The European Commission has published the new ECHE monitoring guide for Erasmus+ national agencies. This document provides the general quality framework for European and international cooperation activities funded through the Erasmus+ programme.

All higher education institutions based in EU member states and third countries associated to the programme must obtain the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) accreditation to participate in the programme. The Erasmus+ National Agencies (NAs) are responsible for promoting and monitoring the compliance of ECHE holders. The new guide serves as a tool to harmonize the way in which NAs undertake the monitoring. It offers a set of guidelines and good practice examples to facilitate monitoring and supporting of the ECHE holders. It also outlines procedures in case of non-compliance and three “pressure points” including core mobility principles (course catalogue, recognition, grading systems, credit transfer and grade conversion), inclusion and digitalisation.

The core mobility principles pressure point builds on the experiences of the previous programme generation and the past guide, while the inclusion and digitalisation pressure points have been newly added as two out of four horizontal priorities of the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 programme.

Each pressure point is accompanied by sample questions for site visits and an evaluation grid with a set of monitoring points.

The monitoring guide was created with the support of a working group coordinated by the European Commission, NAs, experts, and representatives from stakeholder organisations, including the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) and the European Students’ Union. The ESN has welcomed the publication of the guide and provided further evidence from the mobile students’ perspective in their recent statement.

On the financial front, the 2023 Erasmus+ budget was increased to EUR 4.43 billion in total.  Additional funding frontloaded from the 2027 budget goes to support Ukrainian learners and staff at all levels of education.

Finally, stakeholders have an opportunity to provide their feedback on grant management and other operational aspects of Erasmus+ through a call for evidence to evaluate the Education, Audio-visual & Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) together with other executive agencies including the Research Executive Agency, the European Research Council Executive Agency and the Innovation & Networks Executive Agency,  over the 2017/2018-2021 period. The deadline for submission is 7 April 2023.