In late 2005, ACA was awarded a contract by the European Commission’s DG for Education and Culture to help set up an alumni association for the graduates of the Erasmus Mundus Programme. This February, ACA concluded work on the first phase of this ambitious project. The Erasmus Mundus Alumni Association (EMA) has now been successfully launched. 1 200 alumni have registered as members, almost half of all students and graduates of the Erasmus Mundus Programme. The association is not yet established as a legal entity, but has already created governing bodies and produced a draft of its statutes.

The EMA offers its members an impressive range of services, accessible through a web portal. Such services include a members’ directory, a message board, a newsletter with a job board, and a forwarding email address with .eu domain. These services are to be extended in the future, with, amongst other things, an EMA Magazine. ACA, in conjunction with elected student representatives of the EMA, produced a development plan for the future of the association.

In the coming months, the EMA will be run by the DG for Education and Culture. In late spring or early summer, the European Commission will again hand over the task of running and developing the EMA to a service provider. For this purpose, it has just launched an invitation to tender (see Public Tenders and Calls in this edition). EMA portal
EMA Newsletter # 3
Erasmus Mundus Programme