At DissMark conference at Romania wich I am attending right now Gillian MacLaughin, Lingua Project Manager, Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency, European Commission gave a presentation about the future of the Lingua Action integrated in the new Lifelong Learning Programme.
I will give some key words important to me from her presentation:
Lingua as a name disappeared but not the activities funded in the last period.
– Better managed programmes and improved services for beneficiaries
– Better synergies between programmes
– More decentralised actions (managed at national level)
– Lingua 1 and 2 harmonised -> hybrids now possible
Decision making on the new Programme will be finished by the end of the year. Submission procedures and financial stuff will be revised.
No deadlines yet known. No application form available…
More or less new aspects:
Proportionality: as simple as possible for applicants and in proportion to the size of the grant, possibilities of lump sums
Electronic submission will be possible: download, write on your computer, submit electronically but paper submission is still required (!), standardised forms for financial information (budget)
Projects will have to define work packages
3 types of work packages:
1. Management (clear structures, balanced partnership)
2. Creation, development, reflection
3. Exploitation, dissemination, sustainability
Budget has to be derived from work packages!
Skills of the partnership have to be proven for each work package.
Peer review:
Decisions on projects funded will be made by peer review.
Agreement between 2 external experts required for “green light”.
Competition will be higher. Only best quality will be funded.
To address award criteria will be more important.
Further recommendations Gillian made:
– Internal identification of the organisation with your project
– Inclusion of local press, local politics
– Bring new organisations in your partnership
Some of the priorities:
– Early language learning
– Intercomprehension
– Languages for businesses (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanes…)
– Motivation of language learners
– Good practices
– Translation and interpretation technologies
– Minority languages will be as well included in the new Programme
– Budget lines for conferences
Still there are no dates for the publication of the first Call.