The Erasmus programme

The Erasmus programme

The Erasmus University programme, one of the European Union’s greatest success stories, has been promoting cross-border mobility of students, lecturers, and staff within Europe since 1987.
Erasmus is the European Union’s new programme for education, youth, and sport. Erasmus combines the existing EU programmes for lifelong learning, youth, and sport and the European universities cooperation programmes.
The programme encompasses three Key Actions:
Key Action 1 – Mobility of Individuals
Key Action 2 – Cooperation for Innovation and Exchange of Good Practices
Key Action 3 – Support for Policy Reform

The seven-year programme is intended to improve skills and employability, and to drive the modernisation of systems of general and professional education and children’s and youth welfare services. Information about Erasmus can be found on the European Commission website: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm

The subsidies will mainly improve mobility in Europe, and are also expected to have that effect to a lesser extent in other parts of the world. The programme covers students in all study cycles up to and including the doctoral level who would like to complete part of their degree programme or an internship abroad. For the first time, it will provide funding for students at bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels for up to 12 months. In order to increase the financial incentive for students to stay abroad, the monthly mobility allowance for students will also be increased, particularly for host countries with higher living costs. It will also be possible in future to undertake internships abroad after graduation. 

Erasmus also contributes towards the further internationalisation of universities by funding short-term lectureships and professional training abroad for teaching and administrative staff.
Universities are able to invite company staff members from abroad to teach, and now to also participate in multilateral strategic partnerships with other European partners (including outside of academia) and to develop innovative projects together.

The following mobility measures, among others, have been funded by the Erasmus programme:

Study abroad for students

Internship abroad for students

Mobility for teaching purposes

Mobility for further and continued professional development purposes

The following EU Member States participate in Erasmus:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

Non-EU countries participating in the Erasmus programme:
Iceland, Liechtenstein, North Macedonia, Norway, Serbia, Turkey

General conditions of participation and funding
Higher education institutions that wish to participate in Erasmus activities must have in place an Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE).
The aim of the Charter is to guarantee the quality of the programme by means of certain basic principles.
The Erasmus University Charter (EUC) is awarded by the European Commission. It demonstrates that a university has fulfilled all conditions for successful participation in the Erasmus programme.

Special funding
Individuals with disabilities may receive an allowance for additional costs incurred as part of a stay under the Erasmus programme. This applies to all Erasmus mobility lines (studying, internship, mobility for teaching purposes, and mobility for further and continued professional development purposes).
Further information regarding “Mobility in other countries for disabled persons” is available on the web pages of theDAADand in the International Office.

Erasmus – student mobility
The core of the Erasmus programme – degree-related study abroad – makes it possible for students to undertake an Erasmus degree programme and/or Erasmus internship in any participating country for up to 12 months.

Liability clause
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. Responsibility for the contents of this publication rests solely with the author; the Commission accepts no liability for the further use of the information contained therein.

Additional information and advice concerning the Erasmus mobility measures can also be obtained from the

German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
National Agency for EU Higher Education Cooperation
Kennedyallee 50
53115 Bonn
Tel: +49(0)228/882-8877
Fax: +49(0)228/882-555
Email: erasmusatdaadPunktde
Homepage: www.eu.daad.de

Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2021 - 2027

Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2021 - 2027 - Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm  (in german)

Erasmus Policy Statement (in german)

Erasmus Charter and European Policy Statement (EPS)

European Policy Statement (EPS) of the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg

The EPS describes in a nutshell Nuremberg Tech's cooperation strategy within the scope of the Erasmus programme (Erasmus+ 2014–2020). The Nuremberg Institute of Technology (THN) is one of Southern Germany’s internationally oriented universities. Its profile is distinctly international with 160 partnerships with higher education institutions worldwide, bachelor's and master's programmes taught in English, and around 1,200 foreign students from more than 96 nations. In the future, THN aims to pursue a concept of internationalisation via a range of projects in order to enhance the mobility of students, teaching staff, and administrative staff alike: by strengthening the international dimension of teaching, we aim to make THN more attractive to teaching staff from partner universities and to expose our students to international teaching concepts. To achieve this goal, THN will develop an English-language guest lectureship programme and a “Visiting Professorship”, together with all of the structures required to host such guests and visitors. We want to make THN even more attractive to international students. With regard to the competitive position of the European education sector when compared with non-European places of study, although our foreign students are already very happy with their stay and their studies, our aim is to increase their satisfaction even further. To that end, we offer programmes that improve foreign students’ study skills and provide potential future students with information about THN while they are still in their home countries. We also have a contact person for degree-seeking international students, who offers assistance and special support. With its Study-based Practice International programme, THN intends to use its close links with local and international economic enterprises to offer students more places on voluntary and compulsory industrial internships abroad. Our International Dual Studies programme provides students from our partner institutions with the opportunity to take part in internships or master's programmes that are financed by enterprises, and even to be employed by a German firm. The primary aim of our International Classroom programme is to open up master’s programmes to international students and to run those programmes with content taught in English. To support its goals in terms of internationalisation in the European context, THN will mainly use Erasmus+ in order to enhance the mobility of students (all cycles), teaching staff, and administrative staff. The Committee for International Relations, which reports directly to the university’s Board of Directors, supervises and steers our internationalisation goals. The enhancement of student mobility is our primary aim when developing partnerships. It is the declared aim of the university to enable an ever-increasing number of students to complete an accredited study phase or internship abroad. In return, we want to offer students from partner institutions the opportunity to participate in innovative, research-oriented developments at the Energy Campus Nürnberg and other institutes at Nuremberg Tech in the future. New university partners are selected and assessed by means of a coordinated effort of the university’s Board of Directors, the liaison professors, and the International Office. When selecting a partner, we focus on criteria such as the geographic location, capacity for mobility, academic level and internationality of the partner, as well as the long-term prospects of the partnership. All mobility processes have gone through a quality management procedure with assessed
process descriptions. To complement our core partnerships in countries such as Spain and France, THN is now setting its sights on establishing partnerships in Northern and Eastern Europe. We also want to establish mobilities with smaller countries, such as Slovenia and Macedonia, and with potential EU-accession countries such as Turkey. In addition, we intend to complement our wide international network with universities in BRICS-countries, as well as in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Japan. THN intends to secure a diverse and high-quality range of mobility activities for all participants in the programme, whether they be students, teaching staff, or administrative staff. With that in mind, our aim is to use intensive programmes and programmes from other countries within the EU to expand upon our strategic partnerships and knowledge alliances in the future. THN has already developed a number of different types of partnership with international partners – including educational partnerships, practice partnerships, and post-graduate partnerships – and also aims to open up new possibilities for international mobility with a multifaceted network of partners within Europe. In 2013 the Bavarian Ministry of Science recognised the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences as a “Technische Hochschule”. This change in status will create new opportunities for internationalisation. Many of Nuremberg Tech's stated aims correlate with the five priorities of the European Commission’s agenda for the modernization of higher education systems. For example, to cover Europe’s need for academics, the university has already opened its doors to applicants with atypical educational profiles. A newly established “Gender and Diversity” center of excellence primarily aims to support disadvantaged and socially deprived groups, both before and during their studies, and also works together with the Language Center to draw up intercultural offers. A new programme of quality management in teaching will aim to reduce the drop-out rate among international students. A new support programme, which has been established by the Ministry of Science, the university, and local enterprises, aims to provide foreign students with a financed study and practical semester, during which they may even have the opportunity to be employed by a German firm. THN maintains very close links with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as well as with local enterprises, as a result of its heavy emphasis on practical experience. In view of their role as future employers, these enterprises are involved in the development of all innovative study programmes, including international qualifications taught in English. The university offers a wide variety of teaching formats, ranging from part-time studies to cooperative work and study programmes and electronic learning. In the future, we intend to use virtual teaching platforms to an even greater extent. The university aims to recruit highly talented people from all over the world and seeks to increase the importance of the EU as a location for study and research. In a benchmark study carried out across 28 German universities looking at how satisfied foreign students were with their stay, THN was ranked second; our aim now is to go one better. Our university’s Career Service has already organized application workshops and job placement tools for international students. In the future, THN intends to open up the German employment market even further for international partners. THN offers its students a wide range of approved, course-related international experiences to improve their cross-cultural and degree-related skills. THN is seeking to increase the range of financing possibilities outside of EU programmes. The newly established Energy Campus provides a significant boost for the knowledge triangle of academic education, research, and the economy and opens it up for international teaching, as well as educational and research activities. The Energy Campus has increased the importance of the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region as a location. THN will continue to provide a fixed budget for internationalisation activities, made up of a combination of equity capital and third-party funds, and will establish specific target agreements together with the Ministry of Science.

The Erasmus Charter of Nuremberg Institute of Technology can be viewed under this link.

“studieren weltweit – ERLEBE ES!” campaign

International experiences are in high demand. Therefore, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) have established the “
studieren weltweit – ERLEBE ES!” initiative.