Writing Guide

How do Work Packages work? A simple guide for KA2 projects

erasmusplus.ai6 min readJanuary 2025

Work Packages — WPs — form the structural backbone of every KA2 project. They help you organise tasks meaningfully, clarify responsibilities, and make project implementation manageable. This guide explains how WPs are structured and what you absolutely need to pay attention to.

What is a Work Package?

A Work Package groups thematically related activities, objectives, and results of a project. It serves as a clear structure to logically break down the work and make project progress transparent to evaluators, partners, and your National Agency.

Typical Work Package types in KA2 projects include:

→WP1 — Project management and coordination
→WP for results and intellectual outputs
→WP for dissemination and communication
→WP for quality assurance
→WP for evaluation and impact

How many Work Packages are allowed?

In KA2 projects, the number of Work Packages should be kept limited and purposeful. In practice, most successful applications work with four to five Work Packages in total — including one dedicated to project management.

Less is often more: Too many Work Packages make a project harder to understand, harder to manage, and harder to evaluate. Fewer, clearly defined WPs help evaluators quickly see how the project is structured and how results will be delivered.

Rule of thumb: Every Work Package should have a clear objective and a concrete contribution to the project's overall goals. If you cannot articulate either of those in two sentences, the WP probably needs to be merged or refined.

What belongs in a Work Package?

A well-designed Work Package always answers three questions: What is the objective? What is being done? What comes out of it? Every activity is assigned to exactly one Work Package. Responsibilities and deliverables are clearly defined.

WP1 — Project Management and Coordination

Objective: Ensure smooth implementation and cooperation between partners throughout the project.

Activities: Kick-off meeting, regular coordination meetings, financial monitoring, reporting to the National Agency.

Deliverables: Meeting minutes, interim reports, final report.

Responsibility: Coordinating organisation.

WP2 — Development of Project Results

Objective: Create the main intellectual outputs of the project.

Activities: Content development, piloting with target groups, revision based on feedback.

Deliverables: Training curriculum, toolkit, digital learning materials.

Responsibility: Partner with subject-matter expertise.

WP3 — Quality Assurance and Evaluation

Objective: Monitor progress and ensure quality of results throughout implementation.

Activities: Definition of indicators, internal evaluations, feedback collection from target groups.

Deliverables: Quality assurance plan, evaluation reports.

Responsibility: Partner independent from content development (to ensure objectivity).

WP4 — Dissemination and Exploitation

Objective: Make project results visible and usable beyond the partnership.

Activities: Project website, multiplier events, social media communication, outreach to target institutions.

Deliverables: Dissemination plan, event documentation, communication materials.

Responsibility: Partner experienced in outreach and communication.

Why Work Packages matter for your score

WPs signal how well your project is planned. A well-structured project appears realistic, transparent, quality-assured, and thoroughly thought through. Well-structured Work Packages are an explicit factor in the quality assessment of your application — evaluators look at whether the work plan is coherent, whether responsibilities are clear, and whether the resources allocated match the planned activities.

Tips for strong Work Packages

✓Only as many WPs as necessary — for maximum clarity and ease of evaluation
✓Every WP needs a clear objective — avoid "catch-all" packages for unclear tasks
✓Avoid overlaps — each activity should be assigned to exactly one WP
✓Define roles clearly — name which partner organisation is responsible for each WP
✓Choose realistic indicators — combine qualitative and quantitative values where possible
✓Align WP timelines with your Gantt chart — inconsistencies between text and timeline are a red flag

Conclusion

Well-designed Work Packages show at a glance that your KA2 project is realistically planned, clearly structured, and quality-assured. If each WP has a clear objective, activities are assigned unambiguously, and roles as well as success indicators are defined coherently, transparency increases — and so does the persuasiveness of your application.

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