the program (with the exception of organisations from Belarus and Russia), can only be involved as associated partners, not as beneficiaries or affiliated entities.

No, associated partners cannot claim costs or receive any portion of the grant. Only beneficiaries and affiliated entities part of the consortium can receive funding.

No. Proposals must relate to activities taking place in the eligible countries (see section 6 of the Call document – Eligible participants).

No. The tables “Estimated budget — Resources”, “Staff effort per work package” and “Staff effort per participant” cannot be deleted from the Technical description (Part B). They are not applicable to lump sums, therefore you do not need to fill them in.

Applicants must provide information on the estimated cost of the project and staff effort (person/months) in the Excel Detailed Budget Table.

Once the application budget has been evaluated and approved by the Agency, the grant will be fixed to 80% of the approved budget (limited to a maximum amount of EUR 1 000 000). The other 20% is the co-funding. You don’t have to justify the co-financing nor provide any proof.

The tables “Estimated budget — Resources”, “Staff effort per work package” and “Staff effort per participant” are not applicable and they do not need to be filled in. As they cannot be deleted from the template of the Technical description (Part B), applicants can keep them in the Part B under WP 1 and refrain from duplicating them under each WP.

Applicants must provide information on the estimated cost of the project and staff effort (person/months) in the Excel Detailed Budget Table.

Yes, you need to fill in sections “2.1.4 Cost effectiveness and financial management” and the “Subcontracting” table below section “4.2 Work packages, activities, resources and timing” as applicable to your project, since this call for proposals doesn't fall under the category of prefixed lump sum grants, but is based on lump sum contribution (type II), ls-and-unit-cost-decision_erasmus_en.pdfPDF.

On the contrary, you do not need to fill in the "Estimated budget - Resources” table (under section “4.2 Work packages, activities, resources and timing”) since the budget figures need to be included in the Excel Detailed Budget Table.

No, costs for separate project websites are not eligible. Communication costs for presenting the project on the participants’ websites or social media accounts are indeed eligible under the call.

No. Financial support to third parties is not allowed under this call (p. 36 of the Call document).

The page limit for the Part B of the Application Form (Technical Description) is 40 pages. Within these 40 pages limit, the list of relevant previous projects should be included. Evaluators will not consider any additional pages beyond 40 pages. The template of the List of previous projects is available at the end of Part B.

Yes, the tables “Events meetings and mobility” and “Timetable” from section 4 of the Technical description (Part B) need to be completed.

Depending on the length of your project, you need to fill in the table “Timetable (projects of more than 2 years)” or the table “Timetable (projects up to 2 years)”.

The mandatory annexes and supporting documents are the Detailed budget table and the List of previous projects, which is embedded in Part B (Technical description).

Yes, it is advisable. The work plan for the project should include two deliverables related to an independent external quality assessment. These assessments should be scheduled for submission at two key points: firstly, at the mid-term stage of the project, and secondly, near the project's conclusion. This timing allows for any necessary adjustments to be made to the project. Ensuring robust quality assurance, as well as an effective monitoring and evaluation strategy, is crucial for meeting the award criteria 2, which pertains to Project Design and Implementation.

The inclusion of additional activities beyond the minimum requirements is welcome, though added value is not determined, solely, by the number of activities proposed. Other important elements include the clarity of the conceptual framework, the coherence and consistency of the proposed actions, and the extent to which the combined activities are likely to generate long-term systemic impact.

No, each application under the call must address only one of the ten topics. Applicants wishing to apply for more than one topic should submit a separate proposal under each topic.

The grant will be based on a lump sum type 2. The lump sums are based on the estimated costs of the project, therefore you must submit the Detailed budget table with the project budget. In the lump sum type 2 Detailed budget table, you must provide realistic cost estimations for each cost category (e.g., personnel costs, subcontracting costs, purchase costs, other cost categories) per beneficiary and affiliated entity (if any), and per work package. These cost estimations and the resources you commit to mobilise will be the basis to define and justify the lump sum. The costs you include in the Detailed budget table must comply with the basic eligibility conditions for EU actual cost grants (see AGA — Annotated Grant AgreementPDF, art 6).

Cost estimations that are clearly overestimated or underestimated will lead to a decreased score under the award criterion “Quality - 2.1. Project design and implementation”. If the Detailed budget table contains ineligible costs, the grant may be reduced (even later on during the project implementation or after their end).

A STEM Education Centre project must operate as a coordinated transnational network of organisations or institutions functioning at local and/or regional level. Each participating organisation should already run, or aim to develop, a STEM/STEAM learning ecosystem involving schools at local or regional level. It is not required that each participating country establish a new physical STEM Education Centre. The project may operate as a coordinated network of institutions, provided that local or regional ecosystem development is ensured.

A STEM Education Centre project can focus solely on one education stage, e.g. secondary level, within the scope defined in the call.

The STEM Education Centre project should combine formal with non-formal and/or informal education. This means that it is also possible that, depending on the context, the project covers formal and non-formal learning environments only. Under cluster 1 of the call topic, it is mentioned that project activities should aim at “Increasing the access to quality STEM and STEAM education combining formal, non-formal, informal learning settings particularly for underrepresented groups and in disadvantaged areas.” Furthermore, under cluster 3 of the call topic, it is specified that “The activities should be carried out by formal education and non-formal/informal education actors working with schools from each represented country.”

The aim of this topic is not equipping existing or upcoming STEM learning ecosystems. As stated in the call, projects under this topic may facilitate "access to fully equipped physical spaces with up-to-date laboratories, technologies, digital tools and other resources, located inside or outside of schools, for both teachers and students" (see activities under Cluster 1 - Teaching and learning). See also Cluster 3 of activities: Governance and funding, which includes as one of the possible activities: "Making full use of national and EU financial instruments and funds, to provide/increase resources for teaching and learning actions, research activities, mobility of learners and teachers, infrastructure investments, including equipment, among others."

A STEM Education Centre project is a transnational multi-stakeholder collaborative network operating on the ground. Such a transnational network will be built by organisations/institutions that already run or aim to build STEM learning ecosystems involving schools and operating at local/regional levels. Therefore, all three elements – an education centre, a governance network, and access to physical structures at the local level – constitute elements of a STEM Education Centre project. This is also reflected in the three clusters of activities described in the call: “teaching and learning”, “cooperation and partnerships”, “governance and funding” that need to be combined in a consistent framework aligned with specific needs.

The topic is intended for piloting STEM Education Centres. Such centres may incorporate a specific focus on STEAM. However, the objective is not limited to improving STEAM teaching and learning practices alone. The emphasis is on embedding STEM (including STEAM where relevant) within sustainable learning ecosystems, in line with the three activity clusters described in the call document.