A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in humanitarianism or the social sciences; they can also include clubs and associations that provide services to their members and others. NGOs can also be lobby groups for corporations, such as the World Economic Forum. NGOs are distinguished from international and intergovernmental organizations (IOs) in that the latter are more directly involved with sovereign states and their governments.
The SOCRATES programme was an educational initiative of the European Commission; 31 countries took part. The initial Socrates programme ran from 1994 until 31 December 1999 when it was replaced by the Socrates II programme on 24 January 2000, which ran until 2006. This, in turn, was replaced by the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013.
The Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013 was the European Union programme for education and training.
SOLIDAR is a European network of NGOs working to advance social justice in Europe and worldwide. SOLIDAR voices the concerns of its member organisations to the EU and international institutions across the policy sectors of social affairs, international cooperation, and lifelong learning.
In the European Union education is at the responsibility of its Member States and their Ministries of education that they have; in such, the European Union institutions play only a supporting and overseeing role. According to Art. 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the Community
shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States, through actions such as promoting the mobility of citizens, designing joint study programmes, establishing networks, exchanging information or teaching languages of the European Union. The Treaty also contains a commitment to promote life-long learning for all citizens of the Union.
UNESCO-CEPES was established in 1972 at Bucharest, Romania, as a de-centralized office for the European Centre for Higher Education. The centre was closed in 2011 due to lack of funding. The centre promoted international cooperation in the sphere of higher education among UNESCO's Member States in Central, Eastern and South-East Europe and also served Canada, the United States and Israel. Higher Education in Europe, a scholarly publication focusing on major problems and trends in higher education, was the official journal of UNESCO-CEPES. The CEPES headquarters was in the Kretzulescu Palace in Bucharest.
The European Youth Forum is an international non-profit association that serves as an umbrella organisation and advocacy group of the national youth councils and international non-governmental youth organisations in Europe. It works on youth rights in international institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the United Nations.
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) is an international not-for-profit organisation which seeks to promote the values and political concerns of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) at the European level. It undertakes research and advocacy in the fields of peacebuilding and human rights policy, notably in relation to the European Union and the Council of Europe. Founded in 1979 by Quakers who worked in the European institutions, it is based in Brussels, Belgium and is registered under Belgian law.
The Eurydice Network is a European Commission-funded education information network in Europe. It consists of a coordinating European Unit and a series of national units; its aim is to provide policy makers in the member states of the European Union and in the wider European region, with up-to-date and reliable information on which to base policy decisions in the education field.
Non-formal learning includes various structured learning situations which do not either have the level of curriculum, syllabus, accreditation and certification associated with 'formal learning', but have more structure than that associated with 'informal learning', which typically take place naturally and spontaneously as part of other activities. These form the three styles of learning recognised and supported by the OECD.
The Grundtvig programme was a European funding programme that was part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013 and aimed to strengthen the European dimension in adult education and lifelong learning across Europe.
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), formerly UNESCO Institute for Education, is one of six educational institutes of UNESCO. It is a non-profit international research, training, information, documentation and publishing centre on literacy, non-formal education, adult and lifelong learning. It provides services to UNESCO's Member States, NGOs, and grassroots and community organizations, as well as to partners in civil society and the private sector. The Institute works in close collaboration with its Paris headquarters, with UNESCO field offices in different countries, with sister institutes and with national and international partners.
The National Youth Council of Latvia is an umbrella organization of youth organizations in Latvia. Its mission is to improve the living conditions of young people and to represent the interests of youth organizations on national and international level. Youth Council's member organizations gather around 10,000 young people across Latvia.
The European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) is a network of European providers of rehabilitation services to people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups. EPR members deliver services in the fields of vocational training and education, reintegration of service users into the open labour market and improvement of their employability, physical rehabilitation and social care.
The European Music Council (EMC) is a regional group of the International Music Council (IMC) representing Europe. It was established in 1972 as the 'European regional group of the IMC' and was renamed the European Music Council in 1992. The IMC was founded by UNESCO in 1949, and is, today, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which still retains formal relations with UNESCO. Until 2000 the secretariat was based in Aarau, Switzerland, and is now in Bonn, Germany.
The development of the European Lifelong Learning Indicators (ELLI) is an initiative of the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung to monitor the state of lifelong learning in Europe. The main focus of the ELLI project is the ELLI Index. The ELLI index is an annually updated composite indicator summarizing the state of lifelong learning for European countries. The ELLI IT platform is an online portal that provides access to regional data related to learning and socio-economic outcomes in Europe.
Ramona Nicole Mănescu is a Romanian politician and lawyer. From 24 July 2019 to 4 November 2019, she served as minister of Foreign Affairs in the Romanian Government. She was a Member of the European Parliament serving 2007 to 2013 and 2014 to 2019 from the National Liberal Party, active within the European People's Party. As part of this group she is a member of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, vice-chair in the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries and a substitute member in the Committee on transport and tourism and in Delegation for relations with the Arab Peninsula.
EUROGEO is a European scientific society, which networks geographers. It is an international non-governmental organisation. Since 1987 EUROGEO has been a participative member of the Conference of International NGOs of the Council of Europe. The association is involved in national and international activities and projects in geography including those related to education and training. It is a not profit organisation, which aims to develop, support and promote policies designed to advance the status of geography; establish and promote cross-border cooperation; promote education and training in geography from a European perspective and represent nationally and internationally the views of its members.
The Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013 in Finland consisted of the Finnish participation in the Lifelong Learning Programme 2007–2013 of the European Union.
Folk high schools are institutions for adult education that generally do not grant academic degrees, though certain courses might exist leading to that goal. They are most commonly found in Nordic countries and in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The concept originally came from the Danish writer, poet, philosopher, and pastor N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783–1872). Grundtvig was inspired by the Marquis de Condorcet's Report on the General Organization of Public Instruction which was written in 1792 during the French Revolution. The revolution had a direct influence on popular education in France. In the United States, a Danish folk school, called Danebod, was founded in Tyler, Minnesota.
