About us

Education Exchanges Support Foundation is a Lithuanian national agency responsible for implementing EU Lifelong Learning Programme plus a number of other EU and national programmes and projects within the field of education and training. The agency was founded in 2007 as a result of a merger of EU Socrates Coordination Support Foundation and EU Leonardo da Vinci Coordination Support Foundation that were active in Lithuania from 1998 till the end of 2006. During that period one third of secondary schools of Lithuania have participated in European partnership projects. Lithuania boasts of having more than 7,000 former Erasmus students and almost 3.000 Erasmus teachers, almost 5,000 persons were involved in Leonardo da Vinci mobility actions. More than 3,000 of foreign students have chosen Lithuania as their temporary home for studies as from 2000. Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes offered one of the first opportunities for Lithuanian teachers and students to join European cooperation projects and participate in international mobility actions, and this opportunity was accepted with great enthusiasm.


We aim at helping Lithuanian people to take advantage of international cooperation. The Foundation offers guidance to potential applicants and provides information about various programmes and activities in the education and training area.

Programmes and projects managed by Education Exchanges Support Foundation:
  • Lifelong Learning programme: Comenius, Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig, Transversal programme, Jean Monnet programme;
  • Euroguidance - vocational guidance;
  • Europass - common tools in Europe to present skills and qualifications;
  • Erasmus Mundus - joint master degree and mobility;
  • Tempus - Educational reform development in the partner countries;
  • Bolonia process - information about common Education area in Europe;
  • Academic exchanges - state scholarships for students and researchers based on bilateral agreements;
  • NordPlus - Nordplus Junior, Nordplus Adult, Nordplus Higher Education, Nordplus Horizontal.
2007 was the first year for the new organization. And an extremely active year. The success during 2007 is evidenced by getting more than 1.200 applications and signing 700 contracts for different actions within LLP. Having staff of 41 persons, 34 of which are directly involved in management of more than 1,050 projects with the total value of almost 16 MEUR, Education Exchanges Support Foundation organized more than 90 events of different types and produced nearly 100 items of promotional and informational material, provided assistance to almost 6,000 potential applicants and project promoters, implemented Quality Management System according to ISO 9001:2000 standard. Among the most solemn events were LLP launching conference with the attendance of Director General of EU Education and Culture DG Ms. Odille Quintin, Erasmus days for incoming students that were organized for the 7th time and counted more than 700 participants, and Erasmus 20th anniversary week, that took place in 4 different cities of Lithuania involving academic society and the public. 

The key activity highlighted for the new LLP is spreading and implementing the results of the EU-funded activities. Education Exchanges Support Foundation together with other National Agencies participates in 6 projects for disseminating and exploiting results of the projects that were carried out under the former Socrates programme and in 2 Leonardo da Vinci Thematic monitoring groups.

While maintaining strong relations with EU Representation in Lithuania and other institutions coordinating European initiatives, the Foundation put effort to reinforce cooperation between the organizations implementing other EU and transnational programmes. Annual Baltic meetings for highlighting common activities with Latvian and Estonian National Agencies for managing EU Lifelong Learning Programme have already become a tradition.