The European Commission has launched a call for proposals for scholarships for graduates for European Neighbourhood countries and Russia, addressed to higher education institutions in EU member states offering Master’s Courses in European Studies (EU Law, EU Economics, EU Policy, Administration and Governance, European Integration History or Interdisciplinary European Union studies).
The general objective of the project is to build up the professional skills of graduates from European Neighbourhood countries (Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Russia, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine) and Russia, in order to enable a better understanding of EU policies and to improve relationships.
The European Commission will contribute to the award of scholarships to the eligible and pre-selected graduate candidates proposed by eligible European Studies Master’s Courses.
The application and selection procedures are based on four steps:
1. EU higher education institutions that intend to participate in the call fill in an online questionnaire with the required data on their European Studies Master Course. With this information, the European Commission will then feed the existing database of European Studies Masters Courses (http://ec.europa. eu/education/ eis_masters/ published_ courses), which will also serves as a tool to simplify the subsequent selection process.
2. Graduates from Neighbourhood Countries and Russia shall apply for a scholarship to one higher education institution offering a European Studies Master Course.
3. EU higher education institutions having received applications from graduates of Neighbourhood countries and Russia will select the best ones, rank them according to the pre-selection criteria and submit to the European Commission a proposal containing a list of pre-selected students.
4. The European Commission will select the best proposals and award grants accordingly, to the best Higher Education Institutions and to the best proposed students.
A total of €960,000 has been made available to grant scholarships under this Pilot Project. Each grant is provided in the form of a lump sum, the maximum amount of a scholarship is €24,000 per academic year.
The deadline for applications from Higher Education Institutions is 4 June 2010. (ENPI Info Centre)