42 million euros for education in Europe
42 million euros in 11 EEA Grants beneficiary states. Those are the figures of the Scholarship Programme financed by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, whose Programme Operators met in Madrid on October 22-24.
30.10.2014
Programme Operators representatives from the 11 beneficiary countries of the EEA Grants Scholarship Programme, from the donor partners and from the FMO met in Madrid on October 22-24, hosted by the Complutense University, to evaluate the progress, but also the challenges and possible solutions, as well as future cooperation opportunities.
Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein through the EEA Grants invest 42 million euros in 11 countries to foster students and researchers mobility, but also to develop internal educational projects. But beyond the numbers, what is really important is the outcome of those projects. Are the projects contributing to the main objective of knowledge increase in beneficiary countries and strengthening relations with the donor countries? For that reason, the Programme Operators, the donor partners –the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SIU); the Icelandic centre for Research (RANNIS) and the National Agency for International Education Affairs of Liechtenstein (AIBA)- and the FMO agreed to work towards the establishment of commonly agreed quality indicators to evaluate the programme success, going further than the mere statistics.
The Programme Operators representatives expressed their satisfaction with the progress of the programme and they pointed out the necessity of increasing the cooperation between the EEA Grants beneficiary countries and with the donor states.
NILS Science and Sustainability Programme in Spain is funded with 3,9 million euros, dedicated to students grants and joint research projects. 256 Spanish university students are studying this year in Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and 150 researchers are developing their projects in these countries.
The Programme aim is to strengthen the education system and to foster students and researchers mobility and education cooperation between Spain, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.