 Hello and welcome to NEMO's webinar on cross-border cooperation that will give an update on our toolkit from 2021 and explain possibilities of the Rasmus Plus. My name is Rebecca and I work as a communications officer at NEMO. As the network of European museum organizations, our main activities include advocating for museums at EU level, providing training opportunities such as this webinar, providing a platform for museums to exchange and learn from each other, and helping museums to cooperate across borders. And in connection to that, we are very happy to have you with us here today from across Europe and the world as we present today's webinar, facilitated by Margarita Sani and Evident Kindle Johansinga. And applying for EU funding can seem complicated and overwhelming and we want to empower museums to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by EU programs. And therefore we published a toolkit a few years ago and with that toolkit as a starting point, we will describe recent updates of programs such as Horizon Europe and Creative Europe. Margarita Sani is the author of the toolkit and an expert when it comes to the EU jungle. Margarita will later be in dialogue with Evident Kindle Johansinga, the senior officer at the Sturian Museums Organization, Muses in Austria, to understand how small institutions can benefit from different possibilities offered by Rasmus Plus. At the end of this webinar, you will have the opportunity to ask questions in the Q&A round using the chat function. And now there, Margarita and Evident, the floor is yours. Thank you, Rebecca. And here we go. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We will start, in fact, as Rebecca was saying, we start from here, from the cross-border cooperation for museums toolkit, which you can Google, which you can find online, which you can download, and I invite you to do so. It was produced as Rebecca was mentioning, actually at the end, it was finalized at the end of 2020, published in early 2021. And it was a response from Nemo to the problem which had been evident after Nemo's research that only a few museums in Europe, not enough museums in Europe, are using European funds. So it was thought as a sort of like a support and encouragement to museums to be more active in that respect. So the toolkit itself is meant to be a step-by-step guide to take you by the hand and lead you through, Rebecca was saying the jungle, let's say the complex field of European projects. I'm showing you here the table of contents and focusing on the core of the toolkit. So these steps that you have to take in order to write an application, to understand how European funds work, to find partners and so on. Let's look at them in more detail. So first of all, organizational check, what do you have to do? You have to look at your organization, see if you have the financial and the human capacity to tackle a European project. If working internationally is in the mission of your organization, of course, if you're not the director, you have to check with your boss whether that would be interesting to take part or to lead a European project. So a bit of an organizational check of what you can or cannot do or what is useful or not useful for your organization must be done. And also a check on whether you already have connections at European or international levels if you're part of a network and so on. Because being part of a network is the second must be, being part or having a network of contacts. This is because, of course, a European project can only be done in partnership. The minimum required number of organizations for a European project, the very minimum is three, three organizations from three different countries. And so it is important to have a network. And how do you build a network if you have none? Nemo, this is also, this infographic is also in the toolkit. I mean, there are many ways of doing so. And you can start easy by attending international conferences and workshops or events, participating in study visits or studies exchanges. All these two opportunities are offered by Nemo, two Nemo members. You can attend events in another country, you can travel to another country. And also, which is very useful, I think, start by being a minor partner or an associate partner in a EU funded project that will give you a first hand experience on how a European project works. And then, of course, you develop an idea or an idea comes to mind, sort of like that, bright idea. But then having an idea is not sufficient. And we will go back to this in a second. It's not sufficient, but when you have an idea, you also start looking for funds. And this is what we're getting into in a moment, what European funds are available for museum projects for cultural heritage projects. And I was saying it is important to look at the funding sources and to understand what can be funded by European funds. Because this is, if anything of this webinar, please remember this, that Europe does not fund projects but finances its policies through projects. Which means that you might have the brightest idea, but if this idea does not match with European priorities, so with European policies, you don't stand a chance to be funded. Because basically Europe pursues its objectives, its policies, and it is through these projects, through the projective funds, that it tries to achieve its aims. So your project must be in line with the European priorities and objectives. And so in fact, developing a project idea, having a project idea is not sufficient, but developing a project idea must, as I was saying, be in line with the organization's mission and objectives. This is very important because you cannot develop a project which is completely detached from your organization, which, I mean, you feel that doesn't bring you anything because it is extra work, it is extra effort. In terms of money, it is, the