Erasmus+

Erasmus+ provides students of European universities with the unique opportunity to gain international experience in their studies and improve their position in the labour market. In addition, the new programme promotes equal opportunities to study abroad by providing supplementary grants for students with special needs.

Students can apply for two types of grants:

Erasmus+ exchange study grants allow students to take courses at one of UI's partner universities, which are evaluated for credits upon return to Iceland. 

Erasmus+ traineeship grants allow students to work on specific projects, related to their studies, at a company or institution. 
Students participating in Erasmus+ exchange studies or traineeships may apply for an Erasmus+ disability or illness grant to meet additional costs.

Erasmus+ provides PhD students the opportunity to apply for mobility grants, whether they are for a study exchange or internship/traineeship/research.

Exchange:

• PhD students can apply for a traditional semester exchange for either one or two semesters with one of the University of Iceland‘s partner universities. Students are only eligible for study at partner universities with an agreement in their field and level of study. See general information regarding exchange studies.
• Partner university database
• Students must apply for their exchange before the 1 February deadline.

Internship/traineeship:

• PhD students can apply for a traditional internship/traineeship grant or use said grant to conduct research abroad.
• The soft deadline is 1 April for the coming academic year.

Short stays abroad:

• Students may apply for a grant for shorter stays abroad (5-30 days) to attend classes at one of our partner universities or to conduct research at another university or institution.
• Such exchanges require a formal agreement for student exchange between the University of Iceland and the relevant institution.
• It is recommended that part of the stay be conducted virtually but, in the case of PhD students, this is not mandatory.
• Students may apply for this grant to attend conferences, provided they actively contribute to the conference, for example with posters or presentations.

All UI employees, both academics and other staff, can take part in Erasmus+ either by teaching or training abroad in a partner institution or business for two to fourteen days.

An Erasmus+ grant is awarded to successful applicants. The grant is intended as a contribution to travel and living costs while teaching or training abroad. Training may include participating in courses, job shadowing, or organised visits to a partner university.  

Faculties may also apply for funding for inviting staff from institutions abroad to come and teach at UI.

Erasmus+ mobility grants within Europe
 

The core values of the University of Iceland - academic freedom, equality and professionalism - form the foundation for UI’s goals and involvement in the international academic community.

UI‘s international strategy is an integral part of the main strategy, with focus on international mobility for students and staff and international research collaboration. International collaboration enhances both research and education. It puts the University in a better position to recruit the best researchers and students and secure national and international research funding. 

The UI strategy sets out a progressive vision for teaching and learning that will prepare students for participation in society. One of the University's goals is to increase opportunities for international mobility and encourage students to participate. Study programmes should be organised in such a way to make it easy for students to go on exchange. The University attracts increasing numbers of international staff, for both short-term and permanent academic positions. This exposes local students to an increasingly international environment.

UI is an international research university and collaborates closely with universities and research institutions all over the world. Our partners are diverse, reflecting the different needs and priorities of our students and staff. In recent years UI has put increased emphasis on strengthening collaboration with leading research universities at the institutional level in addition to strategic partners at the faculty level. 

UI also participates in several networks of universities with mutual interests and a shared vision, including Aurora, a network of research-intensive universities deeply committed to combining academic excellence with societal relevance.

UI has been an active participant in the Erasmus programme since 1992. UI’s involvement has been vital to the internationalisation of the University. Since that time, UI has evolved from an institution offering mainly undergraduate degrees to an international research university offering high-quality Master’s and doctoral programmes with significantly increased research output, especially research resulting from international collaboration.

UI is strongly committed to the ECHE fundamental principles. We aim to honour the principles of non-discrimination, transparency and inclusion set out in the Erasmus Programme. We aim to ensure fair and equal access and opportunities for all current and prospective participant, with particular focus on the inclusion of those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We strive to ensure full automatic recognition of all ECTS credits earned during exchange studies. 

We ensure that selection procedures for mobility opportunities are fair, transparent, coherent and documented. All protocols are available to read. UI publishes an updated course catalogue on the website by 1 March each year, which is well in advance of when students need to select courses. We provide active support and assistance to both outgoing and incoming students regarding studies, insurance, visas and study permits, housing and more. 

We strive to guarantee high-quality services for students and to integrate incoming students into the UI community. We provide mentors for incoming students and the University provides funds the position of International Officer on the Student Council. This person works closely with the staff of the International Divison.

We support staff by ensuring that they are given recognition for teaching and training undertaken during the mobility period. We plan to work with Division of Human Resources to recognise Erasmus training in the context of career development. 

UI is looking forward to continued participation in the next Erasmus programme. We believe that the ambitious goals of the Erasmus programme for 2021-2027 will help UI progress still further in our own internationalisation and modernisation strategy. 

UI aims to participate in most types of cooperation projects for higher education within the Erasmus programme, as it has done since 1992.

Erasmus+ Key Action 1 (KA1) – Learning mobility

The mobility of students and staff will continue to be the key focus of our projects. This will cover all KA1 mobility activities, including student mobility for studies and traineeships and staff mobility for training and teaching. UI has participated in these Erasmus mobility initiatives since 1992 so the practice is well established and recognised within the University both for students and staff. We will continue to strengthen the connections and partnerships we have made in Europe throughout the next programme. Erasmus+ student and staff mobility is the backbone of our institutional strategy for internationalisation. The international dimenson of the Erasmus programme has added a new element to our internationalisation strategy. UI has been involved since the outset, with more and more people participating each year.

UI puts great emphasis on quality, transparency, promotion and support for mobility (before, during and after), inclusion of underrepresented students and full recognition of credits. We have taken the first steps towards full participation in the EWP (Erasmus Without Paper) initiative and encouragement from the European level has pushed the University to adopt new online solutions. We will continue to develop in this area. We are continuously looking for ways to encourage more student and staff to participate in KA1 mobility and are optimistic that simpler procedures following the introduction of EWP will lower the threshold for new participants. New opportunities created by future KA1 programmes, shorter stays, virtual mobility and blended mobility are also expected to attract more participants.

