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Call key data
Rights of the child and children’s participation
Funding Program
Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme
Call number
CERV-2025-CHILD
deadlines
Opening
16.01.2025
Deadline
29.04.2025 17:00
Funding rate
90%
Call budget
€ 17,000,000.00
Estimated EU contribution per project
min. € 200,000.00
Link to the call
Link to the submission
Call content
short description
This call for proposals aims at supporting, advancing and implementing comprehensive policies to protect and promote the rights of the child, including the right to participate.
Call objectives
This call focuses on the implementation of the actions and recommendations at EU, national and local levels of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. It aims at responding to children’s current needs and challenges in the EU. It pays attention to the rights of children with specific needs and vulnerabilities, including those who fled the Russian’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The call stresses the importance of taking into account gender differences and intersectionality in providing support to children.
All proposals must embrace and respect a child rights-based approach and be clearly grounded in the EU Charter of Fundamental rights and the UN Convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC). As per the UNCRC definition, a child is a human being below the age of eighteen years. Projects submitted under this call should limit their focus to this age group.
Projects can be national or transnational. Transnational projects are particularly encouraged.
Applicants should clearly indicate in their proposal which priority they intend to address. Projects must address one of the following priorities:
Priority 1 – Children’s rights in the digital age
The digital landscape in which children grow up today can both support and hinder the fulfilment of their rights. As children increasingly interact with a variety of online platforms, tools, and services, they gain access to educational and social opportunities. However, this also exposes them to potential risks such as harassment, cyberbullying, misinformation, misleading and addictive commercial practices, data privacy concerns, harmful or illegal content, and even exploitation, even more so with the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI). Moreover, early and prolonged exposure to digital environments and social media can profoundly affect children's mental health.
In response to these challenges, the EU adopted in 2022 the renewed European strategy for a better internet for kids (BIK+) to ensure that children are protected, respected and empowered online, as well as the Digital Services Act (DSA) which establishes a robust legal framework to create a safer digital space for all users, with particular attention to children. The DSA emphasises platform transparency and accountability, ensuring that children’s rights to safety, privacy and well-being are protected. Raising awareness of the DSA's provisions is crucial to safeguarding children's rights in the digital age, and this effort must be undertaken in a holistic manner, involving children, parents, families, carers, educators, IT students and professionals, and the broader community.
The Safer Internet Centres (SICs), present in most Member States, inform, advise and assist children, parents, teachers and carers on digital questions and fights against online child sexual abuse. Without duplicating the work of SICs but rather complementing it, projects submitted under this priority will put children at the centre of their activities, starting from their needs and working directly with them.
This priority addresses multiple dimensions of empowering children online, preventing and protecting children’s rights as well as their mental health and well-being in the digital world notably in relation to cyberbullying, including:
Promoting children's digital literacy: Children should be empowered and equipped with the skills needed to navigate the digital world safely and responsibly. Starting from their needs, projects should work directly with children in developing tools and competences to allow them to learn, connect and be active and informed contributors in shaping the world around them. This includes increasing children’s skills to recognise potential risks such as cyberbullying, misinformation, misleading commercial practices, manage privacy settings, being aware of inappropriate or harmful content, including violence, hate speech, or online grooming. Working with children to help them critically evaluate misinformation and fake news is crucial to prevent the spread of false information. Formal or informal educational settings can play a key role in supporting digital literacy, embedding children in all their diversity, their families, community, caregivers, educators (schools, extracurricular activities) to bridge the gap between uses at school, at home or between friends. Specific attention should be given to children with special or specific needs, or from disadvantaged and vulnerable backgrounds, or at risk of discrimination, who may face additional challenges in accessing and navigating safely the digital environment.
Raising awareness of children’s rights online among child users, their communities, children’s rights civil society organisations, ICT professionals and digital service providers: Children want to interact freely online but are concerned over their safety. Online platforms should be designed with children's safety and inclusivity as a priority. To achieve this, knowledge of children's rights, the need for inclusive, non-discriminatory, objective and age-appropriate tools and information should ideally be integrated in the educational pathways of future ICT students and (future) tech developers. ICT professionals and services providers should (1) be sensitised to the ethical responsibilities and accountability of platforms and encouraged to create and use digital technologies that align with the child protection standards of the DSA while (2) bringing them together with children, their communities, families, carers, teachers, civil society organisations to exchange on children’s rights online and safeguards. With these dual objectives in mind, projects should start from children’s needs, views and concerns. Children should play an active role in supporting the development of guidelines, educational or training material, protocols, and other tools to contribute to the design of child-centred online material to change norms and behaviours in the ICT field and to develop dialogue and awareness raising on safeguards, in a two-ways approach.
