Tagged / Leonardo

Erasmus, Lifelong Learning Programme, Leonardo… – will they exist in Horizon 2020?

EU

The short answer is ‘Yes’! BU holds a number of these awards and I am delighted they will be staying in Horizon 2020 with a huge budget of €19bn. To make things simpler, the EC has streamlined several programmes into one ‘Erasmus for All’ which contains three action strands.

1. Learning mobility of individuals: This is focused on Staff mobility (in particular teachers and trainers); mobility for higher education students; a Master degree scheme and volunteering and youth exchanges.  This is where Erasmus Mundus and Erasmus Staff Mobility as you know it will sit.

2. Cooperation for innovation and best practices: This focuses on strategic partnerships between youth organisations and other relevant actors; Large-scale partnerships between education and  training establishments  and business; IT-Platforms; and cooperation with third countries. Also included in here are the existing Sector Skills Alliances and Knowledge Alliances (the latter is a structured partnership between a  university and enterprise to promote an active 2 way knowledge exchange  with a focus in partnership, innovation and long term impact; an example is here).

3. Support for policy reform: This includes an open method of Coordination; valorisation and implementation of EU tools; and policy dialogue with stakeholders, third countries and international organisations.

More details on Erasmus for All will be posted as I get them and you may wish to read this leaflet produced by the EC in the meantime.

Start your EU career with a Leonardo grant!

EU

Funding is available under the Lifelong Learning Programme for Leonardo da Vinci transfer of innovation multilateral projects. The aim of this funding is to improve the quality and attractiveness of vocational education and training in participating countries by transferring existing innovations to new legal, systemic, sector, linguistic, socio-cultural and geographic environments through working with transnational partners. Funding is worth a maximum of €150,000 per year for one to two years, and the closing date is 31.01.13.

Don’t forget from my blogpost last week, that there is an info day in November which will cover the Lifelong Learning Programme and that we also have a successful Leonardo award holder here at BU, who is a great fan of the scheme; read Christos Gatzidis’ first Leonardoblogpost  and second Leonardo blogpost for inspiration!

Success for a second time under the Leonardo Programme: GameWise

EU

   Following the completion of the EU funded GameiT Leonardo Transfer of Innovation project (which attracted funding of 250,000 Euros in total) which focused on identifying, collecting, testing and distributing good practice in game-based learning thus producing a framework of game-based learning pedagogy targeted at teachers and trainers, running between 2009 and 2011, I was involved in another Leonardo bid this winter led by the same PI from Denmark (CV2).

The new project proposed was titled GameWise and concentrates on the European Commission’s recent acknowledgment of the  need to pay more attention to new ways of unlocking Europe’s potentials of cultural and creative industries (CCIs). For Europe and other parts of the world, the rapid rollout of new technologies and increased globalisation has meant a striking shift away from traditional manufacturing towards services and innovation. Factory floors are progressively being replaced by creative communities, whose raw material is their ability to imagine, create and innovate. In this new digital economy, immaterial value increasingly determines material value, as consumers are looking for new and enriching “experiences”. The ability to create social experiences and networking is now a factor of competitiveness.

The production of video games is central in this relation. These last years, the game industry has been on a fast track to become the world’s leading entertainment business. The majority of the production is, however, placed primarily in North America – and the focus is on games designed only for entertainment purposes. But a new way of doing business is on the rise: games made for other purposes than mere entertainment – e.g. learning, training, recruiting etc. The general term for this category of games is ‘serious games’, although also often referred to as applied gaming or gamification.

This project is then set to attempt to transfer the related to the above results that have been made under individual partners involved to the rest of the partnership and thus, via the exchange of practices amongst the consortium, explore the creation of new jobs in Europe by the transfer and adaptation of a model for closer cooperation between VET (Vocational Education and Training) institutions and the surrounding world of work.

The GameWise project I am happy to inform has now been successful in attracting funding and is set to run from the 1st of September 2012 to the 1st of September 2014. The total funds attracted are 250,000 Euros with 37,900 of that allocated to BU. Partners include institutions from a range of countries such as Spain, the Netherlands and Norway.

I will post updates on GameWise occasionally once the project officially begins; meanwhile, I would definitely recommend colleagues look into the Leonardo calls for next year (the next one is I believe for January 31st 2013), these are part of the Lifelong Learning Programme and squarely focused on vocational education (as you can probably surmise from the GameWise project description above). As vocational teaching has traditionally been a BU strength, schemes such as the Leonardo one are an obvious EU funding avenue which could lead to successful results.

Find out more about the Lifelong Learning Programme

EU

The Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) is a great way to launch your EU career. It is run by the EC and provides opportunities for organisations, staff and learners involved in education and training across Europe to work together, learn from each other’s’ expertise, and widen their experience of other cultures and languages. The LLP is made up of several programmes, each aimed at a specific target group. The most relevant for BU staff are:

  • Erasmus (focused on Higher Educaution)
  • Leonardo (focused on Vocational Education and Training)
  • Grundtvig (focused on non-Vocational Adult Education)
  • Transversal (focused on Learning Professionals)

There is a useful free infoday being held in Brussels on November 12th which will provide info on the 2013 call for proposals and give practical advice on proposal preparation and submission. There will also be presentations from successful award holders and the infodays are always a key opportunity for networking with other interested academics from around the world so is a very valuable experience.

However, you may not be able to take time out of your schedule to attend so very helpfully the EC are also broadcasting this live online. You will also have an online ‘chat’ facility to search and get in touch with other people looking for partners to participate. If you aren’t free on the 12th of November, you will also be able to access the videos online afterwards.

Registration for both attending and receiving the webstream will be available in September; you can keep an eye on the EACEA webpage for this opening.  You can also whet your appetite for this funding programme by reading our successful Leonardo grant holder Dr Christos Gatzidis’ experience of participating in his excellent blogpost.

The deadlines for the programme this year are 03/12/2012, 16/01/2013, 31/01/2013, 01/02/2013, 15/02/2013, 21/02/2013, 28/02/2013, 08/03/2013, 28/03/2013, 30/04/2013, 17/09/2013