Erasmus+ Key Action 2 (KA2) - Cooperation among organisations and institutions

Partnerships for Cooperation and exchange of practices.
UI’s involvement in KA2 projects has been enormously beneficial in setting up international collaborative projects in specific areas. We continue to value these types of collaborative projects to help us develop areas that need to be strengthened in compliance with our institutional strategy.

Partnerships for Excellence – European Universities.
The leadership of UI is committed to the European Universities initiative and UI is involved with a proposal submitted for the 2nd call of the European University Alliance under the name of Aurora. We believe that participation in a European Alliance will help UI to advance the European Education Area’s goal of promoting a united European approach with increased cooperation and mobility beyond what is currently possible. The vision of a transnational, multi-campus network and collaboration with external stakeholders will add a new dimension to European collaboration. 

Partnerships for Excellence – Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degrees.
We envision that UI will participate in these types of projects in the new Erasmus programme, as we have done in the past. UI offers joint Master’s programmes with several universities and the Erasmus Mundus adds a new dimension, where clearer goals of collaboration align well with our institutional strategy.

Partnerships for Innovation
Innovation is one of the main focuses of UI’s institutional strategy. We believe that participating in partnerships for innovation will open up many opportunities to achieve our goal of increased innovation in all aspects of work at the University. 

Erasmus+ Key Action 3 (KA3) – Support to policy development and cooperation

UI has participated in two KA3-funded projects: Measuring and Comparing Achievements of Learning Outcomes in Higher Education in Europe I & II. These projects were led by the University of Groningen. Participating in European projects helps us to advance and develop certain areas of excellence and expertise in the HE sector, both for UI as an individual HEI but also at the national level. We believe that participating in future KA3 projects will provide many opportunities to support policy development.

The benefits of UI’s participation in the Erasmus programme so far are indisputable. The programme has helped UI to grow into an international research university. UI has been involved in the Erasmus programme since 1992. Exchanges started slowly with just a few students and staff moving in each direction but numbers have increased steadily, with a small drop during the economic crisis of 2008 as could be expected. 

Although we still receive more students than we send out, in recent years we have managed to achieve more of a balance in our student exchange. However, we seem to have reached a plateau in the number of students we are sending despite the active promotional efforts of staff at the International Division. The total is about 2.5% of all students. 

As well as giving them opportunities to grow as a person and gain intercultural skills, exchange studies benefit our students by allowing them to specialise in their fields, take a wider variety of courses, and access research infrastructures not locally available to them. This enables them stand to out once they enter the labour market or apply for graduate studies. Participants, both students and staff, report high overall satisfaction rates.

UI plans to take steps to reduce obstacles to mobility and induce mobility growth in the new funding period. We will continue to promote mobility, provide increased support, strengthen the messaging around mobility in the next UI strategy, and simplify the application process by digitalising administrative processes. This plan will further increase the mobility of students, administrative staff and academics in KA1 activities.

Some obstacles have been removed by the simplification and digitalisation of administrative procedures through the European Student Card initiative. By focusing on more sustainable international cooperation, with virtual and blended mobility, we will undoubtedly manage to attract more students and staff, especially those concerned about climate change who are looking for more environmentally friendly methods of internationalisation. We believe that these more flexible mobility formats and innovative ways of teaching and learning will be attractive to students. Smoother automatic recognition of periods abroad will also be attractive. 

Short-term mobility for doctoral candidates will no doubt be of interest to our students. We encourage international collaboration during PhD studies and urge our students to spend time at another university or research institution with a co-supervisor for their PhD thesis. This enables them to experience an international environment in their field (UI is quite small so wider exposure is definitely beneficial) and acquire specific training, knowledge and skills that they would not otherwise get at UI. They will also make valuable European contacts in their field, opening up collaborative opportunities and making it easier to find postdoctoral positions. 

At UI there has been greater interest in the Erasmus staff mobolity grants from administrative staff than academic staff. That could be partially explained by the fact that most academic staff members have other research grants that can be used for travel and their interest is often more focused on attending scientific conferences and presenting their own research, rather than being guest lecturers or job shadowing. We would like to encourage more dialogue on linking staff mobility and HR policies and recognition. We are also interested in discussing priorities for targeted mobility, areas where staff could learn best practices relevant to their work but also areas that are important to our University as a whole, such as sustainability and digitalisation. 

Looking at how mobility actions complement other Erasmus+ actions

KA1 in the E+ programme 2021-2027 with the focus on multidimensional mobility such as blended programmes, which combine short term physical mobility and a virtual component, will align well with our goals of internationalisation at the UI. We will exploit these new possibilities to offer new forms of mobility and reach students for whom traditional student mobility/traineeship has proven to be less suitable. We are also interested in training opportunities for staff and exploring staff mobility options that will support multiple goals of UI, i.e. not only personal goals. There are also many opportunities to increase our involvement in cooperation projects under the KA2 action. We plan to raise awareness of the opportunities offered by these projects by setting up extra support and advertising in collaboration with the UI Division of Science and Innovation and the Erasmus National Agency.

There is room for growth in the numbers that participate in the Erasmus programme at UI. We strongly believe the new elements that are being introduced in the new 2021-2027 programme will help to boost numbers. Shorter mobility periods, the goal of high mobility within the European Universities Alliance, virtual mobility and blended mobility will all help increase the number of students and staff gaining international experience through the Erasmus programme. We are therefore confident that we will meet our target of widening participation.

For more detailed information on Erasmus+ check out the Programme Guide