In episode #215 of The Grant I have invited three long-time Erasmus+ practitioners for what we ended up calling “Erasmus+ Therapy”. With Henriette Hansen from the South Denmark European Office, Daiana Huber (regular guest and Erasmus+ strategist) and Alessandro Melillo from Italy, we unpack the current “perfect storm” in the programme: record-high proposal numbers, newcomers policies, harsher evaluations and a community that feels like it’s doing everything right yet still crashing against the wall. We talk about what’s driving the surge – cuts in national funding, more actors turning to Erasmus+, AI making it easier to generate text – but also a deeper shift in how some national agencies and the European Commission seem to approach selection and “project factories”.

From there, we move through system-level and human-level consequences. On the system side: over-stretched evaluators, opaque processes, newcomers being favoured in ways that may unintentionally lower quality, and the risk that trust in evaluations – the core of any funding system – starts to erode. On the human side: writers pouring months of work and emotion into strategic proposals, getting seals of excellence, but no funding, trying to explain repeated failure to long-term partners and teams, and feeling guilty for having become “too competent”. My guests share very personal stories of burnout, heartbreak, responsibility towards ecosystems they’ve built over 15–20 years, and still a deep love for Erasmus+ as a tool to shape public policy and European identity. The episode is both a group therapy session and a constructive call for more transparency, dialogue and shared problem-solving between practitioners, national agencies and the EU Commission.

Time codes:

02:21 Guest introduction and fly in

06:11 What is driving the surge in proposals?

18:40 System-level consequences

31:05 Community and individual impact

48:56 Are experienced organisations still welcome?

56:46 Closing reflections and messages

01:03:54 The toughest challenge