Experience from the SciLMi pilots suggests the following lead times:
\nSome universities have only one application deadline per year, and others require applications more than a year in advance (→ Trainer Team).
Opening the application form early meant that many teachers declined a place they had applied for long before.
Teachers who apply with Erasmus+ KA1 funding need to be informed early enough to organise their school's funding.
To be on the safe side, allow four weeks for all selection and waiting-list rounds. There are always teachers who will not get back to you, even after submitting a long and detailed application.
SciLMi believes that results are sustained not simply by remaining available, but by being used, adapted, and passed on by people. The course is therefore deliberately designed to foster personal connections that last beyond the training: all participants and trainers stay at the same residential training centre and share meals throughout the week. In the SciLMi pilots, this proved successful, as personal connections grew into Erasmus+ mobilities and joint projects (→ Course Format & Delivery: From BITs to PRO). The venue should offer accommodation, a seminar room for the whole group, space for group work, and catering under one roof.
\nBudget-friendly residential training centres, for example state- or church-subsidised ones, often have to be booked more than a year in advance. The size of the seminar room, rather than the number of beds, can become the limiting factor.
Choose a venue with a convenient airport shuttle or organise one. Ask participants whether their contact details may be shared in advance so that they can arrange shared airport transfers themselves.
In the SciLMi pilots, each registration link carried a variable indicating where it had been shared – on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook), in a newsletter, in a personal email, or through a QR code during a live presentation – so that every registration could be traced back to its channel. Presentations at Erasmus+ Training and Cooperation Activities (TCAs) generated the overwhelming majority of applications, with personalised and targeted emails ranking second, while social media postings, even in large teacher groups, generated – much to our surprise – very few. Personal contact therefore proved far more effective than mass communication.
\nA cross-sectoral trainer team combines expertise from initial teacher education, continuing professional development, and classroom practice (→ Trainer Team). SciLMi activities are highly learner-centred, so one trainer is not enough.
\nPiloting the course can be funded comfortably from the budget of an Erasmus+ Teacher Academy or cooperation partnership.
\nUnder current conditions, running the course with KA1 funding can be challenging:
\nTeacher trainers at non-state CPD providers currently have no access to KA1 staff mobility unless their organisation is eligible for KA1 accreditation in its country, which is not the case by default (EC 2025).
Use KA1 staff mobility funding to have courses co-delivered by an international team and to invite partners from CPD providers and schools. Teacher trainers at higher education institutions can use KA1 staff mobility for training, which may also take place at an enterprise or another relevant workplace, to shadow a course. Staff mobility for teaching, however, is only possible at partner higher education institutions, so they cannot formally co-teach in a course run by another provider (EC 2025). Practising teachers and teacher trainers from other organisations, such as schools or CPD providers, can be invited to co-teach as invited staff under KA1 higher education staff mobility for teaching. The receiving higher education institution covers their individual and travel support (EC 2025). This route is therefore only open if a higher education institution hosts the course.
D 7.3 sets out recommendations for closing these gaps.
In-service teachers can attend a SciLMi BIT with Erasmus+ KA1 funding for school staff mobility, provided their school is accredited or has a short-term project. Under KA1, the sending school receives course fees, travel support, and individual support for the participating teachers (EC 2025). Course providers are not beneficiaries.
\nPRO: D 7.3 recommends that state-funded and non-profit providers of validated courses be accredited and become beneficiaries themselves. In the recommended scenario, they would receive KA1 funding to invite teachers from across Europe under transparent selection criteria, with at least half of them from schools without an Erasmus+ accreditation, provide accommodation and subsistence, and reimburse their travel costs. The funding would cover the blended format as a whole, including its virtual components (→ D 7.3).
Where the course provider covers participants' costs, as in a KA2 project or under the scenario recommended in D 7.3, the provider arranges accommodation and subsistence directly and reimburses travel costs once the course has been completed, including the virtual follow-up, up to the individual maximum set at the time of the offer (→ Participants).
\nSet up a personalised digital form, pre-filled with the participant's name, the course, and the individual maximum. A strict structure guides participants through the process, ensures that all tickets are uploaded in a way that is easy to check, and avoids follow-up requests:
\nReimbursement requires full participation in all phases of the course (→ Course Policies).
\nReferences
\n