Erasmus+ Policy Statement

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Since its foundation, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) has had a remarkable international profile, which has no doubt been reinforced in the last decades by European mobility under the Erasmus Programme. Its international strategy aims at reinforcing and expanding cooperation with both EU and non-EU HEIS, enhancing the mobility of staff, students and researchers, promoting cross-border education through the development of new joint/double/multiple degrees, and fostering cooperation projects for innovation. The geographic areas of strategic interest for UAM are established according to several criteria:

• Cultural, historical, and linguistic proximity or sustained and long-lasting collaboration, like in the case of Latin America. UAM has many collaboration agreements for mobility and research with HEIs and national agencies in most LA countries.
• Academic or research affinity, like in the case of Asia and Africa or the USA, Canada, and Australia. The academic offer of Asian studies –Chinese and Japanese- and the activity of the Centro de Estudios de Asia Oriental makes Asia a natural objective for UAM, and the same happens with the studies of Arabic and the natural links with Africa. In the case of the USA, Canada and Australia, there are common research interests, especially in the fields of Biomedicine and Science.
• Geographical and cultural proximity like in the case of the Mediterranean countries.
• Interest in emerging countries, which offer new opportunities for cooperation, like India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. UAM has also developed new collaborations with sub-Saharan Africa.
• Excellence in teaching and research.

The mobility target groups are students at Bachelor, Master and Doctoral levels for studies and work placements in enterprises, and academic and non-academic staff for teaching or training purposes. In the case of the Master level especially, staff from enterprises who can participate in training courses and workshops.

UAM also plans to promote international collaborations aiming at double/multiple/joint masters’ degree programmes to increase its present catalogue and so to attract the best students. Currently, UAM participates in 19 International Joint Masters’ degrees, five of them Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters´ Degrees.

In October 2019, UAM formed a university alliance called CIVIS, together with seven other prominent European universities from across Europe, as part of the European University Initiative co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme.

CIVIS, a European Civic University, is a far-reaching initiative which aims to create a unique European interuniversity campus where students, academics, researchers, and staff will move, study, and collaborate seamlessly within the alliance. As such, it aims to contribute actively to the modernisation of the European Education Area. To support the Alliance’s objectives, the universities intend to make use of the various actions of the future Erasmus programme:

• To facilitate the mobility of our university staff and students, our member universities have signed institutional bilateral Erasmus agreements between all universities and initiated calls for short term mobilities (KA1, mobility).
• CIVIS’s long-term goal is to develop a deep level of European integration, involving joint learning pathways, development of complementary research facilities and diverse degree pathways turned towards solving societal challenges at regional, national, and international level. These ambitious goals can be supported through Partnerships for Innovation (KA2) and Support to policy development and Cooperation (KA3).
• Also, we believe that the future of Europe and that of Africa are intertwined. Therefore, CIVIS will affirm its vocation as a bridge between Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa, as part of a long-term commitment, and foster collaboration in education and research with our Mediterranean and African partners. International mobility projects (such as the existing KA107) will be crucial in helping us meet this objective.