The Socrates/Erasmus Program
When the EU founded the program, student mobility within Europo was its main goal

ERASMUS stand for European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students. Its name honors the Dutch humanist Erasmus van Rotterdam who implemented an individual mobility scheme and studied at serveral European universities during his time.

90% of all students today study abroad in Europe using ERASMUS. Even while the monetary support given by the EU to support mobility has been reduced to a minimum, mobile students numbers have kept increasing until now.

In 1987/88 about 650 German students participated; in 1995 it was alomost 14 000 students.

Meanwhile ERASMUS activities include many mobility programs besides student mobility [which changed its name to Erasmus/Socrates] and keeps expanding even to institutions outside universities.

In applying for study abroad it is important to know whether one´s university and the Faculty I study in has a bilateral agreement with the European partner aimed at. Every year, applications have to handed in to Brussels to be granted money for the activities outlined in the application. The program is in constant flux: new universities join up, old agreements are discontinued.

At the moment the following countries participate:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Danemark, Estonia, Finnland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom.

Switzerland is a silent partner in the program.