Up to €6 million for projects supporting young people aged 11 to 19
UniCredit Foundation is launching the second edition of the UCF Edu-Fund Platform, the initiative designed to tackle educational poverty and promote equal access to quality education in the European countries where UniCredit operates. This marks a new step towards an even stronger commitment to supporting young people, following the great success of the first edition, which selected 30 high-impact programmes across Europe.
The launch comes in the wake of the UnConference, a two-day event hosted at UniCredit's headquarters that brought together the winning organisations from the first edition. The gathering offered a space to look beyond results and openly discuss fragilities, challenges and failures, recognising that community, involving schools, practitioners, organisations and colleagues, is the true driving force behind meaningful change. For UniCredit Foundation, failure is not the end of a process but the beginning of a dialogue that builds trust and opens up new possibilities for the relationship between donors and non-profit organisations.
The platform, open from 17 November 2025 to 16 February 2026, provides up to €6 million to support programmes targeting lower and upper secondary school students (aged 11-19). Eligible proposals may address school dropout prevention, teacher training, university guidance, and the development of skills needed to enter the labour market.
The UCF Edu-Fund Platform is open to non-profit organisations with proven experience in the education sector and offers three funding streams - small, mid and large-scale - with grants ranging from €100,000 to over €1 million, supporting local, national and transnational programmes. This year, the initiative covers 13 countries: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Silvia Cappellini, General Manager of UniCredit Foundation, commented: "With this new edition of the Edu-Fund Platform, we continue to invest in our communities through projects that put them at the center, strengthening support networks and helping scale successful practices already in place within local educational ecosystems. Our goal is to ensure that no talent goes unexpressed and no opportunity for growth is lost."
Applications must be submitted through the dedicated online platform.
Further information is available on the UniCredit Foundation website.