money is probably just enough to achieve the activities that the project lists say in the application. So it really has to be useful also for your organization. I mean, you have to go a bit out of your way, it cannot be something that is only useful for your organization, otherwise there would be no reason for embarking on a European in a European project. But it has to sort of, I always say, you have to keep a balance, a balance between what is useful for you, what is useful for your partners, and what is important for the EU. A good project stems from an analysis of needs and an analysis of the context, because you really have to explain it also in the application why you decided to embark on this project. It has to resonate with interests and priorities of peer organizations in other countries, so it has to, in a way, be in line with your own organization, but also with the aims and objectives of the partners. Otherwise, they don't see a reason for joining you in the partnership. And to be in line with the priorities of the funding program, as I was saying, it has to have an international value. One of the typical questions in the EU application is what is the European added value. And this is simply so because there are many ways of funding a project, and maybe before turning to European funds, you should look at whether your project is, whether it's possible to fund your project at local level, at national level. But if you decide to go for European funds, then you have to show and to give evidence of the fact that this idea is important for Europe, at European level. And also very difficult to achieve normally, the project should be sustainable after the completion, after the end of the funding period. And this is again a typical question, what's going to happen to the project after the EU funding ends? And it is important to think already ahead of how you want to keep it alive. The toolkit is providing you with lots of ideas on how to do this, on how to study the context, on how to identify the target groups and the other stakeholders, on how to identify the potential partners and also how to detail the project, on how to detail it into project activities, into outputs, also called deliverables, because the other thing you have to learn is that there is a jargon, there is an EU jargon, which is important to get familiar with. And also drafting along with the work plan, drafting a risk management plan. What risks will this project present and which mitigation measures can be imagined? This is a visual help to see how the project normally unfolds. You have to think of activities, think of outcomes, of times, and all of these can vary sub activities, and all of these has to be costed, of course, and this can also be visualized with a GANCH chart. This bar chart shows how the project unfolds over time. And again, all this is in the toolkit, but don't worry because the application forms themselves help you think in a very structured way. So it is probably just enough, I mean, the toolkit is useful, of course, to anticipate what's coming, but just by following the questions in the application form, you will be forced to think ahead, to plan forward, to imagine even the smallest details of the project, because all that you are declaring in the application form is becoming your contract. You don't sign a contract, by the way, you don't even sign a contract, but you sign an agreement with the commission or with the agency that is in charge of dealing with all the administrative aspects of the EU funds. So what you write is binding, so you better think ahead and think in depth of what you want to achieve, how you want to achieve it, and how much money you need for that. So the project idea is described in terms of objectives, of beneficiaries and target groups, of activities, well-detailed, well-costed outputs, which are the deliverables, so the products, the short-term products, or outcomes, which are the long-term products. To give you an example, an output in a project could be, within your project, you are delivering a training course, and that's the output, the training course itself, it's an output, the outcomes is to provide the beneficiaries of that training with skills that will be useful for them in the long run, in the medium long run. Of course, you have to think of the partners and of the budget, so all this is in the project idea. And then you write the application, and again here in the toolkit, there are lots of tips to do so, but so far for the toolkit, I mean you will find it all there. You will also find at the end of it a glossary, so terms that we just encountered briefly during this conversation, ready, like the gun chart, like milestones, like outputs, outcomes, deliverables, they are all there. So the objective this morning is that of not only recapping what is in the toolkit, but having a quick look of what is new, of some of the new features of the new funding period. As you know, Europe, every seven years, there is a new funding period, so new programs with sometimes new features and new priorities. So when the toolkit was finalized at the end of 2020, some of these programs, most of them were not there because the new funding program that we are in is 2021-2027. So it was not possible to include these new aspects in the toolkit. So what is new? Well, first of all, some new resources are there to help you. And this is, for me, the most important entry point to European funding, the funding and tender portal. And this is, as you see, and I'm showing you better here, you have a list of all the programs available. You click on them and you're sent to the web page of that program with all the details. You can also look at which calls are open. So the search funding and tenders functionality is also very useful. You can see if there is an open call for Creative Europe or Rasmus Plus or any other of the programs