The purpose of the EEA Scholarship Fund is to support and facilitate access of students and academic staff in universities in Romania to scholarships in academic institutions in Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Romanian students can benefit of scholarships between 3 and 12 months, while the academic staff have now access to scholarships between 1-4 weeks. The value of the scholarships in the three EEA donor countries is up to maximum 1,000 Euro/month for students, whilst for academic staff the value of scholarships is of up to 1,000 Euro/week (or up to a maximum of 3,500 Euro for the whole duration of the scholarship period).
The EEA Scholarship fund makes available for Romania 935,000 EURO, and the Romanian government provides additional co-financing of 135, 000 Euro from the national budget. ANPCDEFP was appointed the administrator in Romania of the EEA Scholarship fund.
“I hope that this new EEA Scholarship Fund for Romania amounting to a total value of 1,1 million Euro will contribute to strengthening of academic and intellectual relations between Romania, on one hand, and Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland on the other hand”, stated Ambassador Øystein Hovdkinn.
The first call for scholarships budget applications from eligible universities in Romania for the academic year 2009-2010, will be launched by the National Agency for Community Programmes in Education and Vocational Training on 20 March 2009. All Romanian public and private universities accepted in the Erasmus program are eligible in the EEA Scholarship Fund. More information is available on : www.anpcdefp.ro.
Background: The agreement to include Romania in the European Economic Area (EEA) was signed in July 2007. The EEA agreement makes the non-EU countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein part of the common market. Another consequence is that almost 100 million Euros are made available for projects in Romania. The EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Cooperation Programme are designed to contribute to social and economic cohesion in Europe through economic growth and sustainable development. Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein provide €50,5 million to Romania through the EEA Financial Mechanism, out of which €48,5 million comes from Norway. The EEA Financial Mechanism operates by the same guidelines that apply to other recipient states through the EEA Financial Mechanism.
The Norwegian Cooperation Programme is financed by Norway, and makes an additional €48 million available for projects in Romania. This programme, which is administered by Innovation Norway, has partnerships between actors from Norway and Romania as a prerequisite for funding.
More information is available on www.norwaygrants.org, www.eeagrants.org and www.fonduri-ue.ro/eeagrants.