Erasmus networks cover almost 90 per cent of Europe’s universities

Citation

(2006), "Erasmus networks cover almost 90 per cent of Europe’s universities", Education + Training, Vol. 48 No. 2/3. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2006.00448bab.010

Erasmus networks cover almost 90 per cent of Europe’s universities

Some 87 per cent of Europe’s 4,000-plus universities, in 31 countries, now take part in the Erasmus University co-operation scheme, the European Commission has reported. Erasmus promotes student and teaching-staff exchanges, and supports international co-operation between universities, improving the transparency and full academic recognition of studies and qualifications throughout the EU. “The success of the inter-university co-operation partnerships supported confirms the power of the Erasmus scheme to integrate and network Europe’s higher-education institutions, helping to equip them for the challenges of the globalised, knowledge-intensive world of the future,” the European Commission said in a press release. The student-mobility element of the scheme has helped more than 1.4 million students since it began almost 20 years ago. In 2003-2004, more than 150,000 EU citizens benefited from the programme.

The scheme’s less well-known action to promote university co-operation has also grown significantly. More than €17 million was available last year to support around 260 projects and networks. For example, curriculum-development projects bring together universities from different countries in order to adapt existing study programmes or to establish new and jointly devised study programmes. Intensive programme projects are short programmes of study that bring together students and teaching staff from universities of different countries. Additionally, there are projects that are conceived specifically for the dissemination of the results and outcomes of curriculum-development projects that have completed their development phase.

Erasmus also supports so-called “thematic network” projects, of which 19 were selected last year. These involve networks of universities working together to analyse and compare existing teaching methods, to define and experiment with new teaching methods, and to place teaching material at the disposal of the members of the network with the aid of databases.