The call for proposals is co-funded by the European Union. It will support projects allowing students to gain practical experience, knowledge and competences and the projects promoting cooperation and collaboration and sharing knowledge between the higher education system and the work environment (economic activities, non-economic activities, non-profit sector in regional and local environment). This will allow young people to develop the skills for turning ideas into reality, an entrepreneurial mindset, innovativeness, creative and critical thinking and creativity. In turn, this will ensure greater employability and smoother university-to-work transition. The call for proposals will also aim to address other challenges facing higher education, i.e., systemic transfer of knowledge between higher education and workplace settings, greater flexibility and responsiveness of study programmes to the needs of labour market and long-term cooperation between the higher education institutions and the world of work. Additionally, the call will contribute to setting up an institutional framework to ensure an open and innovative higher education landscape. The projects will be implemented in both cohesion regions by taking into account the location of the beneficiary that will carry out the project.      

The call for proposals will be carried out under Slovenia’s EU Cohesion Policy Programme 2021-2027, priority Skills and responsive labour market, specific objective Improving the quality, inclusiveness, effectiveness and labour market relevance of education and training systems including through validation of non-formal and informal learning, to support acquisition of key competences including entrepreneurial and digital skills, and by promoting the introduction of dual-training systems and apprenticeships.

The available budget for the call is 15,200.000 euros; the call will receive nearly 8.5 million euros, more specifically 8,337,200 euros, from the European Social Fund Plus.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is on 16 September 2024.

The documentation relating to the call for proposals is available online at https://rb.gy/hucmck.