On November 27, “Project writing and budget planning” workshop was held at the National Agrarian University of Armenia, the purpose of which was to transfer project development and budget planning skills to representatives of higher and vocational educational institutions in the context of the Erasmus+ program. More than 25 participants from the aforementioned institutions attended and actively took part in the workshop.

The workshop was conducted by Higher Education Reform Experts Arevik Ohanyan, who works at Eurasia International University as Strategic Project Manager, and Garegin Hambardzumyan, Head of the International Relations Department of the National Agrarian University of Armenia.

During the first session of the workshop, which was called “How to write a winning project proposal in frames of Erasmus+ Programme”, Arevik Ohanyan presented her experience in developing project proposals for Erasmus+ CBHE Key Action. She highlighted the necessary steps to write a successful project, and shared the lessons learnt. She then facilitated group discussions among participants and through practical tasks, they discussed samples of successful and rejected projects, mentioning their strengths and weaknesses, and learned more about evaluation criteria of Erasmus+ project proposals.

Afterwards, Garegin Hambardzumyan in his “Budgeting basics for Erasmus+ projects” session explained the steps needed to develop realistic, accurate, and feasible budgets. A key focus was placed on understanding what the approach to calculating budget lines for each expense unit work, the need to align project objectives with financial planning. Participants learned how to conduct a preliminary budget estimation to ensure financial resilience in the face of uncertainties.

As such, participants had the opportunity to learn more about the importance of developing and improving project writing skills, as well as the necessity to plan the budget in accordance with the project activities.