Job Shadowing vs Structured Courses: Which Erasmus+ Mobility Fits Your School?

Erasmus+ staff mobility isn’t one format — job shadowing and structured courses are two distinct activity types, each with its own rules and duration limits.

What the Programme Guide actually says about job shadowing

Under Key Action 1, the Erasmus+ Programme Guide defines job shadowing as a period of 2 to 60 days that a participant spends at a hosting organisation in another country, learning through observation and interaction rather than a fixed syllabus. The guide requires a clearly identified mentor at the host organisation — the person being shadowed — and caps the arrangement to a maximum of two participants shadowing the same mentor at once, so the experience stays close to one-on-one.

What it says about structured courses and training

Courses and training events are defined separately: 2 to 10 days, built around “a pre-defined learning programme and learning outcomes,” delivered by qualified professionals, and required to bring together participants from at least two countries so the learning stays interactive. The guide is explicit that “entirely passive activities such as listening to lectures, speeches or mass conferences are not supported.” One detail worth knowing if your school manages an accredited mobility consortium: grants for courses and training are capped at a maximum of 50% of the total project grant — a project-level budgeting rule, not something an individual applicant needs to calculate.

The practical difference

Job shadowing suits a specific question: how does this one organisation actually do things? It’s flexible in length, built around a single mentor, and works well when what you’re after is exposure to a particular practice, culture or workplace. A structured course suits a broader goal — a shared curriculum, a fixed timetable, and a room full of peers from other countries working through the same material together.

How EMA runs each one

Our job shadowing programme runs across five host cities in Türkiye — Antalya, Istanbul, İzmir, Mersin and Bodrum — as a one-on-one placement. An applicant is matched with a mentor at a host workplace, usually weeks or months ahead of the placement to allow time for planning, then observes and works alongside them for the agreed period before receiving a certificate directly from the host organisation. Because matching happens individually rather than on a fixed group schedule, applications need to open earlier than they would for a course — the job shadowing page lists which subject areas are currently open.

Our structured courses run the other way: a published date, a group of participants from different countries, a set curriculum for the week, and a certificate issued to everyone who completes it. If your school already knows which topic it wants to build a training week around, a course gives you that structure; if what you need is a closer look at how one institution handles a specific practice, job shadowing gets you there.

Not sure which one fits?

Either way, both formats count as eligible KA1 staff mobility — the choice comes down to what your school is trying to learn, not which one is “better.”