that are listed. It also supports you in participating. So it is, in a way, it's doing a bit what the toolkit does. It gives you a step-by-step help to decide and to find out how to find a suitable call for proposal. So again, how to match your idea with the call, how to find partners. There's also a search, a partner search functionality, which is useful, although I will not recommend to rely only on that, because it is very important to know your partners or at least some of them when you start. I mean, of course, there can always be new newcomers, but it's good to start with a good partnership, reliable partnership. We are back to what we were saying when mentioning the building of a network as an essential element. And then it leads you through, actually, the basics, creating an EU login account because you do have to create your own profile if you want to participate in EU projects, whether as a partner or whether as a coordinator. Okay. And then you can also look at projects and results, which means that you can browse through the projects that were already funded and to have an idea of what was already financed and to sort of like gather new input and suggestions. And there is a lot also in terms of support, guidance and manuals, list of frequently asked questions, the help desk and support services, support videos, so there is quite a bit. The webinars that are regularly delivered when there's a new call, they are also to be found here. So even if you cannot attend online, you can always retrieve these good and useful supporting tools. Another important resource that was not there before is this cultural EU funding guide. We will go back to it in a moment. I'm just browsing the website with you for a second to show you what is there. We were saying it is important to be familiar with European policies because you have to be in line. Your project has to be in line with European priorities and policies. So here, when you click on the policies tab, it opens up all this list of relevant documents that you can access and that help you become more familiar with European policies. Or if you want to look at cultural heritage, if you're interested in cultural heritage, how it is considered in European policies, here you have this other tab or Creative Europe, which is one of the most important best known European programs for culture. There's more detail on Creative Europe. And going back to the guide and why it is important. The guide is important. This is the guide. I find it a very useful resource for starting. And again, this is brand new for 2021, 2027. I'm showing you the table of contents. And here, from the table of contents, you already see that it does not focus only on the typical Creative Europe Erasmus Plus or other EU programs that we are familiar with. But it lists 20 European programs that can fund the cultural projects. So it's very, very important to look at them, at least to be aware that there is much more competition, of course, for cultural projects within the cultural programs. But maybe in programs on, I don't know, European, say, what is it? European Solidarity Corpse or Asylum Migration and Integration Fund. Maybe there will not be such a competition for cultural projects and your project might stand a better chance to be funded. In the cultural EU funding guide, you also find, which I find very, very useful, a list of case studies. Again, and a list of case studies that relate to different of these funding programs, and not the usual ones, so to say. So again, you can read, you can be inspired. Let's look more in detail to three of these funding programs, which are the most, the ones that cultural institutions normally turn to. One is Horizon Europe, which succeeded Horizon 2020, and which is the research program for Europe in all fields. I see one, two, three pillars, they cover all areas. And for the first time in 2021, so in the funding period 2021-2027, more prominence was given to cultural creativity and inclusive society. So there are more opportunities for cultural projects to be funded here. I'm just showing you, and I know it's a bit blurry, the list of calls that are contained into the Horizon Europe World Programme 2023-2024 under the strength cultural creativity and inclusive society. For instance, advanced technologies for remote monitoring of heritage monuments and artifacts, cultural and creative industries for sustainable climate transition, revisiting the digitization of cultural heritage, cultural heritage and transformation facing change with confidence, fostering socio-connective development and job creation in rural and remote areas through cultural tourism, and so on and so forth. So the only thing is that Horizon Europe, being the research program and giving big money because the projects funded are funded for at least one million euro. So it's on the normal budget for an Horizon Europe project is one, two millions, sometimes even more. The only point is that big organizations and normally universities go for it. So you might find your place here as a small organization or as a partner if you are, if you're asked to take part, I would say as a museum, maybe if you are a large museum or a large research organization, you could lead an Horizon Europe project, but otherwise it's better to find your place as a small partner within these partnerships. What is new in Horizon Europe that was not there before? I mentioned in this call new ways of participatory management and sustainable financing of museums and other cultural institutions. Because, and I quote, it says, proposals are encouraged to include close interaction with local, regional, national communities and authorities, as well as cooperation with research institutions and the cultural and creative stakeholders. So there's already an invitation to include smaller organizations in the project. And I could not retrieve a previous