4th Joint Call for inter-institutional activities within EELISA Communities: €130,000 total budget

General objective 

This call aims to promote inter-institutional activities within the framework of EELISA Communities. These activities may adopt a variety of formats and should be interdisciplinary, while focusing on transforming higher education by using innovative teaching methods to solve complex societal problems related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

EELISA Communities, activities and credentials 

EELISA Communities are mission-driven, multi-stakeholder (students, teachers, researchers, companies, NGOs, start-ups, and public authorities), interdisciplinary, and international working groups, with members from at least three different EELISA partners, from at least two different member states. To fulfil their mission, EELISA Communities carry out diverse types of activities. Participation of different learners in EELISA Community activities is recognised through EELISA Credentials, the academic evidence of the knowledge and skills acquired, and the impact achieved on society in line with SDGs. https://community.eelisa.eu/get-started/

For this call, EELISA Communities are called upon to organize one or more activities using innovative teaching methods such as Challenge Based Learning (CBL)[1]. This will help to boost transnational mobility (physical, virtual, blended or hybrid formats), as well as foster inter-disciplinarity, inter-culturalism and inter-institutional cooperation.  In October 2023, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU) signed a Partnership Agreement with EELISA and its members are warmly welcome to participate in EELISA Joint Calls as an associate partner. Participation of KNU as a co-organizer in proposals is encouraged, provided that the activity addresses societal challenges arising from the war in Ukraine. More details about KNU’s involvement as a partner, including possible topics and incentives for proposals, can be found in the appendix.

Evaluation criteria 

This 4th Joint Call targets bottom-up proposals for activities arising from collaborations forged within or between EELISA Communities and in line with the EELISA goals and the SDGs. Proposals will be evaluated by representatives of the work group responsible for the call based on the following three criteria. In the proposal template, Section 4 (Activity description) will have a maximum length of 5 pages. Exceeding that page limit will be penalized with a reduction in points.

Excellence and impact (up to 40 points):

Relevance and novelty of the activity or activities, within an academic (max 15 points) and social context (max 15 points). Activities should be interdisciplinary and tied with the mission of the Community or Communities involved and aim to have a significant impact on society related to the UN’s SDGs (max 10 points).

Learning ecosystem (up to 40 points):

Innovative teaching methods are used to carry out the activity or activities (max 15 points), with particular emphasis on CBL[2]. A suitable challenge is socially, economically, technically or environmentally relevant at a local, regional or global scale for which solutions are elusive, inadequate or non-existent. It should be an exciting challenge that motivates EELISA Community members and external stakeholders. Challenges can (but do not have to be) embedded in the context of seminars, lectures, summer/seasonal schools and graduate or undergraduate courses, and should also have clear evaluation criteria. The participation of educators (organizers), learners (participants), collaborators (in many cases, the challenge providers) should be balanced, with the aim of considering all EELISA partners and external stakeholders (max 10 points).

Applicants should provide guidelines regarding the acceptance criteria for participants, as this will be required for reporting purposes should the proposal be accepted. Once accepted and after participating in the activity, participants should be issued an EELISA credential (citing the SDG(s) involved and the impact levels corresponding to the progression of knowledge), which will also be required for reporting, including an assessment of the workload based on ECTS (max 15 points). For more information on EELISA credentials and their impact levels, see https://community.eelisa.eu/eelisa-credentials/

Implementation (up to 20 points):

Provide a clear execution plan for the activity or activities as well as a budget (10 points). Each activity should be clearly defined and follow the preparation and reporting scheme defined by EELISA, including a final report. Please mention whether your activity can be reiterated and refer to its sustainability in the mid- to long-term, both in terms of the partnerships and budget (10 points).

Dimensions of financial support 

The total budget for this 4th Joint Call is €130,000. The maximum funding per activity is €10,000. Proposals with a budget exceeding this limit will be rejected. Participant mobilities, if applicable, must be covered by the budget of the activity within the aforementioned budget limit. In case the activity has confirmed supplementary funding, this must be clearly indicated in the Implementation section of the proposal to verify that there is no double funding.

Funding for activities can be allocated into two overall areas:

  • Organisational costs, which include four concepts: travel and accommodation for organisers, travel and accommodation for invited speakers, personnel costs for organisers, and other costs (catering, reserving spaces, communication and dissemination).
  • Participation costs, which include travel and accommodation for people who will attend the event but do not participate in the organization (i.e., learners), typically students from partner universities. As the origin (EELISA partners) and the final number of participants is not always known in advance by the activity organizers, when submitting a proposal, the EELISA Community may provide an overall estimation, or participation limits, to help estimate the proposed budget, separating between in presence, hybrid and virtual participants.

[1] SUMMARY of CHALLENGE BASED LEARNING (from Nichols et al 2016) – Google Drawings

[2] Johnson, L. and Adams, S., (2011). Challenge Based Learning: The Report from the Implementation Project. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

 

Appendix: KNU Involvement Details

In October 2023, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU) signed a Partnership Agreement with EELISA and its members are warmly welcome to participate in EELISA Joint Calls.

