There has been a substantial year-on-year growth in the number of Taiwanese winners of the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus scholarship program, with a new record being set this academic year.
The Taipei-based European Economic and Trade Office (EETO) said two academics and 22 students from Taiwan have been awarded scholarships this year, compared with 14 students and no academics last year.
Each student receives a grant of between US$29,375 and US$58,750, depending on the length of their course, while the academics receive a grant of US$18,200 to support a three-month trip to Europe, the EETO said.
Launched in 2004, Erasmus Mundus is a higher education cooperation and mobility program that aims to enhance the quality of European higher education and to promote dialogue and understanding between people and cultures through cooperation with countries outside the EU.
Meanwhile, a European Commission press statement released via the EETO said that some 10,000 students and academics from around the world had won scholarships in this year’s program.
Jan Figel, the European commissioner for education, training, culture and youth, said in the statement that the Erasmus Mundus program is growing in popularity and, with its emphasis on quality and excellence, doing an outstanding job of promoting European higher education on the world stage.
“Erasmus Mundus is going from strength to strength. In the years since 2004, when it began, the program has been able to establish itself as one of the world’s foremost international mobility programs,” Figel said.
The European Commission said this year’s winners include students from a total of 105 countries, with China the most-represented country, followed by India, Brazil, Mexico, Bangladesh, the US, Ethiopia, Russia and Indonesia. It also includes academics from 75 countries, with the US, China, India, Australia and Canada best represented.
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