Lifelong Learning Grundtvig Programme

The Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) is a European funding programme which supports education and training across Europe. The LLP provides funding for all stages of lifelong learning; for activities at school, at college, at university, in the workplace and in the community. The programme enables individuals at all stages of their lives to pursue stimulating learning opportunities across Europe.Br> The LLP addresses the teaching and learning needs of those in all forms of adult education, as well as the institutions and organisations providing or facilitating such education.

The LLP is made up of several different programmes offering a variety of opportunities:
  • Comenius - project-based partnerships, in-service opportunities and assistantships for all levels of school and further education
  • Erasmus - supports the mobility of HE students and staff across Europe, for both work placement and study purposes
  • Leonardo - for the development of skills and training.
  • Grundtvig - a passport to partnerships and training opportunities for adult education organisations, teachers and learners

Grundtvig Learning Partnership

The Grundtvig Learning Partnership is a framework for small-scale co-operation activities between organisations working in the field of adult education in the broadest sense. The partnerships focus more on process, than products and aim to broaden the participation of smaller organisations that want to include European cooperation in their education activities.

In a Grundtvig Learning Partnership trainers and learners from at least three participating countries work together on one or more topics of common interest to the co-operating organisations. This exchange of experiences, practices and methods contributes to an increased awareness of the varied European cultural, social and economic scene, and to a better understanding of areas of common interest. The participating organisations are encouraged to monitor and evaluate their transnational work and to interconnect it with the initiatives of their local community. They are also encouraged to cooperate with organisations and authorities at the national level, to ensure a sound basis for their ideas and activities and open up channels for dissemination. This will maximise the value of the transnational exchange, promote the circulation of good practice, and thus ensure the wider impact of results.

The Partnership can consist of all kinds of institutions and organisations, whether working in formal, non-formal or informal adult education.

In Grundtvig Learning Partnerships focusing on learner participation, learners should be actively involved in the project and their mobility should be encouraged as much as possible. Learning Partnerships focusing on management of adult education and/or teaching methods provide teachers, trainers and adult education managers with the opportunity to exchange experience and information, to develop together methods and approaches which meet their needs, and to test and put into practice new organisational and pedagogical approaches. In both cases, projects can involve co-operation with bodies from the local community, such as local authorities, social services, associations and enterprises.