Erasmus+ Key Action 2 is the cooperation strand of the programme — the funding stream that supports transnational partnerships between organisations to develop innovative practices, produce transferable outputs and drive systemic change in education, training and youth work. Where KA1 sends individuals abroad to learn, KA2 brings organisations together to create something that did not
Erasmus+ Key Action 1 is the mobility strand of the programme — the funding stream that sends learners, educators, youth workers and staff across Europe for training, job shadowing, study periods and professional development activities. It is the most widely used Key Action in the programme and, for many organisations, the natural entry point into
Most Erasmus+ applications are not rejected because of poor writing or weak budgets. They are rejected because the project idea itself is not strong enough — it is too vague, too generic, not clearly grounded in a real need, or not differentiated from the thousands of similar proposals submitted in the same call. A winning
The Erasmus+ partnership agreement is the internal legal document that governs how a consortium operates during project implementation. It is not submitted to the National Agency — but it is binding between the coordinator and each partner, and it is the document you will rely on if anything goes wrong: a partner misses a deadline,
Most Erasmus+ partner search advice stops at a list of platforms. Post a call on EPALE, try the School Education Gateway, check the SALTO database. This is fine as a starting point — but it is not a strategy. It is a passive approach that puts you in a queue with hundreds of other coordinators
The consortium is the foundation of any Erasmus+ project. Get the composition right and you have a credible, deliverable project. Get it wrong — wrong number of partners, wrong country mix, wrong organisational types, or roles that do not match the work plan — and you risk both rejection at the eligibility stage and a
Finding the right Erasmus+ partners is one of the most decisive factors in whether a project gets funded — and one of the most underestimated. Many applicants treat partner search as an afterthought: they write the project idea first and then look for organisations willing to sign a partnership agreement. This is the wrong order,
“Intellectual outputs” — often shortened to IOs — is the term the Erasmus+ sector commonly uses for the most visible and most scrutinised deliverables in a KA220 Cooperation Partnership: the training curriculum, the toolkit, the digital platform, the open educational resource. It’s worth knowing that the current Programme Guide doesn’t actually use this exact term
Budget planning is where many otherwise strong Erasmus+ proposals fall apart. Applicants either under-budget key activities — making the project look underfunded and unrealistic — or over-request on vague line items that evaluators cannot justify. Both outcomes damage your score on financial capacity and project design. This guide walks you through how Erasmus+ budgets actually
A work plan template is only useful if you know how to fill it in correctly. Most Erasmus+ applicants find generic templates online, copy the structure, and then write activities that are too vague, assign everything to the coordinator, or produce a timeline that back-loads all the deliverables into the final two months. This guide
The sustainability section is where the majority of Erasmus+ proposals lose points they should not lose — not because the project lacks genuine long-term value, but because applicants do not know how to write it in the language evaluators are trained to recognise. “The partnership will continue to collaborate after the project” is not a
The dissemination plan is one of the most consistently underwritten sections in Erasmus+ proposals. Most applicants treat it as an afterthought — a short paragraph mentioning a project website, a few social media posts, and a final conference. Evaluators see this in almost every application they read, and it scores accordingly. A strong dissemination plan
The work plan is the operational heart of your Erasmus+ proposal. It is where evaluators check whether your project is genuinely feasible — whether the activities are realistic, the timeline is logical, and each partner has a clear, meaningful role. A strong work plan does not just describe what you will do; it shows that
Weak objectives are one of the most reliable predictors of a low-scoring Erasmus+ proposal. Evaluators read hundreds of applications — and vague statements like “improve skills,” “raise awareness,” or “foster collaboration” appear in almost all of them. They tell an assessor nothing specific, and they score accordingly. Strong objectives do three things at once: they
The impact section is where many Erasmus+ proposals lose points they should not lose. The content is often there — the project idea is solid, the activities are planned — but it is not written in the language evaluators are trained to recognise. Impact carries real weight in the evaluation: up to 25 points for
The logical framework — often called the logframe — is one of the most useful tools in EU project design, and one of the most misunderstood by Erasmus+ applicants. It isn’t a section of the KA210 or KA220 application form itself, and Erasmus+ doesn’t require you to submit one. But the logic it forces you
Writing an Erasmus+ proposal for the first time can feel overwhelming. The application form is long, the evaluation criteria are specific, and the competition is tougher than ever. But the good news is that there is a clear, repeatable process behind every successful proposal — and once you understand it, the form becomes far more
The European Commission has published the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026, introducing targeted updates while maintaining overall continuity with the 2025 framework. This post summarises the key changes and differences between the two guides — covering priorities, actions, and structural adjustments — to help organisations, educators, and project developers quickly understand what’s new and how it
Many Erasmus+ applicants assume that evaluators read project proposals from beginning to end, carefully analysing every sentence in equal detail. In reality, evaluation is a structured, time-limited process where clarity, logic, and relevance determine whether your proposal stands out or disappears among dozens of others. Understanding how evaluators actually read Erasmus+ proposals can dramatically improve
A strong Erasmus+ project is never built by one organisation alone. At the heart of every successful application lies a well-structured, meaningful partnership that adds real European value and demonstrates the ability to cooperate across borders. Despite this, many Erasmus+ applications receive low scores not because the idea is weak, but because the partnership is
Applying for an Erasmus+ project is an opportunity to create international cooperation, strengthen organisations, and generate real educational and social impact. However, it is also a competitive funding programme, where many strong ideas fail due to avoidable mistakes in planning, structure, and presentation. In our work with organisations across Europe, we consistently see the same