Proposals in cooperation with KNU are invited to address the following societal challenges arising from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine:

  • Energy provision from renewables: Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is suffering significant energy disruptions and blackouts. To maintain the educational process, there is a very strong need for decentralized electrical energy supply and heating systems, which can be met by installing renewable systems (e.g. solar power systems with energy storage systems and heat pumps). It is a great challenge for KNU to achieve these for both electrical power supply and heating.
  • Ecological assessment strategies: Contamination derived from bombing, explosions, weapons and fires might have a long term impact on human health, important resources such as water or valuable biological actors such as crops in contaminated soils or protected ecosystems.
  • Impact of mining of landscapes and agricultural land: Design of comprehensive innovative demining solutions.
  • Radiation security: Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine marks the first-ever instance of an all-out military conflict in a country with sizeable nuclear infrastructure, including operational nuclear plants and ancillary facilities.
  • International law, international economic relations and digital diplomacy: Changes in diplomacy’s political, social, and economic environment, redistribution of power in international relations, new types of conflicts, digital interdependence and sovereignty; emerging diplomatic challenges (cybersecurity, privacy, data governance, e-commerce, cybercrime, AI governance), emerging digital tools in diplomacy (social media, online conferencing, big data and AI analysis).
  • Humanitarian policy, wellbeing and mental health: Addressing the psychological, emotional, and educational needs of internally displaced persons and students, fostering critical thinking, media literacy and volunteer work.
  • Further relevant challenges to ease the consequences of the war in Ukraine

As EELISA associated partner. KNU is not eligible to organize an EELISA Joint Call but can be a co-organizer. Given that Ukraine cannot yet fully participate in the actions of the Erasmus+ programme, unfortunately organizational costs incurred in Ukraine or participation costs of Ukrainian members are not eligible under this call, but proponents are encouraged to present proposals of educational activities involving colleagues or students affiliated with KNU through digital means or making use of alternative funding mechanisms to cover physical mobilities.

Proposals in collaboration with KNU members and addressing one or more of the above challenges will receive an additional rating of 10 points. 

To reach out to members of the KNU academic community working on the aforementioned challenges, interested applicants are welcome to contact Liudmyla Zagoruiko (liudmyla_zagoruiko@knu.ua), Leading Specialist of KNU’s Office for International Relations.

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Application process and template 

Please design your proposal using this template and send it in Word format to communities@eelisa.eu by 15 October 2024 23:59 CEST.

Important dates 

Call publication: 02 September 2024  

Information session with Q&A: 13 September 2024

Submission deadline: 15 October 2024   

Announcement of results: 31 October 2024

Period during which the activities can be carried out: within 1 year of call publication.

Submission of final report: within 6 weeks after the conclusion of each activity.

Information session 

An online information session on the call, including Q&A, took place on 13 September 2024 at 13:00 CEST.

The slides presented at the session can be found 20240913 Info-session on 4th EELISA Joint Call – PPT.

Additionally, three Q&A Café sessions have been scheduled to facilitate further discussions on topics related to the 4th joint call and EELISA Communities. Please do not hesitate to register for any of the following sessions.

Communication Guidelines 

All activities funded by this call will be subject to a series of communication guidelines. These guidelines, provided at the time of funding acceptance, will detail instructions on how to consistently incorporate the EELISA branding, the EELISA European University logo and give visibility to the EU funding into all communication and dissemination materials.

 

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

For activity proposals, can we include partners from outside the 10 EELISA Universities? If yes, what should the participant ratio look like in these kinds of activities?

This may be a good moment to differentiate between partners, organizers and participants. The EELISA Alliance has 10 partner universities. Here external partners would mean Universities that are not part of EELISA. By organizers we refer to the activity leader, two coleaders (both of which are mandatory) and a series of collaborators (not mandatory but recommended). The leader and co-leaders need to be in the EELISA Alliance, but the collaborators can include “externals” such as companies, NGOs etc. Externals can participate in the organizing part but only up to 10% of the organization budget. By participants we refer to learners, people who will participate in the activity as such. Externals cannot benefit from the participation budget.

Can PhD students set up a Community on their own? 

Yes, although there are already some Communities set up for this:

Please note, in any case, that the primary purpose of EELISA Communities is to bring people with different backgrounds and interests together around missions of societal and environmental impact.

For the proposal, can students ask for a Joint call on their own without a professor?

Yes, although we suggest including someone from academia at your university to facilitate logistical matters and for the assessment of the learning outcomes of the activity to be reflected in the EELISA Credential. That professor could be a collaborator, for example, and not a leader or co-leader.

Can we include KNU (Ukraine) as a partner in the proposal?

Yes, although they cannot lead a proposal (as they are an associate partner and cannot receive funds), they can be included a coleader and count as the third EELISA partner to make the proposal eligible.

Can more than one community be included in one proposal?

Yes, several Communities or Community members can participate in one proposal together.

We are a student run EELISA Community, can we give EELISA Credentials? 

In order to issue EELISA Credentials for the activity you must have an academic in charge of the assessment of the learning outcomes of the activity and the provision of the necessary information for the issuance by EELISA based on the established process: https://community.eelisa.eu/eelisa-credentials/

Could you provide a best practice project as an example? For example, from starting a community to getting funding? This might help clarify questions about operation. 

This is a good idea and a work in progress. We have not yet provided a best practise example partly since the formation of EELISA Communities was specifically set-up to be “bottom-up”, so the process of funding partners and collaborators is quite sui-generis. However, as time progresses and more Joint calls are published, the arising EELISA Community Ecosystem has provided some very solid and innovative communities which could be used as an example. In the short term we plan to organize workshops around that idea, where all EELISA Communities can participate and share their experiences.

Can the funds from the Joint call help to defray costs for obtaining a Visa for ITU students wanting to travel to Europe?

ITU can provide sponsorship for service passports for the mobility of Turkish students and staff at ITU to attend EELISA activities but the costs of the visa or passports cannot be paid by the funds from the Joint call.

 

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