CALL FOR PROPOSALS — EACEA/12/2019

Erasmus+ programme, Key Action 3 — Support for Policy Reform

European Youth Together

(2019/C 191/04)

1.   INTRODUCTION — BACKGROUND (1)

Many young people are active in EU-related activities: they join pan-European organisations or engage in less structured ‘non-formal’ exchanges with young people from other European countries and they show positive attitudes and support to the European integration process (2). In their capacity, they can be powerful ambassadors of the European project and build bridges across the continent, East and West North and South line, to inspire others in the way they experience Europe and their European identity.

Erasmus+ Youth today promotes different mobility formats, including youth exchanges or youth worker mobility and supports youth organisations. Analysis of experience reveals a fruitful and active cooperation between organisations and young people across countries. The Erasmus+ programme is successful in attracting and engaging young people. There is great interest in participation and currently only 1 in 3 mobility projects (Youth Exchanges, Youth Workers Mobility) and 1 in 5 in partnerships (Transnational Youth Initiatives) can be supported.

As President Juncker pointed out (3); ‘… Europe must be a Union of equality and a Union of equals. Equality between its Members, big or small, East or West, North or South.’ Young people are key actors in making this happen. They might often be less engaged than older persons in traditional forms of participation such as voting or belonging to a political party, but a majority among them declare interest in politics and have stronger feelings of citizenship towards the EU than older groups.

A number of preparatory activities and young people’s consultations, including a Eurobarometer survey, were carried out prior to putting forward the Commission proposal for a new EU Youth Strategy, adopted in November 2018 (4), which will frame EU activities for EU youth policy over the next few years and build on European Youth Goals put forward by young people.

These consultations confirmed that the majority of surveyed young people ask the EU to prioritise subjects such as education and skills and the protection of environment.

2.   OBJECTIVES

The scope of the ‘European Youth Together’ actions should build on the experience obtained through the ‘New Narrative for Europe’ (5) project, the European Youth Goals (6) and Eurobarometer findings on young people’s priorities (7) and other youth policy and programme initiatives, including projects selected under this action in 2018, aiming to promote young people’s participation in European civic life as well as cross-border exchanges and mobility activities.

2.1.   General objectives

‘European Youth Together’ projects aim to create networks promoting regional partnerships, to be run in close cooperation with young people from across Europe (Erasmus+ programme countries). The networks would organise exchanges, promote trainings (for instance for youth leaders) and allow young people themselves to set up joint projects.

‘European Youth Together’ seeks to support initiatives from at least five youth organisations from five different eligible Erasmus+ programme countries to share their ideas about the EU, encourage wider civic participation and help foster a sense of European citizenship. The initiative aims to bring together European youth from across Europe; East, West, North and South.

The thematic priorities are active citizenship, network-building, European values and European citizenship, democratic participation, democratic resilience and social inclusion related to youth.

2.2.   Specific objectives

The initiative seeks to specifically support:

—	promotion and development of more structured cooperation between different youth organisations to build or strengthen partnerships,

—

youth organisations involved in initiatives to encourage young people to participate in the democratic process and in society by organising trainings, showcase commonalities among young Europeans and encourage discussion and debate on their connection to the EU, its values and democratic foundations,

—	promote participation of under-represented groups of young people in politics, youth organisations and other civil society organisations by engaging vulnerable and socioeconomic disadvantaged youth.

It targets youth NGOs, public bodies and informal groups of young people, especially those active at grassroots level, which would propose projects involving at least five partners who have the capacity to mobilise young people in partnerships covering different countries and regions within the Erasmus+ Programme Countries.

Large-scale mobility activities for young people should form a key component of European Youth Together projects. This mobility should offer cross-border exchanges and non-formal or informal training opportunities for young people from across Europe (East, West, North and South) to support the objectives of this call. These mobility activities must be very clearly justified according to the call objectives.

All the above activities should contribute to widening the outreach towards young people to ensure a diversity of voices, reach young people within and beyond youth organisations and youth with fewer opportunities, thereby using a variety of channels.

3.   ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Applications which comply with the following criteria will be subject to an in-depth evaluation.

Only applications from legal entities established in the Erasmus+ programme countries are eligible (8).

3.1.   Eligible applicants

Participating organisations can be:

—	non-profit organisations, associations and NGOs including European Youth NGOs,

—	social enterprises,

—	public bodies at local, regional or national level,

—	associations of regions,

—	European Groupings of Territorial Cooperation,

—	profit-making bodies active in Corporate Social Responsibility

established in an Erasmus+ Programme Country.

The minimum partnership composition requirement for this call is at least 5 partners from 5 different countries eligible for participation in the Erasmus+ programme. Applying organisations should demonstrate their capacity to ensure a good geographical balance in terms of partners from different parts of the Erasmus+ Programme Countries. This means a partnership distribution across eligible countries where partners come from different regions East, West, North and South.

3.2.   Eligible countries

—	EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom,

—	The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, which form part of the European Economic Area (EEA): Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway,

—

Candidate countries for which a pre-accession strategy has been established, in accordance with the general principles and general terms and conditions laid down in the framework agreements concluded with those countries with a view to their participation in EU programmes: North Macedonia, Republic of Serbia (9) and Turkey.

3.3.   Eligible activities

European Union financing under this Call takes the form of an action grant to support part of the costs incurred by the selected bodies in carrying out a series of activities. These activities must be directly linked to the general and specific objectives of the Call and must be detailed in a project description covering the whole period of the grant applied for.

