European Student Mobility
Programme SOCRATES II/ERASMUS

SOCRATES II (2000-2006) is a European programme, which aims at the promotion and improvement of education Europewide, including all levels and categories of education, students as well as teaching staff. It consists of eight actions. One of them, called ERASMUS, concerns higher education.

ERASMUS is a continuation of programme ERASMUS (established in 1987) and aims to support European activities of Higher Education Institutes and promote the mobility and exchange of their teaching staff and students. ERASMUS is now open to the participation of 30 European countries.

One of common activities, in the context of ERAMUS, is students mobility. A student may spend a study period, from 3 to 12 months, at an educational institute of another country participating in the programme. This is done after an agreement between the institutions, so that full recognition of a student’s study at the host institution by his/her home institution is assured.

To put academic recognition on a common basis, the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) has been created, in the context of ERASMUS programme. Based on ECTS, each academic institution assigns a number of credits to each course unit. Credits represent the workload each course requires in relation to that required e.g. to complete a semester, which is 30. The University of Patras has implemented ECTS and participates in ERASMUS activities.

For the current academic year (2001-2002) the following students of our Department are studying at other European Universities:

• Thodis Antonios (Valencia, Spain)
• Karalis Foibos (Valencia, Spain)
• Prifti Sotiria (Barcelona, Spain)
• Softi Maria (Katalonia, Spain)