School leaders' and change agent teachers' participation in the ods2015 Summer Academy 2015 can be funded by the ERASMUS+ Programme. The deadline for application is March 4, 2015 at 12:00 (midday) Brussels time. Support will be offered by the course organisers to ods2015 schools and other schools interested to participate on how to prepare your applications through a dedicated webinar.

Teachers and school leaders who are interested in the ods2015 Summer School 2015 can apply to their National Agencies for ERASMUS+ funding, under Key Action 1, "Individual mobility". Although the type of action is entitled "Individual mobility", the applications are submitted by the participants' schools- no individual applications can be submitted.    

Eligible countries for ERASMUS+ funding are the 28 EU member States, plus Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey and FYROM. Since the course is taking place in Greece, participants from Greece are not eligible to apply for an ERASMUS+ grant to attend it.  However, if you are a Greek teacher and you are interested in attending our Summer school, you can take part in the ods2015 Greek National Educational Scenario contest, the prize for which is a scholarship for the summer school. More info is available here. Or you can take part in the ods2015  Innovative Schools European contest through which 15 schools across Europe will be selected and 2 teachers per school will be offered a place in the Summer School. 

Taking part in this course can be included in the school’s application to ERASMUS+ as a training activity. Please consult the description of the course (objectives, preparation, follow-up) in order to fill in the application and read carefully the information provided below on ERASMUS+. 

What is ERASMUS+ ?

Here you can find a presentation summarizing the key-points of the application process for schools through Erasmus+ including what types of costs can be funded.

ERASMUS+, the new EU programme for Education, Training, Youth, and Sport (2014-2020) has a special focus on teachers’ professional development. Up to 2013 , the Comenius Training grants offered some good opportunities for individual teachers to attend training courses. Since January 2014  ERASMUS+, which replaced the old Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), really multiplies these opportunities. Never before has there been so much EU support for teachers' professional development through mobility in Europe!  There is a big difference, however: Applications are not submitted by individual teachers anymore. They are submitted by schools. Another new aspect is that you can re-apply this year even if you have applied and been funded in the past!

So, your school needs to apply for you, as well as for any other of your colleagues, including your interest in training on school development and innovation that you will include in the ‘European Development Plan’ section of the application. For up-to-date information about Erasmus+ please check the Programme's website. Your school will need to apply to your country’s National Agency, who is also the one who will evaluate the proposal. Therefore, your National Agency is also a very good point to start for more information.

In the New Programme Guide, released in October 2014, for the part that we are discussing here (“KA1 - Learning Mobility of Individuals”, and in particular “School education staff mobility”) just go to pages 59-65 and 260-262, and you will have all you need to know.

We will be happy to guide you through the process.

Ms Eleni Chelioti: chelioti[at]ea.gr

Mr Stephanos Cherouvis: stecherouvis[at]ea.gr

The steps to follow to apply for an Erasmus+ (School Education Staff Mobility) grant are:

• First contact us by e-mail (see contact details above) to express your interest in our course and if you need assistance with the application procedure. By doing so we will reserve places for your school/organisation.
• Register your school/organisation on the European Commission Authentication Service (ECAS), if not already registered
• Log in to the Participant Portal with your ECAS account details and register your organisation on the Unique Registration Facility (URF) to obtain your unique Participant Identification Code (PIC), if not already registered. The European Commission has produced a Participant Portal User Manual to help guide you through the process of registering on the portal. You may seek further assistance on this by contacting your National Agency
• Download the application form for  School education staff mobility of the Erasmus+ Programme from the website of your National Agency. 
• You will receive our application assistance form, giving useful guidelines on how to fill it in according to the Erasmus+ Programme Guide
• Fill in and submit the application form to your National Agency. The deadline is March 4th, 2015, 12:00 Brussels time
• Do not forget to inform us as soon as you get notified from your National Agency whether your grant application is accepted or rejected
• After having submitted the funding application, fill in the registration form to the ods2015 Summer School 2015 with your details. This is an individual registration form, so if there are more than one participants from the same school, each one will have to submit a separate registration form.

You can watch the Webinar we organised last year with detailed instructions for the process in English. Please note that since it was released last year, the dates do not apply to this year's procedure.
As mentioned above the deadline for this year is March 4th, 2015, 12:00 Brussels time.  You can watch the video here.