TL;DR: Building an international partnership for Erasmus+ means finding compatible organizations across Europe, aligning your goals around a concrete project, and choosing the right Key Action 2 funding type for your consortium.
An Erasmus+ international partnership is a formal collaboration between educational organizations from different European countries working together on joint projects funded by the European Union. 1 These partnerships bring together schools, universities, vocational institutions, NGOs, and other education stakeholders to achieve common objectives in teaching, learning, and institutional development. 1
What Type of Partnership Do You Need?
Key Action 2 (KA2) is the funding strand dedicated to cooperation among organizations and institutions. 4 The programme offers two distinct types under Partnerships for Cooperation, and choosing the right one shapes your entire proposal. 6
Cooperation Partnerships focus on increasing the quality and relevance of activities, developing networks, and boosting internationalisation at transnational level. 5 They support the development, transfer, and implementation of innovative practices as well as joint initiatives promoting peer learning and exchanges of experience at European level. 5
Results from Cooperation Partnerships should be reusable, transferable, upscalable, and if possible have a strong transdisciplinary dimension. 5 Selected projects will be expected to share their results at local, regional, national, and transnational level. 5
Step 1: Define Your Project Idea First
Before you search for partners, you need a draft project idea. With that idea in hand, you can identify the Erasmus+ call that best matches your objectives and look for partner organisations. 11
A clear idea makes recruiting partners far easier. Potential collaborators want to understand what they are joining, what role they will play, and what the project will produce. Vague concepts attract vague commitments.
Step 2: Find the Right Partner Organisations
Partners can include schools, universities, vocational institutions, NGOs, and other education stakeholders from different European countries. 1 The partnership must span multiple countries — KA2 reinforces cooperation with partners from other countries and other fields of education, training, and youth. 4
Finding the right partners requires proactive outreach to organizations across Europe that share your project objectives. One such tool lets you create a verified profile for your NGO, VET centre, university, school, or municipality, publish partner searches for your projects, and apply for relevant Erasmus+ opportunities. 10
When evaluating potential partners, look for alignment on three things: shared goals, complementary expertise, and genuine capacity to contribute. A partner who brings a different national perspective and complementary expertise, while sharing commitment to the project's objectives, can strengthen your consortium.
Step 3: Align Goals and Roles Across the Partnership
Cooperation Partnerships aim to support the development and implementation of innovative practices and the implementation of joint initiatives promoting cooperation. 8 Each partner organization needs a defined, meaningful role in delivering that agenda.
Hold early conversations about what each organization will contribute — activities, outputs, expertise, and transnational networking reach. The clearer these roles are before you write the proposal, the stronger your application will read to evaluators.
Cross-cultural communication is an essential skill for institutions looking to engage in European educational cooperation. 1 Schedule regular calls, agree on working languages, and establish shared documentation practices from the start.
Step 4: Understand the KA2 Lump-Sum Funding Model
Under the lump-sum funding model, the grant is awarded as a fixed amount linked to the approved project design. 2 Funding is not based on reimbursement of actual costs. 2
This matters for partnership planning. Applicants commit to implementing the work packages and activities described in the proposal. 2 Every partner must understand that the budget logic is expressed through work packages, not through expense receipts. 2
Subcontracting is allowed but limited and assessed by evaluators — another reason to ensure partners have real, substantive roles rather than outsourcing large portions of the work. 2
Step 5: Structure Your Proposal Around Work Packages
The lump-sum model means that objectives, results, indicators, impact, and dissemination are all evaluated as a coherent whole. 2 Evaluators look for a clear, logical connection between what the partnership plans to do and what it will produce.
Each work package should map to a specific output and assign clear responsibilities to named partners. The qualitative assessment of projects is proportional to the objectives of the cooperation and the nature of the organisations involved. 6
Dissemination is not an afterthought — selected projects are expected to share results at local, regional, national, and transnational level. 5 Build dissemination activities into your work plan and budget from day one.
Step 6: Use a Structured Launch Process Once Funded
Once your project is granted, a step-by-step approach helps you set all the preparatory work needed to launch and manage the project. 3 This includes following European Commission provisions and applying good practice from similar funded projects. 3
A toolkit approach gives basic and useful information about the compulsory steps to be done once a project is funded and provides instruments to monitor a funded project. 3 International Relations staff who are new to KA2 benefit from having this structured reference material available from the start. 3
Key Principles for a Strong International Partnership
- Transnational scope: The programme reinforces cooperation with partners from other countries and other fields of education, training, youth, and other socio-economic sectors. 4 Diversity of country and sector strengthens your bid.
- Genuine capacity: Partnerships can be of different sizes and scope and adapt their activities accordingly. 7 Choose a scale that reflects what your consortium can actually deliver.
- Shared innovation: The primary goal is to allow organisations to develop and reinforce their networks of partners and to improve their capacity to operate jointly at transnational level. 8
- Reusable results: Results should be reusable, transferable, and upscalable beyond the project's own lifetime. 5 Design outputs with this in mind from the proposal stage.
Where to Find Open Calls
Calls are published through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. For example, the Cooperation Partnerships call for European NGOs in education and training (ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PCOOP-ENGO) was open for submission through that portal. 8
Regional-level data on international credit mobility and capacity-building projects, comparative overviews of participation across regions, and general trends on cooperation between Programme and Partner Countries are all available through Erasmus+ data dashboards. 9 These resources help you benchmark your partnership profile before applying.
Building a strong international partnership takes time — but the structure is clear. Define your idea, find aligned partners across Europe, assign genuine roles, and write a proposal where work packages, results, and dissemination form a coherent whole — with results designed to be reusable, transferable, and shared at local, regional, national, and transnational level. 5