Erasmus in the creation of the EHEA

Erasmus was one of the first initiatives to put the principles of the European Higher Education Area into practice. Since 1987 it has allowed thousands of students and lecturers to discover the university dimension of a Europe without frontiers, facilitating their mobility through financial aid and administrative services. Its options are as follows:

• Student mobility for study purposes. Aid aimed at ensuring that students benefit educationally, linguistically and culturally from the learning experience in other countries.
• Student internships in companies. Fixed term stays in a company or organisation of another European country that aims to contribute to adapting people to the labour market at a Community level, while also acquiring professional experience.
• Educational staff mobility. This allows students that cannot participate in a mobility program to benefit from the knowledge and experience of academic staff from other European countries. It also encourages the exchange of skills and experience regarding educational methods.
• Personnel training. Mobility of educational staff and other personnel between higher education institutions and with companies, in order to receive training.
• Organisation of mobility. This aid aims to create the ideal conditions by means of measures that encourage quality, so that students, educational staff and university personnel can undertake periods of learning or teaching in higher education institutions or in organisations in other participating countries.
• Intensive programs. Organisation of short term study programs for students and educational staff from universities in different participating countries in order to promote effective and multinational teaching of specialised subjects.
• Erasmus Intensive Language Courses (EILC). Offer Erasmus students the opportunity to study the language of the host country for nearly one month, in the host country, in order to prepare for the mobility period.
• Preparatory visits. Their purpose is to help higher education institutions that wish to participate in any of the actions of the Erasmus program to find other higher education institutions and other organisations to team up with to implement their mobility program.