Funding programme

Global Europe is the EU's funding programme to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development in EU neighbourhood countries. It replaces EuropeAid.

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Call overview

This call aims to contribute to the economic, social and human development of Africa by improving the skills and competences of individuals in different areas.

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Call details

The overall objective of this action is to increase skills and qualifications across the African continent. The specific objectives of this action are to:

1. Promote inclusive learning mobility opportunities with a focus on climate change mitigation and adaptation in curricula and research programmes;

2. Increase the employability of higher education students and trainees, specifically in green jobs, and their entrepreneurship skills;

3. Improve the quality, relevance, internationalisation and climate change focus of higher education in Africa.

This call is open to all themes/subject areas. Each proposal, in any thematic field, should ensure the quality of the academic programmes and of the traineeships offer in order to maximise the benefit for the mobile students and trainees. It is advisable to focus on a limited number of thematic fields and academic programmes to enhance the coherence and quality of the project.

Indicatively 40% of the selected projects will address the thematic fields related to environment and climate change (with a focus on adaptation and mitigation). It is expected that these projects will foster development of skills and competencies in targeted areas of academia including life and climate science, and will mainstream climate adaptation and mitigation in other curricula (such as engineering).

These projects will also promote the development of digital skills and competences in these areas, including space and earth observation technologies. Increasing skills in these technologies is indeed key to access, process and share sound and reliable data and information on weather, climate and the environment and to plan and act in climate-sensitive sectors, such as agriculture, blue economy, water management, transport, renewable energy, and disaster risk reduction.

The projects in these thematic fields should be able to demonstrate added value towards meaningful and relevant climate knowledge and skills, such as: mitigation action (e.g. efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, advancing low-carbon solutions and technologies); assessing and addressing identified climate related vulnerabilities and risks (e.g. disaster risk reduction and finance against climate hazards, climate finance solution, addressing air/sea/land pollution, etc.);strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-induced impacts; contributing to a green and circular economy, promoting innovative, inclusive and sustainable solutions (e.g., ecosystem-based adaption, nature-based solutions for climate action at sector level, etc.).

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Activities funded

The selected projects will entail the organisation and implementation of international mobility for students, trainees and staff as well as the implementation of related institutional activities. For full details on the scope of activities, see the call document.

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.: EU Member States and overseas countries and territories (OCTs); African countries:

- East and Central Africa:

Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda

- Southern Africa and Indian Ocean:

Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

- West Africa:

Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger,Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo

• be a higher education institution (HEI) accredited by the competent national authorities and providing courses at postgraduate level (masters level and/or doctoral degree) which lead to a qualification recognised by the competent authorities of their country (— independently of their name, ‘university’‘polytechnic’, ‘college’, ‘institute’, or other)

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Consortium composition

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least 5 and maximum 7 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:

• Minimum 4 and maximum 6 HEIs from the eligible countries in the following African regions: East and Central Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean, West Africa
• One HEI from one of the EU Member States (EU technical partner)
• Maximum 2 HEIs from the same eligible country in Africa.

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Two categories of projects will be selected:

• Sub-regional projects involving HEIs from at least four (4) different countries from one of the following African regions: East and Central Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean, West Africa.
• Cross-regional projects involving HEIs from at least four (4) different countries representing the three following African regions: East and Central Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean, West Africa.

The objective will be to select a relatively balanced number of sub-regional and cross-regional projects.

The applicant acting as coordinator must be a Higher Education Institution established in Africa and can only act as coordinator in one awarded proposal under this call for proposals.

Other entities which participate in the consortium as associated partners must be established in Africa. This includes North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia).

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Budget

The estimated available call budget is EUR 27 000 000 and the Commission expects to fund 15 projects. Project budget (maximum grant amount): EUR 1 800 000 per project.

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Duration

Projects should normally last 48 months. Extensions are possible, if duly justified and through an amendment.