universiteit antwerpen - CONNEC - The CONNEC project

Connecting Europe and China through Interuniversity Exchange (CONNEC) - LOT 14 - EMECW China

The CONNEC project is coordinated by the University of Antwerp and promotes mobility for students, researchers and academic staff between China and Europe. It offers mobility grants to 175 Chinese and 35 European students, researchers and staff to spend a period abroad at one of the partner institutions. The project promotes the intercultural dialogue and international cooperation between the higher education institutions involved. The 15 partner institutions are committed to cooperate, exchange good practices, share knowledge and expertise at various levels and in various fields. Talented students from different regions and different social economic backgrounds will receive the unique opportunity to spend a period abroad and benefit linguistically, culturally and socially from this intercultural experience in a new learning environment. Researchers and academic staff will be given a wide variety of research, training and teaching opportunities.

The CONNEC project is funded by the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window(EMECW) scholarship programme.

Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window is a cooperation and mobility scheme in the area of higher education cooperation, launched by the European Commission's Europe Aid Cooperation Office and implemented by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency.
Its objective is to achieve better understanding and mutual enrichment between the European Union and third countries cooperation in the field of higher education through promoting the exchange of persons, knowledge and skills at higher education level. This will be achieved through the promotion of partnerships and institutional cooperation exchanges between European higher education institutions and third country institutions and a mobility scheme addressing student and academic exchanges.
More specifically, the EMECW aims:

To enhance the international cooperation capacity of universities in third countries;
To promote cooperation between sending and hosting institutions;
To enable students to benefit linguistically, culturally and educationally from the experience of pursuing academic studies in another country, and to promote EU values;
To improve the transparency and recognition of studies and qualifications, in particular building on the "acquis" and achievements gained of the Bologna process in this area;
To provide good students from vulnerable groups with higher education;
To enhance the skills and qualifications of foreign higher education staff so that they can contribute actively towards improvement of quality;
To build the capacity of the administration and public and private sector by participation of their staff in higher education mobility activities (especially through doctorate and post-doctorate activities);
To enhance in the medium term the political, cultural, educational and economical links between the European Union and Third-countries;

More information: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/extcoop/call/index.htm