What is ERASMUS+?

Background

• Erasmus+ is the new EU programme for Education, Training, Youth, and Sport for 2014-2020. The Erasmus+ programme aims to boost skills and employability, as well as modernising Education, Training, and Youth work.  For more information please visit European Commission website. Also find here the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education to which EUAS has become a party.
• The Lifelong Learning Programme supports European cooperation in eight areas, from school to higher education, from new technologies to adult learners.
• In general, the higher education section "ERASMUS" continues and extends the European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students (the "ERASMUS programme"), established in 1987.
• It is named after the philosopher, theologian and humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1465-1536). An untiring adversary of dogmatic thought in all fields of human endeavour, Erasmus lived and worked in several parts of Europe, in quest of the knowledge, experience and insights which only such contacts with other countries could bring. By leaving his fortune to the University of Basel, he became a precursor of mobility grants.

Objectives
Higher education plays a crucial role in producing high quality human resources, disseminating scientific discovery and advanced knowledge through teaching, adapting to the constantly emerging needs for new competences and qualifications, and educating future generations of citizens in a European context. All such functions are of vital importance to the long-term development of Europe.
The increasing speed at which existing knowledge becomes obsolete, and the rapid changes in the means by which it is delivered and renewed, will require the higher education sector to adopt new methods and commit itself wholeheartedly to the provision of lifelong learning.
Against this background, ERASMUS contains a wide range of measures designed

1. to support the European activities of higher education institutions
2. to promote the mobility and exchange of their teaching staff and students.

Inspired by a mobility tradition that dates back to the Middle Ages, the Erasmus action and its different activities henceforth fit into the mobility policy promoted by the Bologna Process, which aims at the creation of a European Higher Education Area by 2010.

Participating countries

• the 27 Member States of the European Union
• the 3 European Economic Area countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway)
• the candidate country (Turkey).

Key features
As in the past, ERASMUS is open

• to all types of higher education institutions (for which the term "universities" is generally used)
• in all academic disciplines and all levels of higher education study up to and including the doctorate and
• to those emerging from the 31 countries participating in SOCRATES, as well as to students emerging from any other country, who are officially recognised by a Member State as refugees, stateless persons or permanent residents.

ESN (ERASMUS Student Network) is a pan-European student organisation with the main task of supporting and developing student exchange within Europe. ESN is Europe’s largest student organisation with this aim – it has 160 sections in 23 countries. In Estonia, we have two sections – ESN Tartu and ESN Tallinn. The aim is to help international students in their integration to Estonian life.
www.esn.ee & www.esn.org