call also an Horizon Europe call 2021, where it was binding to give some of the money of the project budget to museums, to small, medium sized museums in the area of like 30,000 euros per museum. So that would be an excellent way of starting because you have your small budget and you are already included in a larger project. I listed here the three projects that are currently running using the money of this call. So for you to have a look to see what was funded. Creative Europe, as I was saying, is the other typical funding strand that cultural organizations turn to. It is made up of two sub programs, culture and media. It provides financial support for the transnational ability capacity building circulation of art, artists, cultural workers and audience development. And the new program is oriented towards new commission priorities. So focusing on greening gender equality, social inclusion and stronger international dimension. And there are three different ways you can go for a small scale project, medium scale project, large scale project with less or more partners and of course less or more money. What is new in creative Europe? Well, there is one mobility scheme, which is quite interesting, which was experimented, it was on trial, and then it became a stable component of creative Europe, which is iPortunous and you can actually find more information on the website of iPortunous. So the mobility scheme, mainly for artists, but also for cultural professionals to move to go on mobility to go to other countries to train to create also the creative innovation labs are also new, which incentivize players from cultural and creative sectors to design and test innovative digital solutions. And then I wanted to mention this special call to support Ukrainian displaced people and the Ukrainian cultural and creative sectors because although the European programs are stable. So in a sense, and this is what some of my colleagues see as a real plus is that you don't you're not going to be surprised and not so much. I mean, for seven years, you know, pretty much what's going to be, which calls are going to be launched every year, which priorities are there, they are stable. Nevertheless, now and then there are new calls, which which respond to new needs. And for instance, some years ago there was a special call for cultural projects involving migrants and refugees. Last year, September 2022, there was this special call to support Ukraine. And then we come to Erasmus Plus and we will devote the last part of this conversation to Erasmus Plus, which is the EU flagship program for education, formal and informal and for training. It covers five different fields. We're all familiar with the Erasmus thinking of university students, but in fact, Erasmus Plus covers also school education, so school teachers vocational education and training, high education, so universities, adult education, so lifelong learning and youth. And there are three main actions in Erasmus Plus. Key activity one focuses on mobility projects. I mean, we're going to go deep into this. So funds are given to go abroad to take part in courses and training to do job shadowing. Key activity two places emphasis on organizational cooperation and partnerships, so you will find a cooperation projects funded by key activity to strategic partnerships. Also sector skills alliances which are transnational projects aimed at identifying skill gaps in a specific sector and designing and delivering training programs to rectify the situation. So key activity three to support policy cooperation at European level. I mentioned and I will stop on this for a second. The charter project because Nemo is a partner in it. This is a sector skills alliance. The sector skills alliance project was funded by the sector skills alliance funding strand of Erasmus Plus, and it is quite a complex project which will last four years will end at the end of 2024. So funds to, as I was mentioning before, fill this gap between the education sector, the training sector, and the skills of cultural heritage professionals. So main objectives that have creative and alliance to make sure that cultural heritage professionals are provided with the skills they need now and in the future. But we want to make it simple or simpler, especially for those who are just now starting to get interested in European projects. And so we want to mention the small scale and the projects that are funded the cooperation projects that are funded by national agencies because until I think the previous or maybe the also the pre previous funding program. All Erasmus Plus projects were funded at European level so they were so to say centralized actions all application with applications where we'll go to Brussels. Now more recently applications go to the national to the Erasmus Plus national agencies and they are assessed at national level, which means I mean there are pros and cons. Of course, it means that your competition is at national level. The coordinator, the application is submitted to the national agency of the coordinator of the project. So the lead partner submits the application to its national agency. The pros are that if you start and if you want to start small, which is always advisable, you have say a partner, your national agency to whom you can turn and you can speak to in your national language so there are surely benefits from this from this scheme. And so now we want to with the help of Evelyn who's very experienced in this and she's very active in programs in Erasmus Plus programs that are brand new so she's she has a lot of knowledge. We want to focus on mobility projects and cooperation projects of Erasmus Plus which are funded at local level at local national actually. Why, because starting small is always a good idea starting small gives you the opportunity of testing of seeing how a European project works but not with