M.A. European Youth Studies: European Development Project

Consortium and resources

Strong communication capacity and high levels of trust are essential to develop common projects and working practices across cultural, linguistic and national borders. The M.A. EYS consortium members are closely linked to each other through a dense web of longstanding professional cooperation in transnational scientific communities and international networks of research and policy experts. The coordination of the consortium lies with Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lynne Chisholm (University of Innsbruck).

The consortium represents a well-balanced geographical and cultural spread, with its members working at universities that have a strong regional identity. The consortium includes the leading figures in European youth research and its work is supported by a curriculum development advisor, an administrative coordinator and the coordinator of the European Commission/Council of Europe Youth Partnership.

The consortium was convened in early 2006. To date, its members have contributed their time and expertise on a voluntary basis. Resources for consortium meetings, development work and for administrative support has been provided so far by small-scale patchwork funding from partner universities (Innsbruck, Kuopio-Mikkeli/Finland and Luxembourg), from the European Commission/Council of Europe Youth Partnership and from the Youth Unit of the Luxembourg Ministry of Family and Integration; the Danube University of Krems has provided a net storage system for the sharing of digital documents. The Austrian Ministries of Science and Research (BMWF) and the Ministry of Health, Family and Youth (BMGFJ) have agreed to fund the development work at a significantly higher level from 2008.

The consortium is preparing an LLP-Erasmus Joint Study Programme Development application for submission at the end of February 2008. If successful, this will bring at least 200K€ (possibly maximum 300K€) from autumn 2008 to cover the full course development and a mini-pilot-course in 2010-2011, before the launch of the course in autumn 2011. As with all European funding programmes in this field, universities in the consortium must together contribute at least 25% of the total project budget. For the maximum grant of 300K€, this translates into a consortium contribution of 75K€ (for a total project budget of 375K€) over two years from autumn 2008. The current budget suggests that in reality, the project will need some 600K€ to complete its work – however, a significant proportion of these resources are likely to come via contributions in kind from the partner universities. The contribution of each partner depends on the tasks each takes on during the project period; this is framed and clarified by the workpackage structure of EU applications. Consortium universities and supporting instances in their countries are naturally welcome to contribute more funding and in-kind-resources; coordinating partner universities – in this case Innsbruck – generally account for about one-third of the budgetary allocation, since they are involved in all activities and also manage the entire project. 

On the assumption that the MA EYS LLP-Erasmus-JSP application succeeds in the first application round, the Phase II submission (with good prospects of success) requires that the relevant university authorities sign a standard letter of intent in which they commit themselves to the project development as set out in the application and to contribute their share of the budget as indicated above. This letter corresponds to those to be signed for EU-FP-project applications: it sets out agreement to conduct the activities as allocated in the project work-plan under the terms of the project budget. In the case of an LLP-Erasmus-JSP, this letter of intent does not automatically and necessarily commit partner universities to implementing a joint degree, but to work towards establishing the basis for such a joint degree in the future. In the initial period of implementation (from autumn 2011), the consortium assumes that at least two partner universities assure that registered M.A. EYS students will receive an M.A. award in conformity with their own regulations.