On 10 June 2021 the call for proposals for EU co-financing for National Contact Points (NCPs) for the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) strand of ESF+ was published and it is open for applicants as of 13 June 2021.

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Up to the deadline of 25 August 2021, countries participating in the EaSI strand can present proposals to obtain EU support for creating or strengthening help desks to promote the EaSI strand and to assist applicants and beneficiaries.

The support is provided as a lump sum contribution covering a standard package and an optional package:

• the standard package covers at least the setting up and running of a helpdesk, a website, as well as the organisation and implementation of two EaSI related events or webinars with at least 15 participants
• the optional package should cover additional events/webinars, visits to EaSI projects, translation needs, as well as job shadowing to another NCP or hosting someone from another NCP

The overall lump sum will be calculated based on unit costs for these various activities.

Information session

To assist potential applicants the Commission plans to hold an information session using MS Teams on 22 June 2021 at 14:00. More details will be announced on the ‘what’s new’ section of the EaSI landing page on the Funding and Tenders portal and in the topic related FAQ of the call page.

Persons wishing to attend this meeting should in any case register by sending an email to the call’s functional mailbox putting in the subject line ‘NCP information session registration’. Upon reception, an email with the meeting access details will be forwarded. Do note that this meeting will be recorded with the aim to place it on the call page and/or Commission website allowing others who were unable to attend to follow it.

There is a chance that Norway and Iceland will already be participating in the EaSI strand by the signature of the grant agreements and would thus be eligible.

However, for candidate countries and potential candidates (i.e. Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey), their participation to the EaSI strand will come too late for this call for proposals; therefore the Commission is considering the option to launch an additional call for the countries that join the EaSI strand later on.