The EU's programme for education, training, youth and sport, explained for schools weighing up their first project.
Erasmus+ is the European Union's programme for education, training, youth and sport, running in multi-year cycles and funded from the EU budget. It pays for people — students, trainees, teachers, youth workers — to study, train or teach in another country, and it funds organisations that want to cooperate across borders on education projects.
For a vocational school, Erasmus+ is usually the reason a group of students can spend two or three weeks working in a company abroad without the school or the families covering the cost themselves. The programme doesn't run mobilities directly: it funds organisations, which then organise the mobility.
Erasmus+ is organised into Key Actions. Key Action 1 (KA1) — Learning Mobility of Individuals — is the one most vocational schools use first: it funds students and staff to go abroad for a defined period. Key Action 2 (KA2) covers cooperation between organisations, such as strategic partnerships building joint curricula or resources rather than sending individuals abroad.
There are further strands for youth participation and sport, but for a VET school planning student internships abroad, KA1 is the relevant one. We cover the KA1/KA2 distinction in more detail in what separates Erasmus+ KA1 from KA2.
Erasmus+ and EU branding on an official mobility programme banner.
A typical VET mobility involves a sending school (which applies for funding and selects students), a receiving or host organisation in the destination country (which arranges placements, accommodation and local support), and the student or staff member who travels. Some schools also send students through a consortium — a group of schools coordinating applications together through an intermediary organisation.
Regardless of the specific project type, Erasmus+ funding for mobility is generally built from the same components:
A school first applies to its own National Agency — the body each EU country designates to manage Erasmus+ funding domestically — either through a one-off short-term project or, for schools planning to run mobilities every year, through Erasmus Accreditation. Once approved, the school plans the mobility itself or, more often for VET placements, works with a host partner in the destination country who arranges companies, accommodation and on-the-ground support.
We go through this process step by step in how schools organise a successful Erasmus+ mobility.
The specific Key Action that funds student and staff mobility abroad.
Read more → Erasmus+The practical route from first interest to an approved application.
Read more → Portugal & LisbonWhat makes Portugal a common destination for VET mobility.
Read more →DNA Europe supports vocational schools in Romania, Italy and Poland with Erasmus+ VET mobility in Lisbon — from the first placement idea to the final report.