Reducing the negative impact of digital use on children's well-being: Engaging children in conversations about their digital habits—such as social media use, screen time, smartphone use in schools, and online social interactions—can help identify how these activities affect their concentration, learning, relationships and overall mental health and well-being. Projects should involve children in developing strategies and tools to promote healthy digital habits, prevent and address issues like cyberbullying, social media pressures and the negative effects of online engagement on their emotional and psychological well-being, whilst reducing stigma over mental health problems.
Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 9 000 000.
Priority 2 – Children’s engagement and participation
Too many children feel left out of decision-making and simply not heard. Children want to contribute to discussions and decisions taken at local and national councils, feel included in such conversations and be informed about how what they say makes a difference. Democratic participation can start early in schools and activities where children could be invited to discuss school rules, exam dates and design various policies, e.g. anti-bullying programmes. Children and young people say that they want to know more about democracy, how it works, what opportunities to experience democracy exist.
With this priority, the Commission aims to promote an inclusive and systemic participation of children in the democratic life at the local, national and EU levels to ensure that children’s voices are heard and listened to, especially in matters that affect them. This is in line with the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child – notably the establishment of the EU Children Participation Platform (the Platform). Projects submitted under this priority will aim at establishing or strengthening inclusive and systemic mechanisms for child participation at local and national levels. A ‘mechanism’ is understood as an initiative that enables children to express their views, and for these views to be taken into account in decision-making processes at local, national and EU levels. For this call for proposals, we consider a mechanism to be a regular process rather than a one-off initiative, initiated by an institution (e.g. a school), national/regional/local government or non-governmental organisation that follows the principles of inclusive, meaningful and safe participation of children in decision making. Strengthening child participation may include development of regular consultations with children and closer collaboration with national and local authorities to make sure that children’s voices are heard and acted upon. It may also involve evaluation of working methods and impact of child participation on policy making.
Where relevant, these mechanisms are strongly encouraged to be designed to ultimately integrate the EU Children’s participation Platform. Application for membership in the platform and participation in its activities at local level can be part of the project’s activities, e.g.:
- discussions with children ahead of the application process about their rights and the right to be heard and filling in the application form,
- independent implementation of the Platform’s work plan,
- preparation of children for participation in consultations (online surveys, interviews or focus groups),
- co-creation of communication activities with children that advocate about the Platform.
The mechanisms proposed by applicants should make an effort to specifically include children who are often underrepresented in child participation mechanisms, such as children in situations of multiple vulnerabilities, children with a disadvantaged socio economic background, children with disabilities, migrant and refugee children, children from minority groups, children from rural areas and children in institutions, among others.
Furthermore, projects will endeavour to strengthen education on citizenship, democracy, disinformation, advocacy, equality (including gender equality). This may include meetings with influencers promoting democracy and diversity, co-creating with children handbooks and training sessions on advocacy, public speaking, etc. The projects will facilitate and promote participation in democratic processes, with the goal to engage children in policy discussions and increase the awareness of the general public on children’s rights. Projects should also aim at increasing awareness and knowledge among children of their rights, in particular their democratic rights, as a precondition to make children’s voice heard.
Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 5 000 000.
Priority 3 – Embedding a rights of the child perspective in actions at national and local level
Integrating children’s rights in all relevant areas of policy and practice, ensuring their interests are prioritised across sectors and institutions is essential to achieve the overall objectives of the EU Strategy on the rights of the child. This priority focuses on implementing mainstreaming tools for the promotion and protection on the rights of the child at national and local level. Projects should ensure that these tools become fully integrated in policy and practices to ensure a systematic approach, including by:
- developing, monitoring and evaluating strategies on the rights of the child at national level, as well as at local level, in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, including children, civil society organisations, private and public actors,
- gathering reliable and comparable data on children, indicators or benchmarks on children’s rights that can support development of evidence-based policies,
- developing participatory research methodologies involving children,
- implementing child-rights budgeting —e.g. monitoring resources allocated to protection and promotion of rights of the child in national and local budget plans, such as EU funds, in a multidisciplinary approach,
- developing child rights impact assessment methodologies at national and local level,
- coordinating efforts at national and local level to better implement EU and international legal obligations, such as through the establishment of coordination mechanisms, platforms or exchanges among authorities, children, civil society organisations and other relevant actors working on children’s rights,
- developing trainings and awareness-raising campaigns on children’s rights.
