European Commission - EU Education - Erasmus Program
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EU Education - Erasmus Program
Erasmus is the EU's flagship education and training programme, enabling more than 180,000 students to study and work abroad each year, as well as supporting co-operation actions between higher education institutions across Europe. It caters not only for students, but also for professors and business staff who want to teach abroad and for university staff who want to be trained abroad.
The Program is named after the humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1465-1536) whose travels for work and study took in the era’s great centers of learning, including Paris, Leuven and Cambridge. Like the man, the Erasmus program places great importance on mobility and furthering career prospects through learning. By leaving his fortune to the University of Basel, he became a pioneer of the mobility grants which now bear his name. Studies show that a period spent abroad not only enriches students' lives in the academic field but also in the acquisition of intercultural skills and self-reliance. Staff exchanges have similar beneficial effects, both for the people participating and for the home and host institutions. In addition to mobility actions, the Program supports higher education institutions to work together through intensive programmes, networks and multilateral projects.
Few, if any, programs launched by the European Union have had a similar Europe-wide reach. Around 90% of European universities take part in Erasmus and 2 million students have participated since it started in 1987. The annual budget is in excess of €440million, more than 4,000 higher education institutions in 31 countries participate
