With a €300 million bigger budget, Erasmus+, the European Union's programme for education, training, youth and sport for 2014-2020 will have €2.5 billion for 2017, the European Commission announced on Thursday 20 October.
The announcement came as part of the European Commission’s publication of its 2017 call for proposals for Erasmus+. A new guide has been made available at the same time, available digitally on the Erasmus+ website.
The 13% higher budget for 2017 will mainly be devoted (€1.9 bn) to projects for education and training, particularly Erasmus students. Youth projects will get €209.1 million and sports projects €31.8 million. The Jean Monnet programme will receive €10.8 million.
The Commission has made a few changes, introducing a concept of "European priorities in the national context" under KA2 Strategic Partnership; the funding rules for some decentralised actions have been "fine-tuned"; and the action "Sector Skills Alliances" has been withdrawn from the programme will be dealt with separately by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.
As in the call for proposals for 2016, the Commission promises to promote projects that support social inclusion, including that of refugees and migrants, and projects aiming to prevent radicalisation. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)