EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR EDUCATION AND CULTURE Higher education and international affairs International cooperation and programmes; Jean Monnet Brussels, October 2014 MANAGING INTERNATIONAL CREDIT MOBILITY IN ERASMUS+ INTRODUCTION This note is intended to give National Agencies and National Erasmus Offices information about how international credit mobility will be organised with Partner Countries. Various information is provided in order that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Programme Countries, who will be responsible for applying for funding, can tailor their applications. DIFFERENT BUDGETS HAVE DIFFERENT RULES In the 2015 call for international credit mobility, 4 different EU funding instruments provide the available budget. These are Instrument for Pre-accession (IPA) European Neighbourhood Instrument () Development Co-operation Instrument () Partnership Instrument (PI) Please see Annex 1 for a list of the different budget envelopes under each funding instrument, as well as an exhaustive list of Partner Countries within each budget envelope. For the budget, a minimum of 90% of the available budget must be used for incoming student or staff mobility from the Partner Country. This limitation applies to the Eastern Partnership and South Mediterranean budget envelopes, but NOT to Russia, where there is no limitation on incoming vs. outgoing mobility. For the budget, Programme Country HEIs can receive incoming students and staff without any restrictions, but are not permitted to send outgoing Programme Country students at first (Bachelors) or second (Masters) cycle. Outgoing third cycle (PhD candidates) or staff are eligible to be sent to Partner Countries. Due to the restrictions on outgoing mobility from Programme Countries under the funding instrument, National Agencies are authorised to use their intra-european funding to fund outgoing first and second cycle students to Partner HEIs. If the National Agencies exercise this choice, they are allowed to use up to 20% of the budget envelope for a particular region. To give an example: Germany has a budget envelope for cooperation with Latin America of 716,449 EUR. If Germany decides to authorise Commission européenne/europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111 Office: MAD 8/80 - Tel. direct line +32 229-59300
outgoing first or second cycle students to Latin America, the maximum it may spend from the intra-european budget is 143,290 EUR. National Agencies choosing to use intra-european funds to overcome the budget restrictions must advertise this possibility on their website and inform their stakeholders of the possibility. There are no restrictions on incoming/outgoing mobility in either the IPA or the PI funding instruments. Unlike intra-european credit mobility, there are no quotas for student vs staff mobility with Partner Countries. In other words, Programme Country HEIs are free to apply for 100% staff mobility or 100% student mobility or anything in between. In terms of budgetary flexibility, each year Programme Countries are free to deviate by up to 10% of the budget envelopes inside a given financial instrument (3 envelopes within, 4 envelopes within or 2 envelopes within PI 1 ). This does not apply to the IPA instrument which is a unitary budget envelope. At the end of the first, 3 year planning period (calls in 2014, 2015 and 2016), each Programme Country must be as close as possible to the 3 year total for the individual budget envelopes. In practical terms this means that if a Programme Country decides to 'borrow' money from the Asia budget in 2014 to supplement the South Africa budget in order to fund a rounded number of mobilities, this 'borrowed' budget will have to be paid back before the end of the 3 year period, and the 3 year totals for Asia and South Africa must be respected. PRIMARY EVALUATION CRITERIA There will be no obligation on National Agencies to organise the evaluation using external experts. Each individual National Agency will have a free choice in order to organise the evaluation as best suits them. There are 4 primary evaluation criteria for assessing international credit mobility: 1. Relevance of the strategy: Applicants must explain why the planned mobility project is relevant to the internationalisation strategy of the Programme and Partner Country HEIs involved and justify the proposed type(s) of mobility (students and/or staff). 2. Quality of the cooperation arrangements Applicants should detail their previous experience of similar projects with HEI institutions in this Partner Country, if any, and explain how, for the planned mobility project, responsibilities, roles and tasks will be defined in the Interinstitutional Agreement. 3. Quality of project design and implementation Applicants must present the different phases of the mobility project and summarise what partner organisations plan in terms of selection of participants, 1 The budget envelope for Russia is made up of contributions from (82% of the total) and PI (18% of the total), but for purposes of budgetary flexibility, Programme Countries should count Russia as being within the family. 2
the support provided to them and the recognition of the mobility periods (in particular in the Partner Country). 4. Impact and dissemination Applicants should explain the desired impact of the mobility project on the participants, beneficiaries, and partner organisations, at local, regional and national levels. They should describe the measures which will be taken to disseminate the results of the mobility project at faculty and institutional levels, and beyond where applicable, in both the Programme and Partner Countries. SMALL BUDGETS Understanding that Programme Countries will have particular problems with very small budgets, National Agencies are entitled to apply one or more of the following secondary criteria if a particular budget envelope is less than 60,000 EUR. 1. Degree level e.g. limiting applications to 1 or 2 cycles: BA, MA or PhD 2. Either staff or student e.g. limiting applications to staff mobility 3. Limiting duration of mobility periods, e.g. limiting student mobility to 6 months, or limiting staff mobility to 10 days. National Agencies choosing to invoke the use of secondary criteria must make advertise this on their website and inform their stakeholders. ESTIMATED NUMBER OF MOBILITIES PER BUDGET ENVELOPE National Agencies are strongly encouraged to publish the available budgets for each of the 10 budget envelopes and corresponding, approximate numbers of mobilities that these numbers represent. Given that applications can apply for staff mobility periods of only 5 days, or student mobility periods of up to 12 months, the numbers provided are necessarily a rough approximation. The budgets per envelope per country are detailed in the accompanying excel sheet, together with the calculation method used to approximate the numbers of mobilities. GEOGRAPHICAL BALANCE Certain budget envelopes have a constraint, at the level of Erasmus+, not at the level of individual Programme Countries, to try to ensure that cooperation with large Partner Countries within particular regions does not distort the budget. These constraints are: Asia. at least 25% for low-income countries and less developed countries (Afghanistan Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar), maximum 30% max. for India and China combined; 45% rest of Asia Latin America 3
at least 25% for Lower Middle Income Countries (Bolivia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay); maximum 35%. for Brazil and Mexico combined; 40% for the rest of Latin America. It is unreasonable to expect Programme Countries to comply with these rules individually, however, the Commission will examine the distribution of funds in these budget envelopes after the 2015 call to examine geographical distribution and will take action in future calls where necessary, to ensure that the above conditions are met. 4
ANNEX 1 ERASMUS+ ELIGIBLE COUNTRIES FOR INTERNATIONAL CREDIT MOBILITY IN 2015 Programme Countries EU Member States Non-EU Programme Countries Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, United Kingdom FYROM, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Turkey Instrument for Pre-Accession IPA Western Balkans Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia European Neighbourhood Instrument Eastern Partnership South- Mediterranean Russian Federation Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Territory of Ukraine as recognised by international law Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia Territory of Russia as recognised by international law Development Co-operation Instrument Asia Central Asia Latin America South Africa Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela South Africa Partnership Instrument PI Industrialised Americas PI Industrialised Asia Canada, United States of America Australia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Japan, (Republic of) Korea, Macao, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan 5