Project proposal workshop: Writing a great KA105 project
Rome (October 17, 2019)
On this historic day for L’Orma, who saw various staff members working on different projects all over Europe (Brussels for Fit For Kids, Sofia for Sport Diplomacy Academy, and Budapest for Move Congress), we went down from Milan to Rome to attend a seminar/workshop held by the national agency, aimed at improving KA105 project proposals. Have you always wanted to write such a project, but are you not quite sure where to start? Then this article is definitely right for you!
A lot of information was exchanged today, as the day consisted of a morning seminar and an afternoon workshop on writing a KA105 project, but we’ve summarized the 5 most important pieces of advice for you. Keep in mind that this article is aimed particularly at KA105 Erasmus+ projects; if you’re looking for more general tricks to write a project proposal, check out our previous article on the topic!
First of all, it is important to have a clear idea on what type of KA105 – Youth Mobility project you want to apply for. Indeed, KA105 covers two different types of mobilities: youth exchanges and mobility for youth workers. Within these two categories, there are a number of various activities that can be organised, like training courses or the often forgotten job shadowing. Keep in mind that you need to have a clear objective in mind for you project, which will allow you to select the right type of mobility. The total length of a project, for all types of mobility, is between 3 and 24 months, while funding can be obtained for up to 45 days (in the case of a job shadowing; the other types of mobility are shorter).
Once you have decided on the type of mobility, it is important that you focus on developing an adequate needs analysis, which needs to highlight the issues you and your partners are trying to address (if you need a refresher on how to find great partners, check out our article on the subject). It is important that you clearly identify the problem you want to solve, and how the project, concretely, will help you to do that. Don’t forget to also clearly explain what roles your chosen partner will play in solving the issue together. After all, working with international partners should involve a multilateral knowledge exchange, and not a unidirectional information flow.
In explaining why you want to implement your project, remember to include the medium- and long-term impact the project will have.
Once you’ve clearly stated the reasons for implementing the project, start thinking about the participants that each partner will send. It’s important that a project involve no more than three participants per partner country, and the participants need to be clearly linked to their sending organisation. That is, you need to highlight the active role at the local level played by the participants. The reason for this is that you want to actively involve your partners, and, to a lesser extent, the participants, in all stages of the project. The participants need to be well-prepared by their sending organisation before starting the mobility, so as to have it be as efficient as possible. You also want to ensure active participants for what comes after the end of the mobility (dissemination); active participants will show a real impact of the mobility on their local realities as well.
After elaborating on the project itself and on participants and their profile, make sure you allocate enough time to think about the follow-up of the project. As mentioned higher up, the medium and long run play a crucial role: you don’t want to simply implement a mobility and then have the project be forgotten about. Clearly think about how each partner is going to bring home the knowledge generated during the project, and how the effects of it are going to have an impact on everyone’s daily operations. If you developed your need analysis well, then you have stated a problem your project is trying to solve: this means that it needs to live on well beyond the duration of the mobility. Think about asking your partners about their respective strengths in the dissemination phase, and play into those strengths to develop a sustainability plan.
As a last note, it is important that you include the YouthPass certificate into your project. This certificate is aimed at increasing the employability of those who hold it, by bridging the gap between the labour market and the education sector. During the mobility, allow for some reflection time at the end of each day, which will allow all participants to obtain the YouthPass at the end of the mobility.
Now that you have gotten these five tips and tricks on how to write a good KA105 project proposal, it is our hope that writing a KA105 is an undertaking that seems a little less daunting. Stay tuned for more information on Erasmus+ projects!
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