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Record annual Erasmus+ budget after €262m boost

   

Boost includes extra support for Ukrainian academia

The annual budget for the EU’s academic mobility programme Erasmus+ has hit a record high in 2023, following a €262m boost.

The European Commission announced on 9 March that the 2023 Erasmus+ budget had been increased to €4.43bn following a review, up from the original €4.17bn budget adopted for the year in August 2022.

With the boost, the budget has reached “the highest annual financial envelope ever” for the programme, the Commission said.

The increase includes €100m brought forward from 2027 and is intended to reinforce priority activities on “inclusion, active citizenship and democratic participation, and on green and digital transitions in the EU and internationally”.

The €100m ‘frontload’ will be used to “support projects that promote educational activities and facilitate the integration of people fleeing the war in Ukraine into their new learning environments, as well as activities supporting organisations, learners and staff in Ukraine”, the Commission said.

Activities funded with this money for Ukraine could include scholarships and linguistic or cultural integration courses, it added.

Another €31m of the budget increase will be used to strengthen “the international dimension” of the programme, the Commission said, “to reinforce mobility projects and capacity building in higher education in support of international cooperation projects”.

It added that this will include “a structural reform project aimed at the creation of an open education digital environment, which would offer quality education and training to students enrolled in Ukrainian higher education institutions, for those fleeing from Ukraine or internally displaced students”.

The Commission said other activities supported under the programme “continue feeding into the EU’s commitment to upskilling and reskilling”.

An open general call for proposals has a plethora of deadlines for different parts of the programme.

The total Erasmus+ budget for 2021-27 is about €26.2bn.