Apply to EU Trans-national Funds

• European Union

There are various types of funding available from the European Union besides the Structural Funds and the likes of the Peace III Programme and Interreg IVA. These are known as Trans-national funds which generally entail countries from across the 27 EU Members working on joint projects in order to access funding.

There are essentially two different types of trans-national funds:

• Projects which involve partner organisations from at least three countries,
• Exchanges of individuals or groups, which can be one-way or two-way.

There are several key aspects that are relevant regarding trans-national projects

• All projects must have a pan-European focus
• It is essential to have partners with different countries .most programmes seek a minimum of 3 partners from 3 different eligible countries (currently the 27 Member States, plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein - Croatia and Turkey may also be eligible for some programmes)
• Most applications are submitted to Brussels for decisions, however sometimes the technical assistance office in the country of application can filter out applications or indeed pass judgement
• Grants are not huge but small to medium
• There is no capital, salaried/revenue or annual funding available. The funding is specifically for time-bound periods of usually 1-2 years, however some have lasted up to 5 years.
• There may be pilot programme funding

Budget Lines
Voluntary and community organisations may also apply to ‘budget lines' of the European Commission. Each Directorate General (practically the equivalent of a government department) has a budget line which is the finance it has been allocated to implement work in pursuit of its mission. Similarly, as government departments in Northern Ireland may invite applications for core funding or specific programmes, so the Directorate Generals have funding opportunities and issue calls for applications. These Budget lines are in many cases trans-national in ethos.

Tenders
It is also a possibility for organisations to tender for contracts from the European Union. This very often involves competing with private enterprise and having to operate at a pan-European level and is therefore only viable for a very limited number of organisations. There are European Union guidelines for public procurement.

EXAMPLE PROGRAMMES

Information for the various EU trans-national funding programmes that offer funding opportunities for the period 2007 - 2013 are listed below.

Culture (2007-13)
The Culture Programme is a Community programme established for seven years (2007-2013) and is the EU's funding programme aimed at arts and culture with a budget of €408 million

Europe for Citizens
The aim of this programme is to bring Europe closer to its citizens and to enable them to participate fully in the European construction by promoting “active European citizenship”, especially the involvement of citizens and civil society organisations in the process of European integration. Through this programme, citizens have the opportunity to be involved in transnational exchanges and cooperation activities, contributing to developing a sense of belonging to common European ideals. There is a budget of €215 million.

Life+
LIFE is the only programme dedicated exclusively to the environment, and provides co-financing for projects to conserve the environment and exploit the full potential of natural sites in the EU and non-member countries. It can support projects covering

• Nature & Biodiversity
• Environment Policy & Governance
• Information & Communication

LIFE+ has a budget of €2.143 billion provides grants for innovative environmental schemes and biodiversity projects and will bring simplification by regrouping a broad range of existing environmental programmes and instruments in a single framework.

Youth in Action
Youth in Action is the Programme the EU has set up for young people which aims to inspire a sense of active European citizenship, solidarity and tolerance among young Europeans and to involve them in shaping the Union's future. It promotes mobility within and beyond the EU's borders, non-formal learning and intercultural dialogue, and encourages the inclusion of all young people, regardless of their educational, social and cultural background and has a budget of €885 million from 2007-13.

Lifelong Learning
The Lifelong Learning Programme comprises four sectoral programmes on school education (Comenius), higher education (Erasmus), vocational training (Leonardo da Vinci) and adult education (Grundtvig), and is completed by a transversal programme focusing on policy cooperation, languages, information and communication technology and dissemination and exploitation of results. Finally, a Jean Monnet programme focuses on European integration and support for certain key institutions and associations active in the field. The programme budget will be €6.9 billion for the total period 2007-2013.

Other EU Transnational Programmes include

• Media 2007
  MEDIA is the EU support programme for the European audiovisual industry and supports the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works and the budget will be €755 million over seven years (2007-13).
• Daphne III Programme
  Daphne is the EU programme to combat violence against children, young people and women with a general objective of Daphne III will be to contribute to the protection of children, young people and women against all forms of violence and to attain a high level of health protection, well being and social cohesion with a budget of €117 million (2007-13)

For further information on these schemes please download the accompanying pdf advice note.