Indicative funding available for this priority: EUR 3 000 000.
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Expected effects and impacts
- Children are aware of their rights, including online, and can exercise them;
- Children are empowered to make sound choices and express themselves in the online environment safely and responsibly;
- Children are equipped with the competences and operational skills, including safety skills, information navigation skills to enable them to critically engage with online information, and social skills to manage online relationships with others;
- Adults responsible for children (parents, carers, teachers, youth workers etc.) have the skills to support, advise and guide children in the online world;
- ICT students and professionals are aware of the dispositions of the DSA concerning children’s rights and of their ethical responsibility to respect them;
- Digital products and services likely to be used by children are developed respecting fair and basic design features that embed child protection standards, as enshrined in the DSA;
- Children have healthy digital habits, the negative effects of online engagement on children’s emotional and psychological mental health and well-being are reduced;
- Children are aware of their right to participate and have their voices heard;
- Child participation mechanisms are inclusive and systemic;
- Children are given the opportunity to participate in the democratic processes and to engage in policy discussions;
- Improved support to children in vulnerable situations or from disadvantaged backgrounds;
- Improved capacity building, training on the rights and needs of children, better exchange of good practices;
- Improved data collection, better informed policy;
- Improved allocation, planning and monitoring of resources and funds on promotion and protection of the rights of the child;
- The general public’s awareness of children’s rights is increased.
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Expected results
Activities should be designed, implemented and co-created with children, to make sure that the action is well tailored to children’s needs. All proposals are expected to respect the child's right to participate and all project activities must clearly integrate and protect the child's right to be heard.
Proposals must make children's involvement central and integral in every stage of the project’s design, implementation and evaluation. All actions and activities shall ensure that actions are adequate to the age and gender specific needs of children. As a good practice, organisations that already work with children could consult them on the project proposal and include reflections/references to this process in the applications. Voices of children can also be brought in based on available reports and documents recording children’s opinions and needs.
Applications should clearly indicate which partners will directly work with children and what activities this will entail. Safeguarding measures should however be in place to ensure children’s safe participation in the action and the respect of their specific rights (see section 2 on “Child Protection Policies” and section 5 on “Admissibility and documents”).
Projects need to be practical, with real impact on children’s right to participate. Mapping of existing mechanisms or repository of good practices will not be considered as practical. Applying organisations are encouraged to use, disseminate and build on already existing materials (e.g. tools, projects’ deliverables, handbooks, research, studies, mapping exercises, reports, etc.) and to explain how they will do so in the proposal. Activities may include:
- Priority 1 (Children’s rights in the digital age):
- Development of digital literacy educational tools and programmes in cocreation with children to promote online safety, privacy, media literacy and the responsible use of digital services;
- Training of, and the production of training and guidance material for, children, parents, carers and educational professionals;
- Development, strengthening and promotion of media literacy programmes to counter disinformation and empower children to take part in the democratic debate;
- Development of resources to inform, train and raise awareness of digital service providers about platform accountability and ethical responsibilities with regards to the protection of children’s rights;
- Training of, and the production of training and guidance material for, students and professionals of the digital service sector about children’s rights;
- Development of advocacy activities in consultation with children to ensure that their concerns and needs are prioritised in digital policies. The aim of this priority is not research nor development of technological tools (e.g. apps, platforms, software, serious games, AI tools).
- Priority 2 (Children’s engagement and participation):
- Awareness-raising about child participation, including specific sessions for national and local authorities, co-designed and co-facilitated by children;
- Training and the production of training and guidance material for professionals to encourage and facilitate the development of child participation mechanisms;
- Training and production of guidance materials for children on advocacy and democratic participation, including in elections;
- The design, implementation and testing of child participation mechanisms in schools, city councils, children advisory boards that have a clear assessment of impact of children’s voices;
- Creation of short-, mid- and long-term child participation strategies at local and national level;
- The establishment of consultation mechanisms with children at local level with local authorities. Such mechanisms should have clear feedback processes built in.
- Priority 3 (Embedding a rights of the child perspective in actions at national and local level):
- Mutual learning, trainings, exchange of good practices, cooperation and networking;
- Dissemination, communication and awareness raising, including social media or press campaigns;
- Capacity building and training activities of national, regional and local authorities;
- Training activities and awareness raising sessions for children;
- Design and implementation of protocols, development of working methods and tools;
- Development of methodologies for data gathering, data exercises and dissemination (exclusively for the sub-priority related to data).
