Romijn Research and Development has been approached by ECOTEC Research and Consulting to help perform an ex-ante analysis of the future Erasmus Mundus programme to be operated by the European Commission.
Erasmus Mundus is a higher education programme focused around Master courses.
It has four actions:
- ACTION 1 - Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses: they constitute the central component around which Erasmus Mundus is built. They are high-quality integrated courses at master’s level offered by a consortium of at least three universities in at least three different European countries.
- ACTION 2 - Erasmus Mundus scholarships: in order to give the Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses selected under Action 1 a strong external projection, a scholarship scheme for third-country graduate students and scholars from the whole world is linked to them.
- ACTION 3 - Partnerships: in order to encourage European universities to open themselves up to the world and to reinforce their world-wide presence, Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses selected under Action 1 also have the possibility of establishing partnerships with third-country higher education institutions.
- ACTION 4 - Enhancing attractiveness: Erasmus Mundus also supports projects aimed at enhancing the attractiveness of and the interest in European higher education.
The impact evaluation was concerned with resolving the following (standard) questions around new proposals for the programme:
- What problem is the proposal expected to tackle?
- What are the objectives that the proposal is expected to achieve?
- What are the main policy options and alternative delivery mechanisms?
- What are the risks and assumptions associated with the new programmes?
- What positive and negative impacts are expected from the options considered?
- What is the added value of the Community involvement?
- What are the lessons learned from the past and the from the public consultation?
- What is the cost-effectiveness of the proposed programme?
Basic methodology followed was a survey of relevant documentation and in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders throughout the world.