Research Newsletter - Issue 75: Spotlight

It is mid-year in the Erasmus+ calendar, a good moment to review our recent activities and successes and to look at the opportunities that lie ahead. 

Erasmus+ is the flagship EU funding programme for education and training, it offers a wide range of cooperation opportunities for institutions and organisations across civil society. DCU continues to be a leading Irish HEI in its participation in Erasmus+, collaborating with many European and some international partners in a wide range of funded activities and projects that support excellence, creativity, and innovation in all fields of education.  With several months to go before the 2023 Call for Proposals is published, we review our achievements, expertise, and resources.

2022 Applications

We currently await the results of 25 proposals, which were submitted earlier in the year under Key Actions 1 (Individual Mobilities), 2 (Cooperation among Organisations), and Jean Monnet. Some final applications will be submitted in September under the last of the 2022 Calls.

Among these are applications for activities that are new to the Erasmus+ Programme, such as the Blended Intensive Programmes (BIPs), which encourage groups of European HEIs to jointly develop and deliver short, innovative programmes through flexible mobility formats that combine physical mobility with virtual cooperation. Other applications include Cooperation Partnerships, Jean Monnet networks, and Virtual Exchanges.

Awards

The overall success rate of applications by PIs at DCU in 2021 was over 70%. As one example of several notable successes from this outstanding result, a Cooperation Partnership in the field of Sport in which Dr Sean Healy (School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health) is partner, received an evaluation result of 96/100. To add to these clear indications of strength, the prestigious Good Quality label was awarded to the Frontiers Project; an E+ Strategic Partnership (2018-2021) coordinated by Dr. Margaret Farren and Dr. Yvonne Crotty, Institute of Education.

We currently have approximately 50 live Erasmus+ projects running across the University, covering an exceptionally wide range of subject areas.

Education and Innovation Summit  - 23rd June 2022

“Higher education institutions have a unique position at the crossroads of education, research, innovation. They serve society and the economy, and play a critical role in achieving the European Education Area and the European Research Area, in synergy with the European Higher Education Area”:  https://education.ec.europa.eu/event/education-and-innovation-summit .

 A forthcoming Education and Innovation Summit by the European Commission will provide insights into the state of the art of current developments. This is a hybrid event, free to attend online - registration at link above. This will be useful background preparation for anyone considering preparing an Erasmus+ application next year.

Commissioner Gabriel will be one of the speakers, as will representatives of selected Erasmus+ European Universities and Cooperation Partnerships; an indication of the impact that Erasmus+ projects both large and small in scope can have in influencing policy and shaping future funding streams at EU level.

Other resources for Erasmus+

With input from colleagues from RIS, OVPAA, and all Faculties, the University's Erasmus+ Development Officer (Dr Sophie Ball) delivered four hour-long webinars over the academic year, which provided a route in for those approaching the Erasmus+ programme for the first time. The recordings and presentations for all these can be accessed here and a similar programme of events is planned for next year.

We have founded a community of practice – so far involving the PIs from our 2021 awards – which we hope will grow and develop into a forum for support, expertise sharing, and dissemination. At our first meeting, PIs of our 2021 awards came together with the primary objective of sharing experiences and providing support at the launch of the new projects, particularly for those who were involved in an Erasmus+ project for the first time. We aim to develop this into a forum for ongoing support, sharing of expertise, and dissemination of project results, open to all active Erasmus+ PIs.

There are also many opportunities to enhance cooperation through ECIU (European Consortium of Innovative Universities), an alliance of 13 partner HEIs within the EU, supported by various funding streams including Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe. There are various activities and funding streams for researchers, as well as Expert Groups set up specifically to support and encourage collaboration between ECIU members in which our Erasmus+ Development Officer is the DCU representative.

Further info/contact

If you would like further information on any of the above – and if you wish to join the Erasmus+ Community of Practice – please contact Dr Sophie Ball, Erasmus+ Development Officer, Sophie.ball@dcu.ie