The following types of activities are eligible:

—	Mobility activities including large scale exchanges between young people, including (but not restricted to) networking and non-formal or informal training opportunities and the development of projects by young people,

—	Activities facilitating access and participation of youth in EU policy activities relevant to young people,

—	Exchanges of experience and good practice; networking and partnerships with other youth organisations; participation in meetings or seminars with other stakeholders and/or policymakers also with a view to increasing policy impact on target groups, sectors and/or systems,

—	Initiatives and events for developing European NGO/Civil Society organisations/EU-wide networks,

—	Awareness-raising, information, dissemination and promotion activities (seminars, workshops, campaigns, meetings, public debates, consultations, etc.) on EU policy priorities in the field of youth.

Activities shall be of cross-border nature and may be performed at European, national, regional or local level.

As a transversal principle, participating organisations should pursue strategies to connect to young people at grassroots level from a diversity of backgrounds with a view to ensuring a growing number of young people at the grassroots levels are being reached.

The project duration must be between 9 and 24 months. It cannot be extended in time.

4.   PROJECT RESULTS AND DURATION

The granted projects should demonstrate their expected contribution to EU youth policy by:

—	building on the objectives of the EU Youth Strategy 2019-2027 and more specifically by demonstrating how they are contributing to the ‘Engage-Connect-Empower’ priorities of the Strategy,

—	building on the outcomes of the New Narrative for Europe, European Youth Goals and other debate projects and opinion surveys related to the future of Europe and linking them to policy development at local/regional/national/European level,

—	improving the involvement of young people in democratic life, in terms of active citizenship and engagement with decision-makers (empowerment, new skills, involvement of young people in project design, etc.),

—	helping to improve the capacity of the youth sector active at grassroots level to work transnationally and promoting transnational learning and cooperation between young people and decision-makers,

—	upscaling existing best practices and outreach beyond the regular network(s),

—	disseminating their results in an effective and attractive way among young people involved in youth organisations, so as to pave the way for more systematic partnerships, and also among youngsters who are not affiliated to youth structures or those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The project duration must be between 9 and 24 months. It cannot be extended in time.

5.   AWARD CRITERIA

The eligible applications will be assessed on the basis of exclusion, selection, and award criteria. The exclusion and selection criteria can be found in the application guidelines located at: https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus/funding_en

The award criteria for the funding of an application are:

—	Relevance of the project (30 %)

—	Quality of the project design and implementation (20 %)

—	Quality of the partnership and cooperation arrangements (30 %) Including how young people are involved in all stages of the project implementation and how the East-West and North-South lines are taken into account.

—	Impact, dissemination and sustainability (20 %)

Only proposals having reached:

—	at least the threshold of 60 % of the total score (i.e. aggregate score of the 4 award criteria), and

—	at least the threshold of 50 % of each criterion

will be considered for EU funding.

6.   BUDGET

The total budget available for the co-financing of projects under the present call is EUR 5 000 000.

The financial contribution from the EU is minimum EUR 100 000 and cannot exceed EUR 500 000. It is limited to a maximum co-financing rate of 80 % of the total eligible project costs.

The Agency reserves the right not to distribute all the funds available.

7.   SUBMISSION PROCEDURE AND DEADLINE

The application package must be submitted online using the correct e-form, duly completed and containing all relevant and applicable annexes and supporting documents.

The eForm is available in English, French and German at the following internet address:

http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus/funding_en

and must be duly completed in one of the official languages of the EU.

The e-Form duly completed must be submitted online by 18 July 2019 — 12.00 (midday, Brussels time) and include the relevant annexes (10):

Additional compulsory administrative annexes must be sent by email to the Agency by the same deadline.

Applicants are requested to read carefully all information about the call for proposals EACEA/12/2019 and the submission procedure and to use the documents forming part of the application package which can be found under:

https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus/funding_en

8.   ALL CALL INFORMATION

All information on the Call EACEA/12/2019 including the application guidelines is available from the following website:

https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus-plus/funding_en

Email contact:

EACEA-YOUTH@ec.europa.eu

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(1)  See C(2018)774 of 15/2/2018 (WPI 3.18): https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/sites/erasmusplus2/files/c-2018-774-en.pdf

(2)  See ‘European Youth’ Eurobarometer 455 (September 2017), published January 2018: http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/survey/getsurveydetail/instruments/flash/surveyky/2163

(3)  http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-3165_en.htm

(4)  Council Resolution 2018/C 4556/014, published in December 2018: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:42018Y1218(01)&from=EN

(5)  See https://europa.eu/youth/have-your-say/new-narrative-for-europe_en

(6)  https://ec.europa.eu/youth/policy/youth-strategy_en

(7)  Flash Eurobarometer 478, http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/survey/getsurveydetail/instruments/special/surveyky/2224

(8)  http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/sites/erasmusplus2/files/files/resources/erasmus-plus-programme-guide_en.pdf

(9)  The budgetary adaptations determined by Serbia’s becoming a Programme Country of the Erasmus+ programme shall apply from 1 January 2019 subject to the adoption of the Commission Decision approving the (amendment to the) Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Serbia on the participation of the Republic of Serbia in ‘Erasmus+’: the Union programme for education, training, youth and sport as of 1 January 2019.

(10)  Any other administrative document required in the Applicant Guidelines must be sent by email to the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency by latest 18 July 2019 (midday, Brussels time) at the following email address: EACEA-YOUTH@ec.europa.eu