A Little Bit More on Erasmus Mundus

This is for those who want to know a bit more about Erasmus Mundus 🙂

There are more than 200 Erasmus Mundus programmes out there. Not all of them offer scholarships. The European Commission regularly decides which programmes to be granted with the fund to provide scholarships.

Basically, the European Commission divides the scholarships into three groups. Action 1 is for joint master and doctoral programmes. Action 2 is partnerships with third country higher education institutions — you can only apply for their programmes if you’re a student/professor of the institutions in the partnerships. While action 3 aims to promote European higher education.

Mundus MAPP, that I will join in a few days, is one of the Action 1 programmes. The last time I checked the website page of the Action 1 (which was a couple minutes ago), 142 master programmes and 35 doctoral programmes are available. Every program is managed by a consortium, which consists at least three higher education institutions.

A few weeks ago, the European Commission updated the Action 1 programmes list for the academic year 2012-2013. I’m happy to see Mundus MAPP was selected again.

The list is still heavy on natural science, engineering, and agriculture — leaving less than 40 master programmes for social sciences, humanities, and arts. (Pardon my social-science subjectivity here, please.) But I found several master programmes to be interesting.

First of all, the EMMA or Erasmus Mundus Masters Journalism, Media and Globalisation is back in the list. It was not selected for the previous cycle, but it bounced back. So it’s a HUGE opportunity for journalists and media scholars out there, including most of my dear friends.

Still related to the mass media world is the new programme, NOMADS EMMC – exploring without borders-documentary film directing. I like the tagline written on its website: “Documentary directing is more than a profession, it’s an attitude towards the world.” Sweet. It’s a 2-year-long (120 ECTS) documentary film making course delivered by three European higher education institutions, Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias of Lisbon, Hogeschool Sint-Lukas of Brussels and the consortium leader University of Theatre and Film of Budapest.

Another new programme is CHOREOMUNDUS – International Master in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage. I always think that dancers and choreographers are somehow sexy. Haha. The programme seems like a perfect pair for a previous programme in performance art, MAIPR – Master of Arts in International Performance Research. MAIPR is also selected for the academic year 2012-2013.

The fourth programme which caught my eyes is MITRA – Médiation interculturelle : identités, mobilités, conflits. Dealing with migration, identities, mobilities and conflicts, it is offered by a consortium of six universities in France, Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Senegal, and Brazil. Yep, two of the members are located outside Europe and I think it makes things more interesting. MITRA is the third migration-related programme in the list, after EMMIR – European Master in Migration and Intercultural Reations and MISOCO – Joint European Master in International Migration and Social Cohesion. Coming from a country of immigrants, I find migration as a fascinating topic in discussion — my dad’s ethnic group, Minangkabau, are descendants of immigrants from China, Cambodia, India, Thailand, and Persia; while my mom’s a Sundanese, a tribe of Austronesian origins who are thought to have originated in Taiwan, migrated though the Philippines, and reached Java in 1,500-1,000 BC.

Last but not least is the IMRCEES – International Masters in Russian, Central and East European Studies programme. Everything related to Russia is somehow important for me these days, hahaha.

Anyway, most Action 1 programmes’s websites will be updated these days. New admission rules and deadlines should be published around September. So keep your eyes on their websites if you’d like to get the scholarships!

And please do tell me if you’ve got it. Perhaps we can meet somewhere in Europe 😉