European Innovative Teaching Award 2023
Description and scope of the European Innovative Teaching Award
As part of the Communication on achieving the European Education Area by 2025, the European Innovative Teaching Award (EITA) has been established to showcase outstanding innovative teaching and learning practices, implemented in the framework of the Erasmus+ programme, and recognise the work of teachers and their schools who make an exceptional contribution to the profession. The award contributes to highlighting the value of European cooperation in the field of school education and to the establishment the European Education Area.
The specific objectives of the European Innovative Teaching Award are to:
- celebrate the achievements of teachers and schools and give more visibility to their work;
- identify and promote outstanding teaching and learning practices;
- foster mutual learning between teachers and school staff;
- highlight the value of the Erasmus+ programme to European teacher collaboration.
The award is given on an annual basis to successfully finalised Erasmus+ projects. These projects are selected by the Erasmus+ National Agencies covering the fields of school education and/or vocational education and training, during the programme period 2021-2027.
As Erasmus+ projects are already grant-based, the award has a symbolic valorisation value and will not provide additional monetary benefits to the awardees. Nevertheless, projects awarded with EITA will be promoted at European and national level as good practice examples of innovation in education. They will also be flagged in the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.
To ensure high quality and consistent implementation of the EITA as well as transparency, the MT NA shall follow the guidelines and award criteria set out hereafter:
Eligibility and Selection Criteria: The National Agencies in each Programme Country should select projects to be awarded the European Innovative Teaching Award among finalised Erasmus+ projects both under Key Action 1 (learning mobility projects) and Key Action 2 (partnership projects).
As a general rule, finalised projects that started between the years 2018 and 2022 should be considered for EITA. The National Agency should select the awardees only among its own co-funded projects. A project that has received EITA in previous years cannot be considered again.
NB: This means only parent projects under KA219/KA229 can be taken into consideration. In exceptional cases, where the respective National Agency does not have at its disposal a large enough pool of finalised projects from the aforementioned period, it may look into projects that were funded during previous years of the Erasmus+ programme.
A project whose final report has been duly submitted, evaluated and closed in administrative terms is to be considered as a finalised one.
Selection Process and Transparency
- Direct selection of awardees. Under this option, the responsible National Agency draws immediately the definitive list of projects to be given the European Innovative Teaching Award in the respective categories. The selection is done on the basis of the eligibility, selection and award criteria, taking solely into account previously existing information – compatibility with the annual EITA theme, final project report and its evaluation, available outputs and promotional materials, etc. Once the selection process is completed, the National Agency should contact the coordinators of the selected projects to ask their agreement for awarding them with EITA.
The Thematic Priority
Every year, the Commission defines a thematic area that projects must address to be considered for selection for the European Innovative Teaching Award. In 2023, the EITA annual theme is ‘Education and innovation’ in connection with the European Year of Skills.
The annual theme explores the introduction of existing and emerging technologies in the contemporary education systems. These include in particular artificial intelligence, robotics, coding, programming, virtual reality, entrepreneurship, etc.
When organising the selection process, relevant projects dealing with the annual theme could be identified based on key words or priorities/topics, available in the Erasmus+ dashboards and the Erasmus+ project results platform (for example, “innovation”, “technology”, “artificial intelligence”, “robotics”, “automatisation”, “coding”, “programming”, “informatics”, “virtual reality”, “entrepreneurship”, etc.). The topics linked to the innovation characteristics listed in the evaluation grid may also serve as potential ‘key words’.
Award criteria: the innovation characteristics
The EITA will be awarded based on the following criteria. Each criterion should be assessed on a scale from 1 (poor) to 10 (excellent):
| Methodologies | In what ways are the teaching and learning approaches elaborated and implemented in the project innovative?
· Multidisciplinary approaches · Key competence development (knowledge, skills and attitudes) · Linking formal, non-formal and informal learning · Inclusion, participation, cooperation · Innovative use of digital tools (in particular eTwinning) · Learners’ active role in the learning process
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| Environments | In what ways do learning environments involved in the project support innovative teaching and learning approaches?
· Schools as enablers of innovation · Creative use of the learning spaces · Sustainable use of available resources · A whole school approach · Cross-sectoral cooperation
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| Teachers‘ role | In what ways do teachers/educators involved in the project influence the innovative teaching and learning processes?
· Teachers’ agency as innovators · Teachers’ competences · Teachers’ cooperation and peer learning |
| Impact and Outputs | What is the impact of the innovative teaching and learning processes elaborated and implemented in the project?
· Direct impact on the target groups · Inclusion of participants with fewer opportunities · Spill-over effect (to other students, teachers, schools, local communities)
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