The student mobility element of the scheme has already helped over 1.4 million students since it began almost 20 years ago. In 2003-2004 alone, more than 150.000 EU citizens benefited from the programme. Similarly, the schemes less well-known action to promote university cooperation has also been growing significantly under the scheme. More than 17 million are available this year to support around 260 projects and networks. For example, Curriculum Development Projects bring together universities from different countries in order to adapt existing study programmes or to establish new and jointly devised study programmes. Intensive Programme Projects are short programmes of study which bring together students and teaching staff from universities of different countries. Additionally, there are projects that are conceived specifically for the dissemination of the results and outcomes of curriculum development projects which have completed their development phase.
In 2005, the number of European Universities taking part in the ERASMUS University Cooperation scheme rose to an impressive 87% of all European universities, across 31 countries.
The success of the inter-university cooperation partnerships supported confirms the power of the ERASMUS scheme to integrate and network Europes higher education institutions, helping to equip them for the challenges of the globalised, knowledge-intensive world of the future.
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