the responsibilities of the coordinator in Erasmus Plus projects and programs that are always learning components so the learning component is good when you start and you go on mobility or you can build mobility into your project, which is for me an excellent way of learning from peers. So I stop here and I give the floor to Evelyn who will lead us through these new functionalities and opportunities offered, especially to small organizations or medium sized organizations by the Erasmus Plus program. Thank you very much Magarita. I hope everyone can hear me well. I will do it very short and concise hopefully before we to start to talk a little bit about what we do in my organization. And please allow me a very personal view on this which comes from my personal engagement for many years in European networking. So what I will talk about is Magarita mentioned this, the most accessible branch of the Erasmus Plus project tree. It's the key action one called personal mobility for learners and stuff in adult education. We see ourselves in the museums as part of lifelong learning and adult education and it was to be honest quite new when we started with our projects for the National Agency to work with a museum overhead organization and with museums in general. It's one of these very many branches of Erasmus Plus, and in my opinion it's in fact the best way to start to learn how things can work when you make you project when you're part of a new project, because it's it's it's quite simple and easy to understand if you if you are a little bit deeper inside. First of all, I will do my personal organizational check as you should do it at the beginning of a project, showing you is behind this, what I'm talking about. Then, let me give you a picture of what my organization reached within the last eight years working with Erasmus Plus. And finally, also already within in conversation with Magarita, I will give you a short insight of the experiences of how we how we make it, how we organize it with whom we work together, and we do it very very practically and everything has to be very simple and clear for us because of the structure of our organization. Musis, the Syrian Museum organization is an independent regional organization existing for 30 years now. And it was more or less a help to help ourselves organization at the beginning. We are working with and for the museums in the province of Syria. Basically, but we already started years ago, also to cooperate and work for other museums in Austria as well. We have a very politically funded if not, we get a very very small support of some some thousand euro, but therefore, we have to work in the project scene, more or less from the beginning on. We have a very small structure that is just me and just recently one colleague and we are both in part time and all in all we have more or less 43 hours a week, officially to work and I say, very consciously officially because it's when when you're enthusiastic for something sometimes you you lose your, your view to the watcher to your to your the hours that you have already worked on. We have in our organization also a supporting structure, which comes from a job placement project that we do together for many years already with the job placement agency and the provincial government in Syria. And we have people there coming for each of them for half a year and support us on their way to the first job market. But it's very, very helpful because without them and without the three so called key workers for this project. Many, many things could not happen because in these few hours that they support us, they can do things that are the simpler things, let's say. Our experience go back to the former framework before 2014. And at that time about education programs that are now in Erasmus plus were called group projects, and at that time we started using the opportunity opportunity to go abroad to learn as single persons in personal mobility learning projects. They were not projects, but they were the offer to go alone to a partner organization to a training whatever all around Europe and then it changed in 2014. And at that time it was me thinking about how could we as such a small organization still be part of the system and get some support of this European learning and also let our European network grow through these opportunities. Well, and we started in 2015. When I wrote an application, but not just for us, because it was I always think it's more meaningful to use my time for more people than just for one or two. And so I decided to ask three museums in Syria in our province if they would like to cooperate with me in for such a project and being partners in a consortium where we as Moses could be the leaders of well. It worked quite well with just nine persons doing trainings abroad, you know, in Europe, or visiting colleagues in institutions in so called job shadowing job shadowing means that you can go to a partner institution. You're hosted there by a partner institution, and either you stay there for one week for two weeks and shadow their work there, exchange, learn. Or you are hosted there and you have the opportunity also to move around a little bit and to see other institutions and during this time to making to make most of this time. Well, for museums, this is, in my opinion, the most interesting opportunity using this cable. Well, and what happened during the next years, it was quite successful this first year. In the second year, we had already five consortium partners and then Austrian museums asked me when I presented this project in an Austrian museum conference. I believe it would be possible for them also to take part because they don't have the structure and enough stuff also to apply for such a project I am convinced it would be possible. But nevertheless, it had an added value for us to say yes we try this, because it made for us and