Education and Science, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Funds

In the application round, a total of seven cooperation project applications were received from six higher education institutions, the total applied sum was 672,446 euros, spokespeople for the Archimedes Foundation said on Wednesday.

"The EEA/Norway Cooperation Program in Higher Education is a subcategory of the Baltic Research Program. The application round was open in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, and even though we received less applications than usual, we can be proud and happy that Estonian higher education institutions think one step ahead and the quality of applications was very strong. The high average grade – 88 points out of 100 – confirms the good quality of the supported projects," Sabina Sagi, senior specialist at Archimedes Foundation, said.

The application topics varied widely, such as social sciences, environmental awareness, aviation, textiles, and so on. Following the evaluation, it was decided to support four cooperation projects. These are mostly two-year long projects with a budget from 95,000 euros to 128,000 euros. Tallinn University, TTK University of Applied Sciences and the Aviation Academy received support from this program for the first time.

The program supports the project of the University of Tartu, which makes study materials for textile students in higher education and compares the industry and use of local sheep wool in Estonia and Norway. Together with Norway, the Estonian Aviation Academy is developing an integrated study module, which can be studied as one unit in both institutions; the simulation-based module is for both bachelor’s and master’s aviation students. The cooperation project of TTK University of Applied Sciences will create an electronic workbook on the cross-border tasks of Estonian and Icelandic companies. The Tallinn University project creates an e-book about involving children in child protection work.

Partners from the European Economic Area are the Oslo Metropolitan University, The Arctic University of Norway, the University of Akureyri, the University of South-Eastern Norway, Telespinn AS and from Estonia TTK Univeristy of Applied Sciences and a company called Muru Minimill.

The EEA/Norway Cooperation Program in Higher Education is a subcategory of the Baltic Research Program, which itself belongs to the EEA Grants and Norway Grants program. More information can be found on the foundation’s website. The next call for proposals will be opened at least two months before the application deadline in spring 2021.