Erasmus+ is a key EU programme, which covers several directions simultaneously: education, vocational training, youth and sports. Its unique feature is funding both individuals and organisations. This means the public, private and third sector — any organisations that are involved in one way or another in education, youth and sports. That is why, as stated by Kateryna Zhdanova, they offer project grants, scholarships, exchange grants, youth exchanges, various partnerships and cooperation, training and teaching, research opportunities, professional networks, open resources, platforms, etc.
The cross-cutting priorities of all Erasmus+ projects are inclusivity, openness and accessibility for all: different groups of people, countries/regions, as well as green and digital transformations. Speaking about inclusivity and accessibility, the speaker underlined that these two priorities are understood somewhat more broadly in the European context than we are used to in Ukraine.
“When we in Ukraine talk about inclusivity in terms of legislation, we mean physical or mental disabilities. For the European spaces, however, it means an extensive scope of people, including those who do not have access to quality education and a safe life. So, in the current meaning of the word, we are the inclusive participants, representatives of an inclusive target audience,” said Kateryna Zhdanova.
Who can participate in the Programme?
The first key point for those who want to try to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Erasmus+. Since the Programme requires joint applications from partner organisations from different countries, you need to understand the role of the participants from these different countries. In general, the Programme is open for representatives of 27 EU member states and 6 countries associated with the Programme (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey), as well as third countries not associated with the Programme — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
To be more specific, according to the project manager of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine, the participant pool should be understood as follows.
“Organisations submit projects to competitions, thus creating opportunities, that is, winning grants, and then providing them to individual participants. In other words, individuals participate in competitions based on the opportunities created,” said Kateryna Zhdanova.
Organisations eligible for the Programme: educational and research institutions; academic, professional, student and youth associations; employers’ associations, etc.; youth organisations, informal youth associations; state and local self-government bodies, state-owned and private entities, etc.
Individuals eligible for the Programme: VET students (students of vocational education institutions), undergraduates, students with bachelor’s or master’s degrees; postgraduate students, graduates, employees of educational institutions, researchers, youth, youth leaders and workers, volunteers, etc.
For this, municipalities fall under local self-government bodies and can have various roles, such as partners/applicants in projects (reimbursing work/travel) depending on the project direction and type. Accordingly, these can include human potential development, education innovations, speakers/trainers/facilitators, accepting foreign students for internships, external experts, suppliers of equipment for training and teaching.
Furthermore, state/private enterprises can participate in the Programme as partners/applicants (reimbursing work/travel).
Signing up: centralised and decentralised competitions
To participate in the Programme, you need to sign up in the Programme’s portal. Before signing up, you should check whether your organisation has already done so. If not, sign it up and receive a PIC (personal identification code — for centralised competitions) on one portal and an OID (organisational number — for decentralised competitions) on another.
“Without these codes, you will be unable to access the competitions. After all, no one writes an application manually; all data from the portal will be uploaded using these codes. In addition, before submitting your project, you must understand which competition you are applying for, a decentralised or centralised one. This determines which portal you need to use,” said Kateryna Zhdanova.
Erasmus+ competitions for Ukraine in 2025
2025 competitions have already been announced. Opportunities for participation under the priorities KA1 (Learning Mobility) and KA2 (Cooperation among Organisations and Institutions) are currently open for Ukraine. Despite being seemingly similar, there is actually a big difference between the priorities.
“The key difference is that mobility projects are projects of the same type. As you implement the project, you repeat the same tasks: announce a competition, select participants, take them to a training session/workshop/seminar at a European partner, take them back and report. Cooperation among organisations, however, implies multi-component projects that have you constantly performing various activities to solve a problem or achieve a key goal. That is, you can have completely different steps. For instance, a trip to a European partner, studying its experience, analysing it and creating training materials, designing a programme for youth workers. The combination of these steps leads you to solving the problem,” said Kateryna Zhdanova.
She also pointed out that before writing a project application, you should study the cases of other organisations to avoid duplication (and potential denial of funding) or project synergy (your project idea could have already been implemented by a participant from another country, so you can find their contact information and invite them to join your project).
To date, 30 competitions are already open for organisations from Ukraine, including:
• 30 competitions where Ukraine can act as a partner;
• 9 competitions where Ukraine can act as both an applicant and partner;
• 11 competitions from the KA220 and ENGO Cooperation Partnerships with an emphasis on supporting Ukraine;
• 9 youth and sports competitions.
According to the speaker, for the 2025 grant competitions focused on cooperation, the advantages for projects will include the exchange and study of EU best practices, their implementation and adaptation for Ukraine, building ties and trust, strengthening capacity and introducing innovations. In addition, projects with an emphasis on supporting Ukraine through the war are still relevant. Another additional advantage of the application may be collaborations and synergy with other projects and programmes, cooperation at the institutional level, active joint efforts with stakeholders and beneficiaries with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, municipalities, students, business community, professional networks, etc.
First steps towards Erasmus+
Kateryna Zhdanova, Project Manager of the Erasmus+ National Office in Ukraine, has a step-by-step guide for beginners who want to try their hand at it for the first time.
1. Carefully read the first steps for signing up an organisation, which you need to complete in order to sign up your organisation and receive a PIC and OID for it.
2. Be sure to check whether the organisation has been signed up before. If so, simply create your own account (login and password to the portal) and find out the organisation’s profile, PIC and OID from the responsible persons.
3. Check the list of member countries and partner countries of the Programme, since the country of registration of your organisation as a legal entity affects the list of the opportunities open to you. Ukraine is a Partner Country of the Programme (Third Country Not Associated to the Programme) that is part of Region 2 of the Eastern Partnership.
4. Build contact and regularly consult with the manager of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine, who is in charge of your desired area.
5. Be sure to study existing cases for duplication or synergy (the Database of projects with the participation of Ukraine and the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform is available for projects since 2014).
6. Identify the key idea of your project.
7. Find the competition that is the best match for your idea, priorities, goal, objectives, types of activities, etc.
8. Thoroughly study the terms of the relevant competition in the Programme Guide (PG).
9. Read and understand the information on the evaluation of the application in the PG.
10. Study any applicable EU and Ukrainian strategies for further use when writing the application.
11. Compile a vocabulary of terms, definitions, strategies, priorities and useful wording from the PG to constantly refer to in your application.
12. Prepare a short description of the organisation for the quick and high-quality partner identification (Partner Identification Form — PIF).
13. Write a brief description of your project idea (title of the competition, project name, priorities, potential participants, goal, objectives, tasks, expected results, indicators, equipment, etc.).
14. Work with the partnership to fill out the entire application (online form, description, budget).
15. Follow the deadline and send a fully completed application form for participation in the competition in advance.
Summing up, Kateryna Zhdanova emphasised that potential applicants or those who wish to participate in the programme have two strategies available to them.
“Active strategy where you initiate a project, willing to write and implement it. Alternatively, the so-called passive strategy, when you are not ready to write an application or look for partners but wish to promote yourself,” said Kateryna Zhdanova.
For any questions, from signing up to first steps and assistance in finding partners, Kateryna Zhdanova suggested contacting the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine via the portal / Facebook page and the Info Centre for Erasmus+ Youth and European Solidarity Corps in Ukraine via Facebook.
