General objective
This call aims to promote joint 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). The 6th Joint Call will focus on educational activities that support the research and innovation dimensions of EELISA.
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 countries. As in the 4th and 5th Joint Calls, we also warmly welcome participation from our associate partner Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU).
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 the SDGs. https://community.eelisa.eu/get-started/
Through Joint Calls, EELISA Communities are invited to organize educational activities using innovative teaching methods to help to boost transnational mobility (physical, virtual, blended or hybrid formats), as well as foster inter-disciplinarity, inter-cultural and inter-institutional cooperation for professors, researchers, non-academic staff and students.
Evaluation criteria
This 6th Joint Call targets bottom-up proposals for activities arising from collaborations forged within or between EELISA Communities and in line with the EELISA objectives and the SDGs. Proposals will be evaluated by representatives of the work group responsible for the call based on the three categories of criteria that follow (see below and in application form). In the proposal template, Section 4 (Activity description) will have a maximum length of 5 pages. Information exceeding that page limit will not be assessed.
- Activity description (up to 50 points):
In line with the EELISA strategic roadmap for 2025, this Joint Call aims to align Communities with EELISA’s strategic research areas (SRAs) and attract talent to EELISA, while incentivizing co-funding from partnerships and external stakeholders. Specifically, the 6th Joint Call aims to promote activities that will train future researchers and innovators, to build synergies between EELISA Communities and the research and innovation capacities among EELISA partners.
Research training activities can integrate interdisciplinary methodologies, such as project-based learning, research-based learning, service-learning or challenge-based learning (CBL[1]). Innovation training activities can involve one of the three elements of EELISA’s educational path on innovation: a) spark creation / sensitizing for entrepreneurship, b) skill development, or c) community building. The educational offer for both research and innovation can be embedded, for instance, in the context of seminars, lectures, courses summer/seasonal schools and graduate or undergraduate courses, as well as workshops, hackathons, exchange with role models or prototyping.
Activities must include components that are online or hybrid (not only with an “in presence” option), to increase participation throughout the Alliance and help decrease as much as possible the ecological footprint of each activity. Also, 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. Challenges will be preferably posed by companies, public institutions or non- profit entities, to be addressed to interdisciplinary student teams linked to teaching units, laboratories or research centres from EELISA partners. 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. Applicants should consider assessing the workload of their activity based on ECTS.
- Excellence and impact (up to 30 points):
Relevance and novelty of the activity or activities, within an academic and social context. Activities should be interdisciplinary and tied with the mission of the Community or Communities involved and aim to have a significant impact on the discipline and/or society, related to the UN’s SDGs. Activities should exhibit a clear potential impact regarding collaboration in research and innovation within the Alliance.
- Implementation (up to 20 points):
Activities should provide a clear and realistic implementation plan as well as a budget. Each activity should be clearly defined and follow the preparation and reporting scheme defined by EELISA, including a final report (template Part A + Part B) with mention of emerging research and innovation collaborations.
In order to maximise the number of learners benefiting from the activities and reduce their ecological footprint, it is mandatory for activities to be delivered in hybrid (including remote participants, in addition to face-to-face) or online format. While the activity organisers may establish participation requirements and criteria for the selection of participants, participation in the activity shall be open to participants from any EELISA institution.
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 as well as in terms of tangible outputs that will help to strengthen the Alliance. Note that, for this call, activities will have to take place after January 1st, 2026, not before that date, to enable time to announce the activity and inform potential students, and before September 1st, 2026.
Dimensions of financial support
The total budget for this 6th Joint Call is €150,000. The maximum funding per activity is €12,000. Proposals with a budget exceeding this limit will be rejected. The total cost of participant mobilities should be covered by the budget of the activity (€12,000), except if proposers can confirm supplementary funding from other sources, which should 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 external (non-EELISA) contributors to the activity (max. 1000 euros), 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 activity, but do not participate in the organization (i.e., learners). These funds are to be exclusively used for EELISA students (i.e., students enrolled in one of the partner universities of the EELISA Alliance). Student participation from other Universities (external to the EELISA Alliance) is allowed as long as they are not supported by the budget of the activity (onsite participation at own cost or online). As the origin of the participants (among the different EELISA partners) is not always known in advance, activity proposers should provide an overall estimation, or participation limits, to help calculate the proposed budget, differentiating between in-presence and virtual participants.
[1] SUMMARY of CHALLENGE BASED LEARNING (from Nichols et al 2016) – Google Drawings
Application process and template
Please design your proposal using this template and send it in Word format to communities@eelisa.eu by 15 October 2025 23:59 CEST.
Implementation guidelines for Activity Organizers.
Important dates
- Call publication: 01 September 2025
- Information session with Q&A: 19 September 2025 (12:30 CEST) Register here
- Submission deadline: 15 October 2025
- Announcement of results: The leaders of winning proposals will be contacted by email before 31 October, 2025. The final results of the call will be publicly announced approximately two weeks thereafter.
Implementation period
- Earliest initiation of activities: 1 January 2026 (two months after the resolution of the call)
- Latest completion of activity: 31 August 2026 (within 12 months of call publication)
- Submission of final report (template Part A + Part B): within 6 weeks after the conclusion of each activity.
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)
This section will be populated as questions arise, but please also refer to FAQs from previous calls when relevant (4th Joint Call, 5th Joint call).