also for all the other participants in this network project. To create a new European minded network in the museum scene in Austria. And step by step from year to year between 2016 and the application in 2020. We grew. And all in all, in these years, we reached 32 different consortium partners in Austria. So some of them are already for the fourth or fifth time as a partner in the project, and more than 200 educators mediators curators, but also trainers or advisors with from little, little independent companies. So we included whoever was interested in as an institution, and also always looking at who could be interesting for this, this European minded network in Austria. Well, this project 2020 I don't have to mention it really was more than a challenge. Because it was it should last for 50 months. It lasts nearly three years, but it was one of the most successful and just yesterday we got the message that it's one of the few best practice examples in Austrian adult education erasmus plus. Ka one because of the structure because of how we run it and how we solve the problems that we're in. And we were really just two of us to organize all this during these three years was quite the challenge. Well, and when the new framework started in the year 2021, a new rules came into erasmus plus many things changed and, you know, we are one is always a little bit afraid of things getting more complicated than they were. But it's really not like this. We have the impression that all the responsible bodies in in the European Union in Brussels, the decision makers really try to make things accessible projects accessible and so erasmus plus became in my opinion as a small consortium leader. More logic, more controlled in the best way and easier to access. We just saw to make it short. Since 21. You don't have two possibilities to apply for an erasmus plus project. I am talking about care. Okay, one mobility projects. Either you apply as a new, new coming institution, trying it for the first or second time, applying for a small scale project up to 35 mobilities, and you can just do this for your own organization, not as a consortium. The other possibility, and this is what we did and what we do is to apply for a so called accreditation. It means that you apply for three, four or five years for one main concept, one idea behind and more or less three goals that you want to reach after having run the number of projects that are in these application years. In our case, we applied in 21 for the period till 26 for all in all four projects, not for six projects just for four because learning from this 2020 project which was really huge with 52 mobilities from 17 institutions. We said, okay, it doesn't make sense to kill ourselves and to do it every year. We do it in a proper way we do it well for projects in six years. The big difference is that you just have to write one big application, you just have to find one, one good concept and good goals that you want to reach and then every other year, when you start with your projects you just have to apply for the money that you will get. You just tell by a form in the web. This year we do 30 mobilities. And when we started, it was, we had to apply very detailed. We had to tell them how many people from which organization in the consortium will be part of. And now you just tell them this number of consortium partners, this number of people, you don't have to tell where you really want to go how long you want to adjust how long you want to go. The calculation of the lump sums you get for the travel is done by is not done in your application but it's done behind and you get the budget, the information about the sum of your budget, and then you can calculate and organize in a very, very open way. It's incredibly more easy than it was before. If you do such an accreditation and we are really, really glad about that. Well, we just start with our first project now with 25 mobilities to learn how it works. We are really looking forward. Well, let me do a little jump to one of the duties that we have to fulfill and we, as in all other European projects. You have to grant a very good communication within the project with all the partners with all the consortium partners, and also the partners on the other side, in our case our hosting partners. We have to provide a good dissemination scheme a good dissemination concept, and small as we are this is not so easy. But we decided, first of all, to include a Rasmus plus in our website of the organization. We have information of every project here and after the end of the project here. We put the reports that we require of our participants or our participants teams. This is like we organize it. It's not obligatory from side of Erasmus plus we want this to make the connection a little bit closer between all the partners that we have in Austria. The reports get on the website and on the other hand side we have a closed Erasmus plus Facebook group. You can imagine not all of the participants are at Facebook but most of them. And as it's a closed group, nobody will see what we post there. But it was a simple possibility to find a communication tool from on spot. So when our colleagues are on spot, example in Helsinki, they report more or less life, what they see, what they do, whom they meet. And at the end, we take all their reports together and make a little report out of it from each and every group or each and every traveling person. This is, everything is done in a very, very simple way because we don't have the resources to do it in another way. There would be a very good tool from the EU, which is for adult education. So I talked too quickly, it's a communication tool, but it was too, I tried to implement this but it was absolutely too complicated for our consortium partners and participants to learn another communication tool. And so we still make it via Facebook. Yes, I