Cooperation partnerships Higher Education

The institutions involved work together to develop innovative concepts, methods and instruments, and to exchange information about proven methods and tap into synergies. This contributes to quality development of offerings and helps to strengthen international networks.

Cooperation partnerships contribute to one or more transversal or sector-specific political priorities of the European Erasmus+ programme (see Erasmus+ Programme Guide, page 167ff). For example, they are working on making mobility and cooperation activities more inclusive or developing innovative learning and teaching methods in the area of entrepreneurial skills.

Projects can last between 12 and a maximum of 36 months depending on the objectives of the project and the planned activities. This applies for all areas of education as well as extracurricular youth work.

Educational institutions, non-profit organisations/NGOs, clubs, public authorities or cultural institutions may take part in cooperation partnerships.

In general, cooperation partnerships aim to establish close cooperation between institutions in Erasmus+ programme countries. A cooperation partnership must include three organisations from three Erasmus+ programme countries.

Swiss institutions are excluded from project management. Institutions based in Switzerland have two possibilities to be involved in partnerships: either as a full partner, as long as their participations represent significant added value for the project, or as an associate partner. See “Submit an application” in the right-hand column.

Swiss institutions that are involved as full partners are financed as part of the Erasmus+ project. Swiss institutions that are involved in an Erasmus+ project as an associate partner can apply for funding from the Swiss Programme for Erasmus+. The funding is primarily issued in the form of lump-sum payments for defined budget items. For detailed information, refer to the Overview of grants.

In 2021, the following aspects of the cooperation partnerships are new:

• Harmonisation of the funding instrument across all sectors; e.g. project duration;
• New horizontal priorities (inclusion and diversity; environmental awareness and efforts to fight climate change; digital transformation; shared values, civic engagement and participation);
• Greater focus on transdisciplinary cooperation and the involvement of institutions that do not yet have any experience with the instrument;
• Additional funds to make the project more inclusive, promote environmentally friendly travel as standard and support virtual events;
• Now, the Erasmus+ national agencies offer projects funding between EUR 100,000 and EUR 400,000 EUR (unlike up to EUR 450,000 as previously) and without a monthly limit. Applications from European NGOs are now centrally managed. To this end, cooperation partnerships have been supplemented by the “smaller partnerships” format (6–24 months and EUR 30,000 or EUR 60,000). As a non-associated, non-member country, Switzerland is not able to participate in “small-scale partnerships”.

Les visites préparatoires permettent au personnel enseignant et au personnel ad-ministratif des institutions de l’enseignement tertiaire de préparer des projets de coopération. Cette possibilité peut être utilisée pour visiter de futures institutions partenaires avant la soumission du projet, établir des contacts pour des projets communs et/ou initier des projets avec des partenaires. Pour de plus amples infor-mations, veuillez cliquer ici.