Call for proposals
“THE EEA AND NORWAY GRANTS FUND FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT”
Objective and description
A new call for proposals has been published by The EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 under the “GRANTS FUND FOR YOUTH EMPLOYMENT”.
The EEA and Norway Grants 2014-2021 are set up to contribute to the reduction of social and economic disparities in Europe.
Recognising the strong link between social and economic equality and
participation in the labour market, measures addressing youth employment
are encouraged throughout the various programmes of the EEA and Norway
Grants.
In addition, the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment specifically aims to support transnational project initiatives that promote sustainable and quality youth employment. The
focus on transnational cooperation reflects the view that unemployment
among youth is a common European challenge and common European solutions
should therefore be explored.
This call for transnational projects addressing youth unemployment has three principal support areas:
· Innovation and exploration.
Under
this area the Fund seeks projects that focus on new, experimental
solutions to combat unemployment among the target groups and increase
the number of sustainable jobs for young people.
· Transfer of know-how and good practice.
Under
this support area the Fund seeks projects that focus on transferring
know-how and good practice on youth employment initiatives across
European countries, with the ultimate goal of creating more quality jobs
and lower unemployment rates among youths within the target groups
listed
· Analysis and research.
Under
this support area the Fund will support transnational research networks
that share learning (ideas, theories, practices and experiences) on how
to evaluate and perform impact studies of initiatives aiming to address
youth employment in the eligible countries.
The
target group of the Fund is young people between 15 and 29, with a
special focus on the 25-29 year olds. Projects that are are of
particular interest to the Fund develop solutions for:
· the long-term unemployed;
· discouraged people who have stopped looking for work,
· inactive women caring for children or incapacitated adults,
· ethnic minorities including Roma,
· asylum-seekers,
· the low-skilled,
· people with mental health issues and
· the disabled
This
call seeks to complement existing EU funding on youth employment
initiatives. Projects within areas that commonly do not receive EU
funding are therefore particularly welcome.
The
Fund aims to advance new and innovative solutions that focus on the
specific needs of the target groups listed above. Activities and outputs
within projects may happen on several levels, both systemic (e.g.
developing formal educational modules; develop systematic cooperation
with non-traditional stakeholders) and personal (e.g. attending to the
individual needs of the members of the target group)
Eligible activities
Suggested measures include but are not limited to:
· Efficient practices that develop sustainable jobs;
· Innovative
solutions on how to prepare and train young people for structural
labour market changes like digitalisation and smart automation;
· Widening
involvement of stakeholders, including the social services, child/youth
services, medical and psychiatric professionals, parents, etc.;
· Involvement of non-traditional employers and sectors, for instance NGOs, civil society organisations and SMEs;
· Outreach strategies;
· The development or involvement of social entrepreneurship/enterprises;
· Innovative start-up support to young entrepreneurs;
· Community-based approaches;
· Family
learning (learning activities that involve all family members, where
learning outcomes are intended for all, contributing to a culture of
learning in the family);
· New mentoring and coaching approaches;
· Development of new flexible solutions, e.g. in entry qualification requirements to educational
· institutions or in work contracts for apprentices;
· Experimental pedagogy and didactics;
· Innovative focus on employability and soft skills development;
· Mixing informal, non-formal and formal learning arenas;
· Innovative apprenticeship modules and work-based learning;
· Innovative mobility measures and job placements; and
· Experimental gender mainstreaming strategies.
Eligible applicants
Projects shall involve entities from at least two countries, including at least one Beneficiary State.
Beneficiary States are:
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Malta and
Portugal.
Each project must include one lead partner and at least one beneficiary partner.
· Eligible lead partner: any eligible entity established in a Beneficiary State;
· Eligible beneficiary partner: any eligible entity established in a Beneficiary State, Ireland, Italy or Spain;
· Expertise
partners can be any eligible entity established in a Donor State, in a
non-eligible EU Member State or international organisations.
·
Eligible
project partners may be entities, public or private, commercial or
non-commercial and nongovernmental organisations, established as legal
persons, including but not limited to:
· Municipalities, organisations owned or partly owned by municipalities, associations of municipalities;
· Regions, organisations owned or partly owned by regions; associations of regions;
· Organisational
units of central government, organisations partly funded by central
government units, state enterprises, state organisations;
· Public and private education and research institutions;
· Civil society organisations, non-profit organisations, social entreprises, interest associations of legal persons, foundations and endowment funds;
· Commercial companies;
· Cooperatives (manufacturing, housing, consumer);
· Business support organisations (incubators, start-up centres, etc.); and
· Social partners (trade unions, sector associations, employer associations, chambers of commerce and industry).
Budget
The available budget under this call is EUR 60.61 million.
The amount of grant assistance applied for within a project shall not be less than EUR 1 million.
The project consortium is required to provide project co-financing. The grant cannot constitute more than 85% of the total eligible costs of the project. The required co-financing may be provided by one or more partners, as decided among themselves.
Deadline for proposals’ submission
The deadline of this call is 1 August 2017 12:00 (noon CET).
There is no maximum project duration foreseen in the call for proposals.
Expenditures incurred by the project partners shall be eligible as of
the date on which the Financial Mechanism Committee decides to award the
project grant, while the final date for eligibility of expenditures for
projects is 30 April 2024 at the latest.
This call follows a two-step evaluation procedure.
In the first step, only concept notes shall be submitted for
evaluation. Successful applicants from the first step will be invited to
submit a full
project application. The concept note shall be submitted electronically via the fund operator’s system (EGREG).
Further information
Please find attached the call documents.
Questions may be sent electronically by e-mail to the following account: eeagrants@ecorys.com
More information: http://eeagrants.org/What-we-do/The-EEA-and-Norway-Grants-Fund-for-Youth-Employment
Kind regards,
Flora
Flora Stavropoulou
Intern
European Office of Cyprus
Rue du Luxembourg 3, 2nd floor
B-1000, Brussels
Tel/Fax: +32 (0) 2 280 22 85
E-mail: eoc.brussels2@ucy.ac.cy
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE GREEK TRANSLATION IS PROVIDED AT REQUEST OF ANY INTERESTED MEMBER (based on the decision of 22.12.2016 of the EOC Administrative Council).