will. What else did I want to tell you? Yes, perhaps one interesting thing. We started with mobility, solo mobility, so people could say, I want to be part of the project. I'm interested in this or that museum or this or that training that is offered in wherever and they could go there. But step by step, we tried not just to gain a European added value but also an Austrian added value. And so we decided with the project 2020 to form little travel teams, learning teams, but not from the same institution as we have a lot of institutions in the project. We asked them, and we also pre-selected our hosting partners. Knowing or because of my personal European network and network of very close together working colleagues, we could find or we can define the best hosting partners to reach our goals. And the last project had the theme storytelling and storytelling is a very special thing. And so we were very conscious that it makes sense to pre-select the partners and not to travel anywhere. And we formed little groups together from museums that have not yet worked together up to now. And this added value came out to be very, very high for the Austrian museum scene taking part in our project. And so we will go on like this. For our four year, four project application now in the accreditation system. Our goal is to implement the 17 SDGs, the strength, other sustainability goals of the United Nations in museum work. This is something that Austrian museums work on for two or three years now, and we want to support this. And also this is an issue where it makes absolutely sense to pre-select the hosting partners because we want to gain a mutual effect, a real mutual effect in all institutions that take part hosting and learning. Well, I end now here with the special projects that we do. I just wanted to tell you from our point of view, what are the very, very helpful features that are provided by the EU. This is first of all a very well written program guide of Erasmus Plus, which is always open on my screen because there are always things in that I have to look at. Before all, you find the priorities Magarita already mentioned and telling you some words about these priorities. Being a museum and working in the museum scene, it's really not difficult to meet the priorities, mostly after the new museum definition since 22 that we have now because all the priorities in this framework fit absolutely perfectly to what museum work is now and should be in future. And so reaching the priorities in an application is really not difficult. The better you reach, the better you write it down and the better you communicate within the group that you work with, the consortium or your learners in your country or in your organization, the better, but this is not hindering an application for the museum scene. Contrary. Something very new is the so called beneficiary tool in the form of framework. It was called mobility tool and it was nothing more than online based data collection for your very project. For each and every person for every mobility, every hosting partner. And in this mobility tool you also had to finish your final report. And, but you were very self organized in this between the starting point and the end date when you had to to transfer your final report. The beneficiary tool is not very different in terms of what you feed in. But it's in the meantime, a kind of controlling system, because you are more or less a little bit forced to do all these things in time. So when your first mobility starts, you are you, you have the duty to put all these data in time in. It's it's set up in itself controlling system and this is very helpful not to have a huge workload at the end or not to lose your control over the project because it is in fact one of the most crucial things to keep track, keep it simple but to keep in in track to have the overview during the project, mostly if you are a small institution, just doing this beside all your other duties. So the beneficiary tool seems to me very good, very well done, very intelligent and I think it works already. We haven't yet put any data in because we are right, we are right now starting with the first project where we use the beneficiary tool. And it didn't, you know, always when a new framework starts the technical things last a little bit longer to really to work well now it works absolutely well. And, and I'm a great fan of it. And, yeah, Magarita mentioned it. It's really helpful to work closely together with the national agency. And in terms of Austria I just can say they are the most helpful people in any question and they had a lot of difficult questions to answer and challenges to solve with us together during the corona that the pandemic period. Because many, many things came differently as they were planned. And it was absolutely supportive and fantastic to work. So I just address your national agency and you will be glad and you will be more keen and and more sure about what you can do, because they will really help you. Perhaps I will stop here Magarita, and we can start to talk a little bit. Yes, especially I would like to answer some of the questions that came from the audience but before we do I would just like to underline a couple of things that you said. And not now but but when we chatted to prepare this webinar, you also mentioned that through mobility, it is possible to invite experts, not only sending out people so there is a lot that the term mobility covers, you can go on with regulatory visits, you can invite experts to come to your organization, you can send your own staff, and Evelyn gave a wonderful example of how these Erasmus Plus projects are not only for standalone organizations but very useful also for networks or museum projects such as the Stadium Museum Association, because they benefit. There is this cascading and multiplying effects. So it's in order to, as you