Policy experimentation: Erasmus+ scholarship

Expected Impact:

• Promote European top talents, with focus on those from a disadvantaged socio-economic background, by facilitating access to innovative, multidisciplinary and compelling European higher education or tertiary VET study programmes equipping them for successful careers and tapping into their innovative potential for bolstering strategic sectors crucial for Europe’s competitiveness ;
• Support the development of compelling and innovative study programmes targeting the needs of the strategic sectors and advancing the Choose Europe objectives.
• Foster synergies with other higher education initiatives, such as the European Universities Initiative, the joint European degree label and the European degree in engineering.
• Reduce labour and skills gaps in strategic sectors, thereby increasing Europe’s competitiveness in alignment with the Union of Skills strategy.
• Contribute to the higher education targets of the STEM Education Strategic Plan.
• Contribute to the learning mobility targets defined in the ‘Europe on the move’ Council Recommendation.
• Increase cooperation with industry and key stakeholders operating in strategic sectors

Expected Outcome:

• Enhance the visibility and attractiveness of high-quality higher education programmes in strategic educational fields for talented students.
• Improve inclusion and diversity in strategic educational fields where certain groups remain underrepresented.
• Generate evidence to inform the design of a future Erasmus+ scholarship scheme in strategic educational fields under the Erasmus+ programme 2028–2034.

Objective:

The general objectives are:

• Retain Europe’s top talent to study strategic fields in European higher education and tertiary VET institutions in particular with strong EU dimension such as provided through joint study programmes
• Increase access of talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds to high-quality STEM programmes and pursue meaningful careers in strategic sectors for Europe’s competitiveness. Reduce skills-gaps in Europe in priority STEM areas aligned with EU strategic sectors, ensuring that scholarship recipients specialise in identified high-demand fields.
• Strengthen employability outcomes by facilitating traineeships, mentorships, or industry placements for scholarship recipients before graduation.
• Increase EU dimension of study programmes through support for mobility and collaboration by providing study or exchange opportunities abroad for scholarship recipients.

The specific objectives are:

• Evaluate the pilot’s outcomes and processes by identifying success factors, barriers, and the added value of the integrated mobility and traineeship components.
• Produce policy-relevant conclusions and actionable recommendations to inform the potential scaling up of a European-level Erasmus+ scholarship scheme in strategic educational areas.

Erasmus+ scholarships awarded under this call will support talented students to complete their studies in programmes accredited according to European Qualifications Framework (EQF) Levels 5 (short cycle), 6 (first cycle), and 7 (second cycle), for a maximum duration of three academic years. Consortia are encouraged to test the scholarship scheme at all three levels.

Scope:

The Erasmus+ scholarship initiative seeks therefore to design, pilot, and evaluate a scholarship scheme that promotes excellence and supports talented students in key strategic fields, helping to meet the growing demand for highly skilled professionals. The scheme will focus on students with fewer opportunities. It will also generate evidence on the most effective approaches for implementing the scheme and assess its potential for broader scale-up.

Through the funding of scholarships, this call aims at retaining talented European students to study in Europe by facilitating their access to study programmes of high quality and to joint study programmes with embedded mobility and best prepare graduates to adapt to a fast-evolving society. It will contribute to developing a pool of future highly skilled professionals in strategic educational fields identified in the Union of Skills, competitiveness Compass and the STEM Education Strategic Plan such as clean and circular technologies, bioeconomy, transport, digital technologies—including Artificial Intelligence—energy, water resilience, healthcare, aerospace, and defence. Within these strategic domains, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programmes are recognised as essential study fields to increase EU’s competitiveness and innovation goals. While scholarships should be awarded to academically excellent students based on merit, inclusion and diversity aspects will be an important asset to ensure the selection of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and equitable gender representation.