Tough competition in 2014’s application round
This year more than 3700 institutions competed for the available Nordplus funds.
The sums have been tallied and the numbers are in. This year there were 643 applications across the five Nordplus programmes competing for the total sum of the 10.5 million euro available at the 2014 round. This is a little more than last year where 628 applied, but in both cases well above the average of 600 for the previous programme period (2008-2011).
The competition for funds
Applicants this year have applied for more than 2.6 times more than the funds available, showing a big demand for financial backing across the programmes. The programme with the most competition for funds is Nordplus Adult where applicants called for 3.3 times of the sum allocated for the programme, followed by Nordplus Higher Education on 2.9 times the allotted sum.
| Programme | Total applied in mio. EUR | Total available in mio. EUR | Rate |
| Nordplus Adult | 3.727.745 | 1.117.724 | 333 % |
| Nordplus HE | 13.110.799 | 4.528.617 | 290 % |
| Nordplus Horizontal | 2.658.208 | 1.227.159 | 217 % |
| Nordplus Junior | 6.571.636 | 2.946.849 | 223 % |
| Nordplus Nordic Language | 1191.670 | 639.942 | 186 % |
| Sum | 27.260.058 | 10.460.291 | 261 % |
The competition element becomes even more apparent once you consider the number of organisations that are involved in each application. For the 2014 call, the number of organisations across the Nordic region was 3740. The distribution accross individual countries can be viewed in the table below:
| Programme | AX | DK | EE | FI | FO | GL | IS | LT | LV | NO | SE | Total |
| Nordplus Adult | 48 | 52 | 47 | 7 | 1 | 34 | 56 | 76 | 42 | 57 | 420 | |
| Nordplus Higher Edu | 8 | 376 | 95 | 426 | 47 | 31 | 176 | 86 | 80 | 416 | 526 | 2267 |
| Nordplus Horizontal | 1 | 35 | 32 | 43 | 1 | 16 | 43 | 40 | 45 | 44 | 300 | |
| Nordplus Junior | 7 | 98 | 48 | 85 | 20 | 12 | 72 | 68 | 69 | 74 | 88 | 641 |
| Nordplus Nordic language | 3 | 29 | 3 | 18 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 3 | 1 | 15 | 18 | 112 |
| Total | 19 | 586 | 230 | 619 | 79 | 46 | 314 | 256 | 266 | 592 | 733 | 3740 |
Plan ahead for next year
The compettion for Nordplus finding is fierce. If you are thinking on applying next year, we urge you to plan ahead to ensure you and your partner organisations sufficient time to submit the best possible plans and proposals. The quality of the application will matter more than ever.
Please, be aware of national information meetings in the Autumn and make use of guidance from your national Nordplus Office.
If you intend to apply for Nordplus Junior and Adult funding, please also be ware of the possibility for grants for preparatory visits.
factbox
The decision regarding individual applications will be made by the NP Program Committee at its meeting on the 27 May.
All applicants will be notified about the results of the assessments in the beginning of June, 2014.