Accredited vs Short-Term Erasmus+ Mobility Projects: Which Should Your School Apply For?

Should your school apply for a short-term Erasmus+ project or go for full accreditation? The Programme Guide draws a clear line between the two.

Two different doors into KA1 funding

Schools and organisations in school education can access Erasmus+ KA1 mobility funding in one of two ways: a short-term project or an Erasmus Accreditation. They’re not stages of the same process — the Programme Guide treats them as genuinely different formats, built for different situations, and once you’re accredited you can no longer apply for the short-term route, because you already have permanent access to funding.

Short-term projects: built for a first attempt

Short-term projects exist, in the guide’s own words, “to allow organisations to set up a few activities in an easy way and to gain experience in the Programme.” The trade-off for that simplicity is a set of caps: a maximum of 30 participants per project, a duration of 6 to 18 months, and a limit of three short-term grants within any five consecutive call years. The format is also open only to individual applicant organisations — you can’t apply as a consortium coordinator. In exchange, the application itself is lighter: you submit a list and description of the specific activities you’re planning, and that’s essentially it.

Erasmus Accreditation: built for schools going regular

Accreditation is a different commitment. Instead of describing individual activities, your school submits an “Erasmus Plan” — a description of how mobility fits into your wider development goals — and once that’s approved, you get simplified, repeatable access to funding: each year’s application is mostly a budget estimate, not a fresh activity-by-activity proposal. There’s no fixed cap on participant numbers (only whatever limits apply at the budget allocation stage), projects run an initial 15 months and can be extended to 24 months with justification, and accredited schools can apply either individually or as the coordinator of a mobility consortium that includes other schools.

Which one actually fits your school

If this is your school’s first Erasmus+ project, or you’re testing whether staff mobility is something you want to build into your development plan at all, the short-term route is what the Programme Guide designed for exactly that situation — lower commitment, a defined activity list, a natural stopping point if it doesn’t suit you. If your school already knows it wants mobility to be a recurring part of how staff develop — not a one-off trip, but a standing line in the yearly plan — accreditation removes the need to re-justify that every single year, and lets you coordinate mobility for a group of partner schools if that’s relevant to you.

Either way, the course side stays the same

Whichever route your school takes, once a grant is in place the actual course selection works the same way: you pick a course that fits your school’s development plan and book it through the provider directly. Our course dates page lists what’s currently running, and our earlier piece on how KA1 funding actually reaches a school covers the budget side in more detail. If you’re not yet sure which application route fits, that’s a conversation for your school’s Erasmus+ coordinator and your National Agency — they’ll confirm what applies for your country and your school’s history with the programme.