Applicants should conduct and include in their proposal a gender analysis, which maps the potential different impacts of the project and its activities on children, including from a gender perspective. Thereby, unintended negative effects of the intervention on children of all ages should be forestalled (do no-harm approach).
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Eligibility Criteria
Regions / countries for funding
Moldova (Moldova), Albania (Shqipëria), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина), Kosovo (Kosova/Kosovë / Косово), Montenegro (Црна Гора), North Macedonia (Северна Македонија), Serbia (Srbija/Сpбија), Ukraine (Україна)
eligible entities
Education and training institution, International organization, Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) / Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Other, Private institution, incl. private company (private for profit), Public Body (national, regional and local; incl. EGTCs), Research Institution incl. University, Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME)
Mandatory partnership
Yes
Project Partnership
Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least 2 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities).
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies) or international organisations;
- Lead applicants must be non-profit making. Organisations which are profit oriented may apply only in partnership with public entities, private non-profit organisations, or international organisations;
- be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs)
- non-EU countries: countries associated to the CERV Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries). Please check the list regularly, to get the latest status on countries in the process of association.
- To be eligible, grant applications must comply with the following criteria:
- Activities must take place in any of the eligible countries.
- The EU grant applied for cannot be lower than EUR 200 000.
- The application must involve at least two applicants (lead applicant and at least one co-applicant not being affiliated entity or associated partner). However, the project can be either national or transnational.
- Moreover, to be eligible under priority 3 “Embedding a rights of the child perspective in actions at national and local level”, grant applications must involve at least one public authority (national, regional or local authority) in the consortium, either as lead applicant or co-applicant.
other eligibility criteria
Specific cases
Natural persons — Natural persons are NOT eligible (with the exception of self employed persons, i.e. sole traders, where the company does not have legal personality separate from that of the natural person).
International organisations — International organisations are eligible. The rules on eligible countries do not apply to them.
Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons.
EU bodies — EU bodies (with the exception of the European Commission Joint Research Centre) can NOT be part of the consortium.
Associations and interest groupings — Entities composed of members may participate as ‘sole beneficiaries’ or ‘beneficiaries without legal personality’. Please note that if the action will be implemented by the members, they should also participate (either as beneficiaries or as affiliated entities, otherwise their costs will NOT be eligible).
Countries currently negotiating association agreements — Beneficiaries from countries with ongoing negotiations for participation in the programme (see list of participating countries above) may participate in the call and can sign grants if the negotiations are concluded before grant signature and if the association covers the call (i.e. is retroactive and covers both the part of the programme and the year when the call was launched).
Financial support to third parties is not allowed.
Additional information
Topics
Relevance for EU Macro-Region
EUSAIR - EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region, EUSALP - EU Strategy for the Alpine Space, EUSBSR - EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, EUSDR - EU Strategy for the Danube Region
UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDGs)
project duration
between 12 and 24 months
Additional Information
Proposals must be submitted before the call deadline (see timetable section 4).
Proposals must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System (accessible via the Topic page in the Search Funding & Tenders section. Paper submissions are NOT possible.
Proposals (including annexes and supporting documents) must be submitted using the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information).
Proposals must be complete and contain all the requested information and all required annexes and supporting documents:
- Application Form Part A — contains administrative information about the participants (future coordinator, beneficiaries and affiliated entities) and the summarised budget for the project (to be filled in directly online)
- Application Form Part B — contains the technical description of the project (to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed and then assembled and re-uploaded)
- KPI tool — contains additional project data regarding the project’s contribution to EU programme key performance indicators (to be filled in directly online, all sections to be completed)
- mandatory annexes and supporting documents (templates available to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, completed, assembled and re uploaded):
- detailed budget table (template available in the Portal Submission System – to be re-uploaded filled out in the format xlsx)
- CVs (standard) of core project team
- Activity report of last year of the coordinator (unless it is a public body)
- list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years) (template available in Part B)
- Support letter from public authority (for priority 1 and 2). For priority 3, since it directly addresses public authorities, their involvement in the consortium is mandatory either as lead or co-applicant (see below section 6 on “Eligibility”).
- For any of the participants implementing activities involving children (below the age of 18):
- private entities, must provide their child protection policy (CPP) covering the four areas described in the Keeping Children Safe Child Safeguarding Standards.
- public entities must provide at least a declaration on honour.
Proposals are limited to maximum 45 pages (Part B).
The grant will be a lump sum grant.
Call documents
Contact
Website
CERV Nationale Kontakstelle Österreich
+43 1 531 15–202907
ernst.holzinger@bka.gv.at
Website
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