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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Sep 30, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Universidad Europea Madrid is a young institution founded in 1995 that includes seven undergraduate schools, a career college, four graduate schools, and various university health clinics. From the beginning, the university was set up with a decidedly holistic and integrating approach to higher education, with “internationalization” at its core. The university belongs to the Laureate International Universities group, a network whose mission is to expand access to quality higher education to “make the world a better place”. This goal, which initially might sound rather hollow, is now a veritable reality at our institution, and which would not have been possible without international integration as the main cornerstone of its day to day activity. In this particular context, the Erasmus Programme presented itself as a unique opportunity. UEM had no intention of losing touch with this unifying force of 1990s European society and soon decided to get involved as an active institution. “To make the world a better place” is a hard goal to achieve without proactive participation in the host society. UEM, imbued with this “Delors spirit”, did not want to be just a passive beholder of this integration, but instead an actively involved key participant. The first Erasmus Charter and agreements were signed just a few years after the foundation of UEM and the university quickly immersed itself in the construction of the European identity. Fifteen years later, and in spite of reduced public funding, we have had 412 students, employees and professors with international stays around the globe in the 2014/2015 academic year. The Erasmus+ Programme has played a key role in improving our mobility. Of the 412 stays abroad, 153 took place within the Erasmus+ Programme: 105 students on periods of study abroad; 17 students on international internships; 19 professors on teaching stays; and 12 staff members on training stays. I we focus on student mobility alone, we can see that the average Erasmus student is 26 years old and male, albeit only by a narrow margin (55% vs. 45%). Internationality is another notable feature among our Erasmus students: 12% do not hold Spanish citizenship; and of those who do, 8% have a second nationality. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is still by far the favorite destination for our students (over 65%), followed some way behind by Italy (22%) and Germany (16%). In spite of these clear preferences, we have managed to send students to 13 different countries during this academic year, in line with the steady increase in geographical dispersion we have been experiencing over the past 3 years. But even more important than the students UEM sends are the students UEM receives. In the 2014/2015 academic year, 380 students from more than 19 European countries chose UEM as their host institution. This is an increase of more than 8% on the previous year, consolidating UEM as a leading university in the Madrid region. It might seem that the Erasmus+ Programme has no special appeal for a private institution like ours. But, again, Laureate’s mission is “to make the world a better place” and this cannot be achieved without the support of this type of program. As we have already mentioned, 380 students chose UEM as their host university for 2014/2015. Most of them come from public institutions or from different backgrounds where studying at a university like UEM would otherwise be unthinkable. The Erasmus+ Programme has not only made these stays possible, but has also enabled us to carry out a number of initiatives such as providing intensive Spanish courses free of charge, welcome activities aimed at student integration, and an “International Week”, among others.
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