Mapping direct funding opportunities to advance the digital transition in schools and public administrations in Europe.

In line with one of the European Commission’s main priorities for the decade, namely “A Europe fit for the Digital Age“, the NextGenerationEU and the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2017), the AER promotes its regions’ digitalisation and exchange of knowledge to allow for more inclusive and accessible digital education and transformation.

The lockdown has exacerbated the need for inclusive and accessible services, connections and learning opportunities, thus highlighting inequalities in different countries and in regard to vulnerable groups.

Digital technology, when deployed skilfully, equitably and effectively by educators, can fully support the agenda of high-quality and inclusive education and training for all learners. It can facilitate more personalised, flexible and student-centred learning, at all phases and stages of education and training. 

Today, with endless amounts of knowledge at our fingertips, our most important skill is to find the right information and separate good from the bad. Changing our curricula to better teach those skills is crucial to our future generations.

At the same time, the use of digital technologies is also crucial for the achievement of the European Green Deal objectives and for reaching climate neutrality by 2050.

Regional administrations have a great role to play, in designing multi-stakeholders regional strategies based on field-specific analyses and discussions, as well as on international best practices and European benchmarks, in support of all schools, teachers and students.

That is why our member regional administrations can find below a selection of future, ongoing and past calls which are likely to be opened again during 2023, that can be of interest to them and core educational stakeholders in the region. We invite you to contact our European Projects Coordinator, Ms Agnese Pantoloni, for any queries or specific interests you might have.

We are also happy to promote the newly launched European Digital Education Hub by the European Commission. The online community is an open, inclusive, supportive, and practice-oriented space for digital education stakeholders. Each community member’s experience and expertise are valued. Collaboration, mutual learning and exchange are at the centre of all activities.

Learning from the extremes ⭐ (OPEN CALL FOR PARTICIPATION THROUGH FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO THIRD PARTIES )

Deadline: 30 September 2022

Objective: This call aims to fund the deployment of pilots to allow primary, secondary and vocational schools to benefit from the most suitable technical solutions to reduce the digital gap suffered by pupils from areas and communities with low connectivity, limited or no access to devices and digital educational tools and content. The ‘Highly Equipped and Connected Classroom’ Model The four dimensions of the ‘Highly Equipped and Connected Classroom’ (HECC) conceptual model Digital technology equipment (technologies that are used in educational settings for learning and teaching purposes including both physical technologies (i.e. hardware) and educational software and services), Network requirements (bandwidth and latency of the network providing the foundation for successful education technology implementations), Professional development of teachers teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) which focuses on teachers’ capacity building for the effective use of digital technologies in teaching, learning and assessment practices, through rapid learning cycles, fast feedback, continual reflection, collaborative coaching and other methodologies. Access to digital content (reflecting the curricular requirements necessary to ensure digital content’s greater incorporation into the classroom and use by teachers and students.

Social innovations for a fair green and digital transition (ESF-2022-SOC-INNOV, European Social Fund)  ⭐

[CLOSED] Deadline: 2 August 2022 (likely to re-open next year)

Objective:  The call aims to develop and test integrated and inclusive social innovation approaches – in schools or training centres, at work or in local communities, or other relevant environments – to foster just green and digital transitions, by: – identifying and addressing (re-/up-)skilling and (re-)training needs stemming from new, green or —digital products, services or technologies; – fostering social acceptance and/or behavioural changes for more sustainable business models, consumption patterns and/or modes of transport; – developing sustainability pathways and transformation tools for social economy actors; – tailoring solutions to the particular contexts starting from general models, such as the City Doughnut or macro level climate adaptation solutions, to other, business or local environments; – promoting the implementation of the EPSR principle 20. Essential services, including energy, mobility and digital communications, in the context of the green and digital transitions. The main objective is to enable and step up a fair green and digital transition by promoting and disseminating inclusive social innovation approaches in the areas above.

Partnerships for Innovation: Alliances (Erasmus+ programme) Deadline: 15 September 2022 17:00:00 Brussels time

Objective:  These partnerships shall implement a coherent and comprehensive set of sectoral or cross-sectoral activities, which should be adaptable to future knowledge developments across the EU. To boost innovation, the focus will be on digital skills as they are increasingly important in all job profiles across the entire labour market. Also, the transition to a circular and greener economy needs to be underpinned by changes to qualifications and national education and training curricula to meet emerging professional needs for green skills and sustainable development. Alliances for Education and Enterprises are transnational, structured and result-driven projects, in which partners share common goals and work together to foster innovation, new skills, a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial mindsets. They aim to foster innovation in higher education, vocational education and training, enterprises and the broader socioeconomic environment. This includes confronting societal and economic challenges such as climate change, changing demographics, digitalisation, artificial intelligence and rapid employment changes through social innovation and community resilience, as well as labour market innovation.

Partnership for Excellence – Erasmus+ Teacher Academies

[CLOSED] Deadline: 07 September 2021 (likely to re-open next year)

Objective:  The overall objective of this action is to create European partnerships of teacher education and training providers to set up Erasmus+ Teacher Academies that will develop a European and international outlook in teacher education. These Academies will embrace multilingualism and cultural diversity, develop teacher education in line with the EU’s priorities in education policy and contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the European Education Area.

Specialised education programmes in key capacity areas (Digital Europe programme)

[CLOSED] Deadline: 22 February 2022 (likely to re-open next year)

Objective:  The action aims at increasing and improving the offer of education programmes and the number of students specialised in key capacity areas. The actions also aim at supporting more inter-disciplinary courses that can equip professionals with relevant advanced digital skills and increase diversity among students and future digital experts (for example data analytics skills for professionals in different sectors).  The action will support cooperation between higher education institutions and the private sector, together with research and excellence centres in digital technologies, including those funded in the other actions of the programme. The goal is to encourage organisations to work together and develop ecosystems of excellence able to train, attract and retain the best digital talents, including by contributing to closing the gender gap in these fields.

Advanced digital skills analysis (Digital Europe programme)

[CLOSED] Deadline: 22 February 2022 (likely to re-open within next two years)

Objective:  The objective of this action is to support the rollout of initiatives for advanced digital skills development, by gathering inputs on the existing education offers in digital areas and the related needs of the labour market. The chosen project shall deliver an analysis of the labour market needs and recommend priority areas for investment and give an indication on the most appropriate delivery modes for training.

INTERREG EUROPE – Policy Objective: Smarter Europe

[CLOSED] Deadline: May 2022 (the next one will open in the first semester of 2023) – Terms of reference

Objectives: (i) Research and Innovation capacities, uptake of advanced technologies; (ii) Digitisation for citizens, companies, research organisations and public authorities; (iii) Sustainable growth and competitiveness of SMEs and job creation in SMEs, including by productive investments; (iv) Skills for smart specialisation, industrial transition & entrepreneurship; (v) Digital connectivity.

Inclusiveness in times of change (HORIZON-CL2-2021-TRANSFORMATIONS-01) ⭐

[CLOSED] Deadline: 07 October 2021 (likely to re-open next year)

Objective:  Proposals should support the purposeful and pedagogical use of emerging technologies, including applications of artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and robotics in education and training, in order to foster 21st-century skills such as communication, collaboration, digital literacy, critical as well as design thinking and creativity.  This in turn should allow for more personalized and flexible ways of learning, including online and blended delivery.