The EuropeAid Office of the European Commission has recently launched a new mobility scheme for cooperation between universities inside and outside of Europe. The “Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window” has a slightly misleading name, since it is not part of the Erasmus Mundus Programme as such (but meant to support it).

The programme supports the mobility of students (undergraduate and graduate), PhDs and postdoctoral fellows into and out of Europe within consortia of universities in a wide range of subject areas. “Europe” is defined as the EU-25, the acceding countries Bulgaria and Romania, the candidate countries Turkey, Croatia and FYROM and the EEA countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. From outside of Europe, a selection of countries in the Southern Mediterranean area, in Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus and Central Asia and the mid-East are eligible. The programme provides a total of 29 million euro. Consortia must consist of universities (and associations) in at least five European and one “third” country. Depending on the volume of mobility, partnerships are expected to be awarded between one and six million euro for multiannual projects.

The deadline for this first call for proposals is 31 January 2007. More calls, probably for additional target countries, are expected to follow. At a first glance, the programme regulations appear to be complex. Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window: Call for proposals