EAEA Grundtvig Award

Each year, the EAEA celebrates innovation and excellence in adult education. The EAEA Grundtvig Award highlights project results that produce new ideas, new partnerships, new methodologies and a new understanding how we can work in adult learning.

EAEA Grundtvig Award 2024

The theme for 2024 is Adult Learning Transforming Lives, Communities and Society. Read the full Grundtvig Award call for 2024.

What is the EAEA Grundtvig Award?

  • The EAEA Grundtvig Award was launched in 2003 by EAEA in order to recognise and celebrate excellence in adult education;
  • The Award is given to an organisation or project consortium who present the best transnational project in adult learning;
  • The Award has a different theme each year;
  • It reaches out to every region in Europe;
  • It inspires the practitioners, course providers, and project participants value their work, and to link more closely with one another.

How to participate?

  • The call is published annually in spring;
  • Transnational partners are eligible to enter;
  • The projects can include videos, photographs, books, Power Point presentations, slides and posters;
  • Any product of the project that is accessible to the public, presented in a comprehensible way, and may be useful and/or transferable to other adult education organisations is eligible to enter the competition.

History

The EAEA Grundtvig Award is named after Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872), a Danish educator centrally influential in the development of non-formal adult education in Europe and worldwide. He provided the adult education sector a foundational philosophy that underpins much of the work in lifelong learning. Grundtvig emphasised the intrinsic value of learning, as a foundation to living meaningful and enjoyable lives.

This idea is central to the adult education that EAEA is promoting, with its focus on basic skills, valuing learning and active citizenship. Grundtvig laid the ground work for the development of learning centres, in all kinds of contexts, from residential educational institutions to agricultural co-operatives. He linked intellectual and cultural growth with group development, a prelude to civic relationships.

Browse the EAEA Grundtvig Award publications!