News & Events

Erasmus Mundus - assisting learning in Europe

Feb. 01, 2010

 A symposium, under the theme of Significance and Issues of Erasmus Mundus, was held jointly by Meiji University’s Organization for International Academic Collaboration and by the Delegation of the European Union to Japan at the Academy Common on the Surugadai Campus on December 3rd 2009. It was held in order to better understand the Erasmus Mundus Program, which was set up to plan exchanges in higher education in Europe. The Erasmus Mundus Program was established to give students from outside of Europe the opportunity to study at European universities. The program assists consortiums of institutions of higher education, mostly within Europe, to establish a curriculum for the Erasmus Mundus Master’s program, and offers generous financial assistance to students and researchers from outside of Europe to help with their studies, research and daily living expenses while they study at graduate schools in Europe. The program also assists institutions of higher education outside of Europe with academic and student exchange at the Master’s level. From the program’s inception in 2004, approximately 10,000 students had enrolled in the Erasmus Mundus program by 2008. Starting from 2009 there are plans to vastly increase the program within Europe.

At the symposium, Ms. Marie-Helene Vareille of the Delegation of the European Union to Japan gave a lecture on Erasmus Mundus: Past, Present, Future. This was followed by a presentation by Ms. Mami Oyama, of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science who spoke about policies for international exchange at institutions of higher education in Japan, and the current situation with regards to assistance frameworks within Japan. This was followed by a lively panel discussion presided over by Ms. Vareille, and featured Prof. Janerik Lundquist of Linköping University in Sweden, Prof. Shin Abiko of Hosei University in Japan and Mr. Hideki Kawamura who has a Master’s of Arts in Global Studies.