UGR maintains position as leading European university in Erasmus+

Thu, 07/26/2018 - 13:50
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26/07/2018
A plane flying up into the sky
The ranking of the top 10 Spanish universities in the KA103 programme

The Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE) recently published its data on the 2018 call for applications regarding student, academic and research staff, and administrative and support staff mobility within the Erasmus+ programme.  According to the data, within the specific framework of the “traditional” inter-European KA103 programme, the University of Granada has been allocated more mobility places than any other European higher education institution in 2018. In total, the University has been awarded 2286 places, 2000 of which are for students, while the remainder are for staff members.

The UGR is also the leading university in the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility Programme (KA107), which was launched in 2015 with a view to offering students and staff from European Programme countries the opportunity to study, receive training or teach in non-EU Partner Countries and vice versa. A primary goal of the KA107 programme is to strengthen higher education institutions across the globe through the exchange of management and educational practices and experiences.

Following four successive editions of the KA107 programme, the UGR is the leading university both in terms of mobility figures and budget allocation. In the last call for applications (2018), the UGR was awarded 480 mobility places and a total budget of €1,462,389. Thanks to a major contribution from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, the number of mobility opportunities in Latin America has increased significantly. The range of new mobility destinations includes countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Iran. Other destinations include Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand, to mention just a few of the 38 countries. With regard to this highly competitive programme, the UGR based its internationalization strategy on its history of cooperation with each respective country and established its priorities based on geographical ties and common interests.

These figures underscore the consolidation of the Erasmus+ programme at the UGR — a programme which has contributed immensely to the internationalization of education in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and beyond.

The University of Granada views the internationalization of higher education not as an objective per se, but rather as an instrument for training students to become critical, ethical, and responsible social actors in an increasingly complex globalised world. International mobility experiences have a profound impact on the development of transversal competencies, including language, cultural, intercultural, academic, professional and personal skills. These experiences ensure that students receive an all-round, comprehensive education and greatly improve their employment prospects.