Erasmus

As noted on the Europa Lifelong Learning Programme web site, Erasmus is the EU's flagship education and training programme, enabling two hundred thousand students to study and work abroad each year, as well as supporting co-operation actions between higher education institutions across Europe. It caters not only for students, but also for professors and business staff who want to teach abroad and for university staff who want to be trained abroad.

Erasmus Virtual Campuses Multilateral Projects

The Europa web site provides a concise summary of the Erasmus Virtual Campus programme objectives:

• To increase virtual mobility as a complement or substitute to physical mobility in addition to any other type of independent mobility
• To integrate a virtual mobility dimension in Erasmus multilateral Curriculum Development projects
• To increase the availability of high-quality European Open Educational Resources in a life long learning context
• To contribute to the modernisation agenda for universities and of higher education in Europe.

The Virtual Campus action within Erasmus seeks to support the development/ mainstreaming of innovative ICT-based content, services, pedagogies and practice for lifelong learning supported by sustainable organisational, educational and economical models. Grants are provided for two-year projects involving higher education institutions and other relevant organisations from at least three countries participating in the LLP.

Coordinating organisations which are higher education institutions must hold an Erasmus University Charter.

Erasmus Transversal Programme

The Europa web site provides this summary of the Erasmus Transversal Programme:

In order to ensure that the four sub-programmes of the Lifelong Learning Programme reap the best results, a transversal programme with four key activities complements them.

1. Policy co-operation - Innovating and sharing good policy practices
2. Languages - Breaking the language barriers
3. Information and communication technologies - Innovative learning
4. Dissemination and exploitation of project results - Spreading and implementing the results

More details

A useful glossary of Erasmus-related terms can be found on the Europa web site at http://ec.europa.eu/education/programmes/llp/guide/glossary_en.html#116

---