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. Student participation in these activities is recognized via EELISA Credentials, academic evidence of how they are engaging wtih SDGs and creating a real impact on society. To find out more about EELISA Communities, their activities and EELISA Credentials, please see: https://community.eelisa.dev.crescdi.pub.ro/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.
Evaluation criteria
This 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:
Excellence and impact (up to 40 points, max 2000 characters including spaces):
Relevance and novelty of the activity or activities, within an academic (max 20 points) and social context (max 10 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, max 2000 characters including spaces):
Innovative teaching methods used to carry out the activity or activities (max. 20 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, or BIPs, and should also have clear evaluation criteria.
The participation of educators (organizers) and learners (participants) should be balanced, with the aim of considering all EELISA partners (max 10 points). Guidelines should be provided regarding the acceptance criteria for participants. Activities should lead to the issuance of EELISA credentials (level of engagement and action), including an assessment of the workload based on ECTS (max 10 points). Priority will be given to activities that involve a high number of students, although new or smaller communities will be considered, as well as the level of impact of each activity and whether it is in-presence, entirely on-line or hybrid.
Implementation (up to 20 points, max 2000 characters including spaces):
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. Priority will be given to activities that can be reiterated and sustainable in the mid- to long-term (10 points).
Dimensions of financial support
The total budget for this 3rd Joint Call is €130,000. The maximum funding per activity is €10,000. Funding for activities can be allocated into two overall areas, organisational costs and participation costs. Organisational costs include four concepts: travel and accommodation for organisers, travel and accommodation for invited speakers, personnel costs for organisers as well as other costs (catering, reserving spaces, communication and dissemination).
Participation costs include travel and accommodation for people who will attend the event but do not participate in the organization, 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.
Calls for proposals will be published on a semi-annual basis. Publishing two calls per year until the end of the funding period represents a total of seven Joint Calls and ca. €115,000 per call plus €15,000 per call for the participation of ZHAW members. Owing to a different funding source, funding for ZHAW is pending confirmation and specific conditions and constraints may apply.
| Call | Opening | Deadline | Acceptance | Estimated funding available |
| 3rd call | 30 Apr 2024 | 15 Jun 2024 | 30 Jun 2024 | €130,000 |
| 4th call | 1 Sept 2024 | 15 Oct 2024 | 31 Oct 2024 | €130,000 |
| 5th call | 1 Febr 2025 | 15 Mar 2025 | 31 Mar 2025 | €130,000 |
| 6th call | 1 Sept 2025 | 15 Oct 2025 | 31 Oct 2025 | €130,000 |
| 7th call | 1 Febr 2026 | 15 Mar 2026 | 31 Mar 2026 | €130,000 |
| 8th call | 1 Sept 2026 | 15 Oct 2026 | 31 Oct 2026 | €130,000 |
| 9th call | 1 Febr 2027 | 15 Mar 2027 | 31 Mar 2027 | €130,000 |
| Total | €910,000 | |||
This timeline of calls and budget is purely indicative and subject to change.
Application process and template
Please design your proposal using this template and send it in Word format to communities@eelisa.eu by 15 June 2024 23:59 CEST.
Important dates
Call publication: 30 April 2024
Information session with Q&A: 17 May 2024 (Register Now!)
Submission deadline: 15 June 2024
Announcement of results: 30 June 2024 (two weeks after submission deadline).
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 the activity.
Information session
An online information session on the call including a Q&A will take place on 17 May 2024.
Please complete the registration form to participate.
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.
[1] SUMMARY of CHALLENGE BASED LEARNING (from Nichols et al 2016) – Google Drawings