Universities in Germany will receive more money from the EU's Erasmus+ programme to promote the international mobility of students and university staff. A total of around 220 million euros will be available for the next two years. This was announced today by the Erasmus+ National Agency Higher Education within the German Academic Exchange Service (NA DAAD).

In the "Learning Mobility of Individuals" funding line, German universities will receive around 186 million euros over the next two years to support their students and employees' stays abroad - around 20 million euros more than in 2023. The funding is primarily intended for international mobility in the 33 Erasmus+ programme countries. Universities can use up to 20 percent of the money to fund stays abroad outside of the programme countries. German universities are expected to use the funds to support around 58,000 people on a semester abroad or a teaching or further education programme. EU funding increased by around twelve percent compared to the previous year, with all types of higher education institutions in Germany benefiting from the approved funding.

In the "Mobility with partner countries" funding line, a further 31 million euros will be available to universities over the next two years to promote global mobility. These funds are expected to support almost 7,000 visits to Germany by international students and university employees.

Another part of Erasmus+ for the internationalisation of universities are the "Cooperation Partnerships". These cooperation and partnership projects focus on collaboration and the exchange of good practice. This year, they offer German universities and other organisations around eleven million euros in funding to promote internationalisation projects across educational sectors. The final funding decisions in the last two programme lines are expected to be made in August 2024 after the selection procedures have been completed.

Erasmus+ and the European elections

The Erasmus programme is also represented in the theses of the Wahl-O-Mat for the European elections, with which citizens can compare their attitudes with those of the 35 parties registered for the elections. In the 30th of a total of 38 theses, they can vote for or against an increase in the Erasmus grant for financially disadvantaged students. A recent NA DAAD survey of 19,000 former Erasmus scholarship holders revealed that 85 percent of them want to take part in the 2024 European elections.