Erasmus+ intellectual outputs: how to plan and deliver them

Intellectual outputs are the most visible — and most scrutinised — deliverables in a KA220 Cooperation Partnership. They are what the project produces for the wider world: the training curriculum, the toolkit, the digital platform, the open educational resource. Evaluators look at them to judge whether the project justifies its budget, whether the partnership is adding genuine value, and whether the results will outlast the grant period.

Getting intellectual outputs right at the proposal stage matters enormously. A vague IO description — “we will develop training materials” — signals weak planning and costs you points. A specific, well-structured IO description signals professional capacity and realistic delivery. This guide walks you through how to plan, describe and present intellectual outputs in a way that scores well and holds up through implementation.

1. What Counts as an Intellectual Output

An intellectual output is a tangible, substantial deliverable produced by the partnership that has direct educational, training or youth work value and is made freely available to the public after the project ends. The key word is substantial — it must represent a meaningful volume of work that required genuine partnership collaboration to produce.

The following types of deliverables are commonly accepted as intellectual outputs in KA220 applications:

2. What Does Not Count as an Intellectual Output

This is where many proposals make avoidable errors. The following deliverables are frequently described as intellectual outputs in applications — but evaluators will not accept them as such, and including them as IOs damages the credibility of your project design.

Project management documents. Kick-off meeting minutes, progress reports, quality assurance plans and financial records are management outputs, not intellectual outputs. They belong in WP1 and should not be listed as IOs.

Dissemination materials. Brochures, social media posts, newsletters, promotional videos and press releases are communication outputs. They support dissemination but do not constitute an intellectual contribution to the sector.

Event reports and meeting summaries. Documentation of what happened at a training event or transnational meeting is a process record, not a transferable educational resource.

Websites without substantive content. A project website is a communication tool. A website that hosts a structured e-learning platform with original courses may qualify — but the website itself does not.

3. How Many IOs Should Your Project Have

There is no fixed rule on the number of intellectual outputs, but there is a strong evaluator expectation around quality over quantity. A KA220 project with one substantial, well-developed IO that is genuinely innovative and widely applicable will score better than a project with five IOs that are thin, overlapping or not clearly differentiated.

As a practical guide for the most common project types:

4. IO Planning Table — Full Example

Use this table format to plan your intellectual outputs before writing the application form narrative. The example below is based on a 24-month KA220 project in the youth work sector with 3 partners. Replace the content with your own IO details.

5. How to Describe Each IO in the Application Form

The application form gives you a dedicated section to describe each intellectual output. Most applicants write one or two vague sentences. Funded proposals write four to six specific sentences that answer every question an evaluator would ask.

Structure your IO description around these five elements:

1. What it is. Name the output type and give it a title. State its format — is it a PDF guide, an online platform, a printed toolkit, a set of video modules? Be concrete: “a 6-module blended learning curriculum” tells the evaluator more than “training materials.”

2. What it contains. Describe the specific components. How many modules, chapters, tools, templates or activities does it include? What methodology or framework does it use? A curriculum with “6 modules, a facilitator guide and 18 activity cards” is evaluated more favourably than one described as “comprehensive training materials.”

3. Who it is for. Specify the target users precisely. Not “educators” — but “VET trainers working with early school leavers aged 16–24 in rural areas.” The more precisely you define the audience, the more credible the output appears.

4. How it will be validated. Describe the quality assurance process: peer review, pilot testing, external expert input. Evaluators expect IOs to be tested and revised before being published — if your IO goes directly from development to publication without any validation step, that is a gap.

5. How and where it will be published. State the licence (CC-BY), the format (PDF, online, editable) and the platforms (Erasmus+ Results Platform, EPALE, SALTO Toolbox, project website). This answers the sustainability and accessibility question directly.

6. How IOs Connect to the Budget

Every intellectual output must be directly reflected in the budget. The budget funds the people who produce the IO — their working days — and any real costs involved in its development, such as translation, external peer review, accessibility adaptations or graphic design.

In the KA220 budget, IO development is funded primarily through staff days assigned to the relevant work package. The lead partner of the WP containing the IO should have the highest staff day allocation for that package. Contributing partners have lower but non-zero allocations — they must be genuinely involved, not decorative.

Translation of IOs into partner languages is one of the most legitimate and commonly approved subcontracting items in Erasmus+. If your IO will be published in three languages and none of the partners can provide professional translation, budget this as a subcontracted real cost and justify it explicitly.

7. Most Common IO Mistakes

Describing IOs in one vague sentence. “We will develop a training toolkit for youth workers” tells an evaluator nothing. It does not say how many modules, what methodology, what format, who the users are, how it will be validated or where it will be published. Every IO description must be specific enough that a different organisation could replicate the output from your description alone.

Listing project management documents as IOs. Progress reports, quality plans and evaluation frameworks are not intellectual outputs. Including them as IOs suggests the applicant does not understand what the category means — and this costs points under project design.

No validation step between development and publication. An IO that goes directly from drafting to open-access publication without pilot testing, peer review or external expert input is not credible. Build at least one validation step into the work plan for every IO — and reference it in the IO description.

IOs not linked to specific objectives. Every IO must be traceable to at least one of the project’s specific objectives. If you cannot draw a direct line between an IO and an objective, either the IO is not needed or the objectives are not well defined. Do this check before finalising the application.

Too many IOs for the partnership capacity. Three partners over 24 months producing five substantial intellectual outputs is unrealistic unless the budget is very large and staff day allocations are correspondingly high. Evaluators will flag an IO list that is disproportionate to the size and budget of the partnership. Fewer, stronger IOs always score better than many weak ones.

Omitting the open licence and publication platform. All Erasmus+ IOs must be published under an open licence (CC-BY or equivalent) and submitted to the Erasmus+ Results Platform. If this is not stated in the IO description, you are missing a mandatory commitment that evaluators look for explicitly.

8. Intellectual Output Checklist

• ✅ Each IO is a substantive, transferable educational resource — not a management or dissemination document
• ✅ Number of IOs is proportionate to partnership size, duration and budget
• ✅ Each IO has a specific title, format, component list and target user group defined
• ✅ Each IO is linked to at least one specific project objective
• ✅ Each IO has a dedicated work package with a named lead partner
• ✅ Lead partner has the highest staff day allocation for the WP producing each IO
• ✅ At least one validation step (pilot, peer review, expert input) included for each IO
• ✅ Translation budget included if IO is multilingual and partners cannot provide it internally
• ✅ Open licence (CC-BY) specified for every IO
• ✅ Publication on Erasmus+ Results Platform confirmed for every IO
• ✅ IO descriptions specific enough that an external organisation could replicate the output
• ✅ No management documents, event reports or dissemination materials listed as IOs