Funding Programme

The European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) aims to support member states and regions to improve employment and education opportunities, to enhance social inclusion and to tackle poverty.

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Call overview

This call to support the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market and fostering their social inclusion.

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Call detail

This is a Call for proposals for EU grants tackling Long-Term Unemployment under the European Social Fund+ (ESF+) Social Innovation+ (SI+) initiative. The aim of this Call is to transfer or scale up proven and promising social innovations aimed at the integration of the long-term unemployed into the labour market and fostering their social inclusion.

The transnational projects should focus on: 

• cooperation with local employment stakeholders and partnerships between local employers and communities,
• improving the outreach of long-term unemployed people, including those facing the most barriers,
• providing an individualised, accessible, and inclusive approach to long-term unemployed people.

Long Term Unemployed Persons are individuals of working age who have been without employment for at least 12 months, irrespective of whether they are officially registered with the national public employment services.

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Funded Activities

• Collaboration and capacity building
• Partnerships with local communities and employers
• Reaching out to the target group
• Empowering employability and social inclusion
• Offering working options and opportunities
• Participating in mutual learning events

Further information in the call document.

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Eligibility

To be eligible, the applicant acting as coordinator, co-applicants, and associated partners must:

- Be legal entities (public or private bodies);

- Be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

• EU Member States;
• Non-EU countries: listed European Economic Area (EEA) countries and countries associated to the ESF+ (Iceland, Montenegro, Norway and Serbia) or countries with which an association agreement is being negotiated and for which the agreement enters into force by the deadline of this Call.

Applicant, co-applicants and associated partners can be (non-exhaustive list):

• Public employment services (PES), employment agencies, job centres,
• Local and regional authorities, municipalities,
• Local community centres, hubs,
• Non-governmental and non-for-profit entities (e.g., civil society organisations, associations, foundations, social enterprises, etc.),
• Companies, representative bodies linked to the labour market, including chambers of commerce and other trade associations
• Education and research entities,
• Guidance, consultancy service providers linked to employment, social inclusion,
• Public and private funders, etc

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Consortium composition

Only consortia are eligible.  

To be considered eligible, a consortium must consist of at least two legal eligible entities representing two different eligible countries, as follows: EU Member States; countries associated to the ESF+ (Iceland, Montenegro, Norway and Serbia).

Among these entities at least one legal entity must demonstrate a proven track record of experience in the field of long-term unemployment. An entity may only participate as the coordinator in one consortium.

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Duration

‍The expected duration of a project is 36 months.

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Budget

The estimated size of a grant is between EUR 1 000 000 and EUR 3 000 000 per project (but this does not preclude the submission/selection of applications requesting other amounts), constituting no more than 80% of the total project budget. A co-financing of at least 20% must thus come from other sources than the EU budget.