Dear colleagues,

In this year marking the 30^th anniversary of the Erasmus+ programme, we welcome you to the Erasmus+ KA107 International Credit Mobility programme of the University of Poitiers!

International Credit Mobility is part of Key Action 1 “Mobility” of the famous Erasmus+ programme. This initiative, which was introduced by the European Union in 2015 offers the opportunities to students and staff to take part in an incoming or outgoing mobility with countries outside the European Union.  Under international credit mobility, a Higher Education Institution from the EU “Programme Country” can send its students, doctoral candidates or staff to an institution in other parts of the world “Partner Country”. It also offers students and staff from Programme countries the possibility to take part in an incoming mobility in our European universities. It is therefore an opportunity to organize motilities for students (Student Mobility for studies), teachers (Staff Mobility Teaching Assignment) and staff (Staff Mobility for Training) with a new openness to the world.

From 2015, thanks to strong partnerships already established with 25 universities in Colombia, Indonesia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Russia and Kazakhstan, the University of Poitiers won one of these Calls for Proposal. During 2 years, it hosted and sent students, teachers and administrative and technical staff to and from these partner institutions. A new project has been financed with Serbia for the period 2016-2018.

This year and until 2019, our institution will benefit from a significant amount of funding. It will enable exchanges with 5 institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 5 in Russia, 5 in Kazakhstan and 2 in Haiti, with whom Poitiers has developed close relationships.

The mobility grants allocated by the National Agency Erasmus + over a period of two years will therefore contribute to the internationalization of our components and laboratories. In this way, we will strengthen exchanges with countries with which we particularly wish to develop strong relationships, in training and research, with an emphasis on multi-disciplinarity. A better knowledge of the courses offering, educational content, teaching practices and research carried out in our respective institutions will enable us to share our mutual experiences and contribute to the structuring of our training and research offerings and their values.

On a personal level, motilities represent a rich experience on the professional, cultural and human sides. There are values we need to defend, as for Erasmus who was a humanist, a defender of freedom and a militant of peace and tolerance.

Our teachers-researchers and our administrative staff can also share theirs practices, discover different education and administrative systems and exchange about their experience in a pleasant atmosphere.

Student motilities for studies are easily recognized with the use of ECTS credits. Students pursuing a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s degree and even Doctorates will have the opportunity to acquire transversal and linguistic skills in order to value their diplomas, promote their professional integration. It will definitely be a unique experience of life in a wider geographic areas!

This new Erasmus + International Credit Mobility Programme will continue to help us in developing even closer exchanges with the University’s long-standing partners, and to build new relationships of trust with recent partners, to prepare together more ambitious cooperation programmes for the future, in both training and research, in all disciplines.

Our « Auberge Espagnole » will then further enrich its borders and menus!

I wish a great success to this new project which will promote our good practices’ exchanges and foster our passion!

Christine Fernandez-Maloigne

Vice-Rector in charge of International Relations

 

By stoic definition, wisdom means nothing else but being ruled by reason;
and folly, by contrsct, is being swayed by the dictates of the passions.
So Jupiter, not wanting man’s life to be wholly gloomy and grim, has bestowed far more passion than reason. 

ERASME – The Praise of Folly.