said, to build this European network, this European minded network of professionals. Great. The other thing I wanted to mention is that now, not for mobility projects but for small cooperation projects, there is really an incentive for newcomers, and that I read in the guidelines that newcomers are sort of like prioritized. There is an effort of the agencies to open up to new organizations and make them experience what it is like to be in a European partnership with just another partner. So there are small partnerships, just, you know, two partners, two countries. So I stop here but I'm asking the colleagues who support us for this webinar whether there are questions that we cannot avoid. So very urgent questions. I mean, myself, I'm ready to stay for any question. Okay. Hello. Thank you, Evelina Margarita for this very insightful presentation. And I have asked in the chat with people to write their questions. So while they are typing, which I can see that someone is doing, then I would just like to thank you again. And maybe I can ask a question in the meantime. Margarita, if an organization would like to get involved in a bigger project, you did suggest that first get involved as an associate partner or a minor partner as one of the suggestions. And how could someone find those kinds of opportunities? Well, I mean, there is the partner search. I mean, there is also the possibility of writing up your wish list, so to say, I'm an organization of this kind I would like to participate. That's, however, not maybe not so fruitful. It's difficult. I think it all comes with being involved in conversations with colleagues. And finding out which are the topics of common interest. And so it takes time. I mean, in the toolkit, we have also testimonials of people and thinking of the Maritime Museum, which is very active in projects with other Maritime museums in Europe. And he says it took him about 10 years to really build this network. I wouldn't say 10, but you know, a few years at least. So, and associate partnership is not very, I mean, it's, it's not so convenient in the sense that you don't receive money, but you don't do anything. You don't have to do anything, but you don't receive money. So I would rather go for a minor part in a larger project. Like in one of my projects in the project, one of the projects I coordinated years ago, we had one partner said we're just interested in taking part. So we just want the budget to travel and to come to partner meetings. That is all. And other partners that have many more responsibilities, much more money. So that is also why I'm back and always be negotiated. So that's my answer. Yeah. Well, it looks like we have a question here that I'll read out for you. So thank you very much for all this information. It's very interesting and helpful. You said in order to apply and start a project, it is important to have a concept and idea behind it and three goals. Could you please give an example to understand this better? Could it be a project on children's education or specific topic for a museum, for example? Thank you very much. So shall I answer? Yeah, start. Please. I start. Of course it can be on children's education. It can be on anything. Now, the idea is that everything should be very clear in your head what you want to achieve and why and very clearly expressed for the evaluators who will read your application. These in very general terms, and of course I'm available to continue this conversation also outside the webinar with concrete examples of applications that were written and funded. But Evelyn, you wanted to say something. Yeah, well, in terms of Erasmus Plus, they have different branches. So adult education means really learning for adult people. But there are also other branches. There is youth, there is pupil and sometimes you can also work together with not museum institutions for such an application. You just have to take a close look to what branch you are in and what is the name of the program to fit in. So children's education just fits into a program where also children's education is involved. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I can remember, I mean, the hands-on, the International Organization of Children Museums is the lead partner of, I'm now thinking of a creative Europe project. So just moving away because indeed Erasmus Plus is for the friend that we have been discussing is concerned more with adult education. So you have to bend, but for children's education you can probably turn to other funding sources and creative Europe is one. And I'm very aware of this recent project where hands-on, which is, as I said, the Association International Association of Children's Museums is the lead partner. Thank you. I hope that answers your question. And since I see someone is still typing, I could ask maybe Evelyn because... Evelyn, you wrote a message that you were already asking people to get in touch if they want to collaborate in the next few years. Does that only apply to museums who are your members? Or do they have to be in Austria to be able to be part of this? I mean, I'm always very interested in finding new hosting partners all over Europe. I saw a colleague from Bursa is here, for example, or from Norway. These are countries where we haven't yet been. So it would be really, really great to get in touch with new hosting partners all over Europe. Yeah, when we close this webinar, which we will wrap it up now quite soon, you will be redirected to a page with contact information to Evelyn in case you are interested to be one of the partners in this project. And I think with those words, we would wrap this up. And I thank you so much, Evelyn and Margarita, for taking the time to explain this topic to us. It's very complex, but I think everyone now has a bit more of understanding of it all. So thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure.