Erasmus+ KA220 Cooperation Partnerships: Complete Guide

Erasmus+ KA220 — Cooperation Partnerships — is the most ambitious and most impactful cooperation action in the Erasmus+ programme. It funds transnational partnerships between three or more organisations to develop substantial intellectual outputs, drive systemic innovation and contribute measurably to the modernisation of education, training and youth work across Europe.

KA220 is also the most demanding Key Action to apply for. The application form is detailed, the budget model is complex, the evaluation standards are high and the competition is significant. Organisations that approach KA220 with the same level of preparation they would bring to a small grant application consistently fall short. Those that treat it as the strategic, multi-year institutional investment it represents — and prepare accordingly — produce applications that score 80 points and above. This guide covers everything you need to know to be in the second group.

1. What Is Erasmus+ KA220

KA220 is a cooperation action that funds partnerships of three or more organisations from different Erasmus+ programme countries to jointly develop substantial, transferable outputs that address a documented challenge in education, training or youth work. The defining characteristic of KA220 is its systemic ambition — the expectation that the project will produce something that changes practice at scale, not just within the consortium.

KA220 projects produce formal intellectual outputs — curricula, open educational resources, assessment frameworks, digital tools, methodology guides — that are published open-access on the Erasmus+ Results Platform and available to the entire sector. The programme funds the staff time, travel, subcontracting and operational costs required to develop and validate these outputs through a structured work package system.

KA220 is available across all five Erasmus+ sectors and is managed by the National Agency of the coordinator’s country. Projects can run for 12 to 48 months with a maximum grant of €400,000 under the standard track. The minimum evaluation score for funding consideration is typically 60–70 points out of 100, depending on the National Agency and the level of competition in the relevant call.

2. Who Can Apply

KA220 eligibility requirements are stricter than KA210 in several important respects. Every criterion below is checked before evaluation begins — applications that fail any one of them are rejected at the admissibility stage.

Eligible organisation types. Any public or private organisation with formal legal personality active in education, training or youth work. Unlike KA210, informal groups are not eligible as partners in KA220. Eligible types include:

• NGOs, associations and foundations with formal legal status
• Schools, VET providers and adult education centres
• Universities and higher education institutions
• Youth organisations and youth centres with legal registration
• Local, regional and national public authorities
• Research institutes and think tanks
• Social enterprises and private companies active in education or training

Minimum consortium requirements. At least 3 organisations from 3 different Erasmus+ programme countries. There is no formal maximum, though 4 to 6 partners is the most common range for a well-functioning KA220 consortium. Larger consortia require proportionally larger budgets and significantly more coordination effort.

Country requirements. All partners must be based in Erasmus+ programme countries — the 27 EU Member States plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, North Macedonia, Serbia and Türkiye. Organisations from partner countries (Western Balkans, Eastern Partnership, South Mediterranean) may participate as partners — not coordinators — in some sectors under specific conditions. Always verify against the current Programme Guide for your sector and call year.

OID and EU Funding Portal registration. Every partner organisation must have a valid Organisation ID (OID) from the EU Funding and Tenders Portal. For organisations receiving over €60,000 — which includes most KA220 coordinators — a financial identification form must also be completed and verified before grant signature.

Mandate letters. Unlike KA210, KA220 requires signed mandate letters from all partner organisations to be uploaded in the Beneficiary Module at the time of submission. Missing mandate letters result in automatic inadmissibility — there is no grace period or opportunity to submit them after the deadline.

3. What You Can Fund: Eligible Activities and Outputs

KA220 funds a broad range of activities — but only those that are directly necessary for delivering the project’s intellectual outputs and achieving its objectives. The key test for any activity is whether it can be justified by reference to a specific work package and a specific output. Activities that exist outside this logic — however useful they may be — are not eligible.

Activity / Output Type	What It Involves	Budget Category
Staff work on project activities	Time spent by employed staff on delivering work packages — research, development, coordination, reporting	Unit costs — daily rate × number of working days, by staff category (A1–A7) and country
Transnational project meetings	In-person meetings between partner organisations — kick-off, progress meetings, final review	Unit costs — travel by distance band + individual support (accommodation/subsistence) by destination country per participant per day
Intellectual outputs	Substantial, transferable deliverables — training curricula, OERs, methodology guides, digital tools, assessment frameworks	Staff days of the WP lead and contributing partners; real costs for translation, expert review or design if subcontracted
Multiplier events	Dissemination events reaching external audiences beyond the consortium — one per partner country recommended	Unit costs for travel and individual support of organising staff; real costs for venue, catering and materials if applicable
Subcontracting	Outsourced specialist services that cannot be delivered by partner staff — translation, external evaluation, graphic design, web development	Real costs — market rate with justification; each subcontracted item must be justified as not deliverable internally
Equipment	Specific equipment directly necessary for project activities — not standard office equipment	Real costs — eligible only for the project-use proportion; must be directly necessary and explicitly justified
Exceptional costs	Higher travel costs for participants with fewer opportunities — remote location, disability-related travel needs	Real costs up to a defined ceiling; requires specific justification per participant

4. The KA220 Budget Model Explained

KA220 uses a hybrid budget model — a combination of unit costs and real costs — built line by line in the application’s budget tool and distributed across work packages. Unlike KA210’s lump sum, KA220 requires you to justify every euro by reference to a specific activity, a specific number of units and a specific cost rate.

Staff costs — unit costs. Staff time is the largest cost category in most KA220 budgets. It is calculated using predefined daily rates set by the European Commission, which vary by staff category (A1 — senior manager/director, down to A7 — administrative support) and by country. The formula is simple: number of working days × daily rate = staff cost for that partner on that work package. Rates are updated annually — always use the current Programme Guide for your call year.

Travel — unit costs. Each transnational trip is budgeted individually using distance bands. Band A covers trips up to 99km; Band F covers 8,000km or more. Most intra-European travel falls in Band C (500–1,999km) or Band D (2,000–2,999km). The unit cost per trip is fixed by band — it does not vary by actual ticket price. Budget each trip separately: outward and return count as one trip per participant.

Individual support — unit costs. Accommodation and subsistence for transnational activities are funded through daily rates that vary by destination country. The rate covers all living costs for each day the participant is away from home, including travel days. Higher-cost countries (Scandinavia, Switzerland, Netherlands) have higher daily rates; lower-cost countries (Balkans, Eastern Europe) have lower rates.

Subcontracting — real costs. Services outsourced to third parties are funded as real costs up to the amount stated in the budget. Each subcontracted service must be justified as something that cannot reasonably be provided by the partner organisations themselves. Translation, external evaluation and graphic design are the most commonly approved subcontracting items. The core intellectual work of the project — developing the main outputs — cannot be subcontracted to a non-partner organisation.

The WP1 cap. Project Management (WP1) is capped at 20% of the total project grant. This cap is enforced by the application form — if your WP1 staff day allocations exceed this threshold, you must redistribute them into the relevant implementation WPs. Many coordinators exceed this cap in their first draft and need to rebalance before submission.

5. How KA220 Applications Are Evaluated

KA220 applications are assessed by two independent evaluators against four criteria. Scores are averaged across both evaluators — if their scores diverge significantly, a third evaluator may be brought in. The total score is out of 100 points, with a minimum threshold of typically 60–70 points for funding consideration. In practice, funded KA220 projects in competitive calls often score 75 points and above.

Criterion	Points	What Evaluators Look For	How to Score High
Relevance	30	Documented need with evidence; precise target group; explicit connection to Erasmus+ horizontal and sector-specific priorities; genuine transnational added value	Cite at least 2 external sources for the need; name specific EU priorities and policy documents; define the target group with demographics and geography; explain why the project cannot be delivered by one country alone
Quality of Project Design	30	SMART objectives; coherent work plan with named outputs; feasible timeline; clear methodology; quality assurance approach; full consistency between work plan, budget and partner roles	Write SMART objectives; ensure every activity has a named output; run the four consistency checks before submission; describe the validation process for each intellectual output; include a QA framework
Quality of Project Team	20	Specific justification for each partner; genuine complementarity across the consortium; coordinator’s documented management capacity; geographic and organisational diversity; clear distribution of roles and responsibilities	Justify each partner with specific expertise and role — not generic descriptions; demonstrate the coordinator has managed comparable grants; assign each partner a lead WP role; show diversity in organisation type and sector
Impact	20	Quantified expected outcomes for participants and target group; specific dissemination strategy with named channels and reach estimates; sustainability plan beyond the grant period; contribution to policy or systemic change	Give specific reach figures — not “wide dissemination”; plan multiplier events in each partner country; describe open-access publication on EPRP, EPALE and SALTO; explain how outputs will be used after the project ends

6. What the Application Form Requires

The KA220 application is submitted through the Beneficiary Module — an online platform that combines narrative sections, structured data fields and the budget tool in a single form. The following are the major sections and what each demands.

Context and background. Describe the problem, the evidence base and the target group. This section must be specific, documented and connected to Erasmus+ priorities. It feeds Relevance — the highest-weighted criterion. Reference external data, policy documents or sector research. Do not summarise the Erasmus+ programme here — evaluators know what the programme is. Focus entirely on the specific need your project addresses.

Objectives. Write an overall objective and two to four specific objectives. Each specific objective must be measurable, linked to a specific output and achievable within the project timeline. Use the SMART framework — vague objectives like “strengthening capacity” without indicators score below their potential on project design.

Work packages. Structure the project into a maximum of five work packages — WP1 Project Management, plus one WP per major phase of the project (typically research, development, piloting and dissemination). For each WP, name the lead partner, describe the activities and outputs, assign contributing partners and specify the timeline in months. Every activity must have a named deliverable.

Intellectual outputs. Describe each IO specifically — its title, type, format, target users, validation process, language versions and publication plan. The IO description must be specific enough that an external reader could understand exactly what will be produced. Generic IO descriptions score poorly on project design.

Partner profiles. For each partner organisation, describe their specific expertise, their role in the project and why they are the right organisation for that role. One well-written, specific paragraph per partner is the standard. Generic descriptions — “an experienced NGO with relevant expertise” — score poorly on Team quality.

Budget tool. Enter staff days per partner per WP, travel trips per event per participant, individual support days, subcontracting items and any equipment or exceptional costs. The form calculates the grant amount automatically based on your inputs and the applicable unit cost rates. Check the total against your WP1 cap (20%) and review the partner budget distribution for proportionality before finalising.

Mandate letters. Upload signed mandate letters from all partner organisations before submitting. Each letter must be signed by the legal representative of the partner organisation and authorise the coordinator to act on their behalf. Missing letters result in inadmissibility — no exceptions.

7. Most Common KA220 Mistakes

Starting the application too late. A credible KA220 application requires 3–4 months of preparation: concept development, partner identification and alignment, work plan drafting, budget building and narrative writing. Organisations that start 6 weeks before the deadline produce weak applications. The partner search alone should begin 3 months before submission.

Generic partner justifications. Describing a partner as “an experienced organisation in the field of VET with relevant expertise” tells an evaluator nothing. Each partner must be justified with their specific expertise, their specific role in this project and why they — and not another organisation — are the right fit for that role. Generic justifications consistently cost points on the Team criterion.

Vague intellectual output descriptions. An IO described as “training materials for youth workers” is not an intellectual output description — it is a placeholder. Each IO must have a specific title, a component list, a validation process, a language version plan and a publication destination. The more specific the IO description, the more credible the project design score.

WP1 exceeding 20% of total grant. This is the most common KA220 budget error and it is entirely preventable. Check the WP1 percentage in the budget tool before finalising. If it exceeds 20%, redistribute staff days from coordination activities into the WPs where the actual work is happening.

Inconsistency between work plan and budget. Activities described in the narrative with no corresponding budget line — or budget lines with no corresponding activity — are a reliable signal of a proposal written in sections without a final consistency review. Run the four-check consistency review before submission: work plan vs objectives, work plan vs budget, work plan vs partner roles, work plan vs timeline.

Missing mandate letters. This is an admissibility issue, not an evaluation weakness. Set an internal mandate letter deadline at least two weeks before the submission deadline. Do not submit the application until all letters are received, reviewed and uploaded in the Beneficiary Module.

Weak impact section with vague reach claims. “The project will have a wide impact on the sector” scores near zero on the Impact criterion. Evaluators expect specific numbers: how many practitioners will be reached through multiplier events, how many downloads of the open-access output are projected in year one, which specific policy bodies will receive the policy brief. Specificity is credibility.

8. KA220 Application Checklist

• ✅ Minimum 3 partners from 3 different Erasmus+ programme countries confirmed
• ✅ All partner organisations have valid OIDs from EU Funding and Tenders Portal
• ✅ Signed mandate letters collected from all partners and ready for upload
• ✅ Application submitted under sector matching the coordinator’s primary mission
• ✅ Coordinator has documented experience managing grants of comparable complexity
• ✅ Problem statement specific and supported by at least 2 external sources
• ✅ Target group defined precisely — demographics, geography and context specified
• ✅ Project connects to at least 2 named Erasmus+ priorities — specifically, not generically
• ✅ SMART objectives written — linked to specific outputs and measurable indicators
• ✅ Maximum 5 work packages — WP1 management, plus one per major project phase
• ✅ Each WP has a named lead partner, specific activities, named outputs and a timeline
• ✅ Each intellectual output described specifically — title, components, validation, language versions, publication plan
• ✅ Each partner justified specifically — not generically — with role and expertise stated
• ✅ Budget built from work plan — staff days assigned per activity per partner
• ✅ WP1 budget does not exceed 20% of total project grant
• ✅ Partner budget shares proportionate to partner workload
• ✅ Four consistency checks completed — work plan vs objectives, budget, partner roles and timeline
• ✅ Impact section includes specific reach estimates and named dissemination channels
• ✅ All IOs planned for open-access publication on Erasmus+ Results Platform under CC-BY licence