Closing the gender gap through digital and entrepreneurship education is one of the actions under the second priority of the Digital Education Action Plan: Developing relevant digital competences and skills for the digital transformation.

The aim of this action is to promote and teach Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths subjects (STEM) to girls in attractive and engaging ways, with a view to addressing the ongoing skills gap in the STEM sectors within the EU and especially the shortfall of women and  increasing STEM drop-out rates of girls.

Firstly, a network of schools, universities, high education institutions and companies will be set up. It will serve as a platform to support the advancement of girls in STEM education and careers, to exchange best practices and to raise awareness of girls all over Europe concerning the full spectrum of education and training options.

Secondly, no-cost summer camps for 13-18 year-old girls(typically 1 or 2 weeks long) will be designed to introduce middle and high school girls to a broad range of STEM subjects, in particular software engineering principles and programming languages. Summer camps and other actions will be used by the network to provide recommendations and a set of ready-to-use guidelines available for reproduction of the events at local level.

The network between schools, universities, companies will result in:

• consolidation of the actors who have an interest in more girls in STEM;
• consolidation and dissemination of best practice strategies to involve more girls in STEM;
• raised societal awareness of the need to attract more girls to STEM.

The following types of activities are eligibleunder this call for proposals:

• The summer camps featuring experiments, field trips and lab-based activities to show work in science, technology, engineering and math careers;
• Teaching the principles of software engineering: algorithms, structure of programmes, computer systems;
• Teaching how to code, with a focus on real tools (such as Python, Ruby, Javascript, HTML, CSS , or any other relevant);
• Recruiting preferably female STEM teachers for the camps, to act as role models;
• Awareness-raising events organised by the network members (social media/traditional media campaigns to highlight the need for girls in STEM, workshops to inform parents, teachers and female audience about the full spectrum of education and training options, days of Open Doors, school visits);
• Packaged guidance on the organisation of STEM camps, easily reproducible by other partners at local level;
• Report on activities carried out with best practice described and recommendations for further action;
• Conferences, seminars;
• Training activities;
• Awareness and dissemination actions;
• Actions aiming at the creation and improvement of networks, exchanges of good practices;
• Studies, analyses, mapping projects.

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

Proposals can be submitted by non-profit organisation (private or public); public authorities (national, regional, local); international organisations; universities; educational institutions; research centres; profit making entities; natural persons.

Only applications from legal entities established in the EU Member States and EFTA and EEA countriesare eligible. In order to be eligible, a proposal must be submitted by a consortium composed of at least 2 legal entities from different countries.The maximum duration of the project is 24 months.

The total budget for the co-financingof projects under this call for proposals is estimated at EUR 350.000. The Commission expects to fund 1 proposal.

Proposals must be submitted at the following link.