Students or higher education staff with a disability may be eligible for additional financial support to help them take part in international exchange or internship. This support will be in addition to a mobility grant.
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Special needs and inclusion grants are intended to enable international exchange and internship in circumstances when a special need causes additional costs that are not covered by other sources. Special need can be an injury, impairment, physical or psychological illness or learning difficulty.

The grant can be awarded for example to accessible accommodation, assisted mobility or such study-related special arrangements as learning materials, preparatory visits and personal assistants. The application process is completely confidential. The application is easy to fill, and the expenses caused by special needs can be estimated roughly. As all special needs are unique, all of the applications will be handled on a case-by-case basis.

You can apply for a special needs or inclusion grant if you are planning to take part in

  • student exchange
  • internship
  • teacher or staff exchange
  • intensive courses
  • network meetings

Grants are applicable in the following programmes: Erasmus+, Nordplus, north2north and Team Finland Knowledge (TFK) programme. The condition for the grant is participation in one of these programmes.

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Watch videos of two students who received special needs grant for their exchange period abroad. 

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Special needs grants have a rolling deadline. The grant application forms are enclosed. Students or higher education staff members and the Finnish higher education institution shall each fill in their own sections of the forms. Higher education institution sends the application to EDUFI as a secured message. 

Grant is applied from EDUFI for both outgoing and incoming participants in TFK, Nordplus, and HEI ICI programmes.

Grant is applied from EDUFI for outgoing participants in Erasmus+ programme, and in international credit mobility (KA171) the grant is also applied for incoming Erasmus+ participants by the Finnish receiving institution. Other incoming Erasmus+ participants in European mobility apply for accessibility grant from their respective national Erasmus Agency.

As the need and nature of support varies from one person to another, EDUFI will review each case individually. EDUFI will award the grant to the Finnish higher education institution, who will pay the grant to students and staff members.

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If you plan to head abroad, start getting ready in good time, at least 6 months before departure. This applies to individuals and institutions alike. Not only do you need to apply for support, but it also takes time before you have all the necessary information from the host institution, including details of any special arrangements.

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EDUFI has compiled together with the Finnish ESOK Higher Education Access & Disability network a checklist to be used by both students and institutions. The enclosed Checklist for Exchange Students and Higher Education Institutions may also serve as a template for institutions’ own guidelines.

More information is also available from the programme coordinators at the Finnish National Agency for Education.

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Attachments
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In Finland students who

  • have underage children,
  • are family carers,
  • have disabilities (min. moderate functional deficiency),
  • suffer from a severe or chronic health condition (min. moderate functional deficiency), or
  • have received international, subsidiary or temporary protection

and who go on short- or long-term mobilities within the Erasmus+ programme are entitled to a fixed-fee additional grant on top of the ordinary Erasmus+ mobility grant. The student has to only prove belonging to one of the aforementioned groups in order to get the grant. Earlier similar grant has been paid only to students with families. These grants are awarded by student's home institution who will also give further information and instructions on the application process.

The above-mentioned groups apply to all outgoing Erasmus+ -students. For incoming students in Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (KA171) the Finnish and partner country higher education institutions can set additional groups that take into account the context of the partner country. These should be agreed upon in advance before commencing any mobility activities and a good practice is to include them in the inter-institutional agreement.

In addition to the fixed additional support mentioned here the student can also apply for the inclusion support based on real costs explained earlier on this page, if they have more expenses than what the fixed additional grant covers, or if they face also other barriers than for which the fixed additional grant was awarded.

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Erasmus+ for higher education programme:

Sami Niemelä

miia.juusola [at] oph.fi (s)ami.niemela [at] oph.fi

p. 0295 331 935

 

Nordplus for higher education programme:

Kristina Savikurki

kristina.savikurki [at] oph.fi (kristina[dot]savikurki[at]oph[dot]fi)

p. 0295 338 501

 

TFK programme:

Mari Pohjola

mari.pohjola [at] oph.fi (mari[dot]pohjola[at]oph[dot]fi)

p. 0295 331 746

 

north2north programme:

Sami Niemelä

miia.juusola [at] oph.fi (s)ami.niemela [at] oph.fi

p. 0295 331 935

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