EAEA is annually awarding a EAEA Grundtvig Award for an outstanding product/project result in Adult Learning.
The first EAEA Grundtvig Award in Adult Education was launched in 2003 by EAEA in order to recognise and celebrate excellence in adult education. The Award is given to an organisation or participants who present the best product of a transnational project in adult learning. Each year the award has a different theme. The EAEA Grundtvig Award reaches out to every region in Europe, and inspires the practitioners, providers, participants and all concerned to value their work, and to link more closely with one another.
Transnational partners are eligible to enter a project for the award. The projects can include videos, photographs, books, power point presentation, slides and posters. Any product of the project that is accessible to the public, presented in a comprehensible way, and may be useful and/or transferable to other adult education organisations is eligible to enter the competition.
Philosophical background
The prize is called EAEA Grundtvig Award, after Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872), a Danish educator centrally influential in the development of non-formal adult education in Europe and worldwide. He provided the adult education sector a foundational philosophy that underpins much of the work in lifelong learning.
Grundtvig emphasised the intrinsic value of learning, as a foundation to living useful and enjoyable lives. This idea is central to the adult education that EAEA is promoting, with its focus on basic skills, valuing learning and active citizenship.
Grundtvig laid the ground work for the development of learning centres, in all kinds of contexts, from residential educational institutions to money and agricultural co-operatives. He linked intellectual and cultural growth with group development, a prelude to civic relationships.
