Convocatòria de beques MERIT / ERASMUS-MUNDUS 2007/2008 per a estudiants extraeuropeus. Barcelona, 10 de novembre de 2006

Convocatòria de beques MERIT / ERASMUS-MUNDUS 2007/2008 per a estudiants extraeuropeus. Barcelona, 10 de novembre de 2006

MERIT / ERASMUS-MUNDUS 2007/2008

STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP CALL

This is the call for applications to the Erasmus-Mundus student scholarships for MERIT – the European Master of Research on Information and Communication Technologies (see http://www.meritmaster.org ).

MERIT is a European 2-year post-graduate programme taught in English at the following institutions:

•     Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
•     Universität Karlsruhe (UKA), Karlsruhe, Germany
•     Politecnico di Torino (PdT), Torino, Italy
•     Université catholique de Louvain (UCL), Louvain, Belgium

These scholarships are addressed for highly qualified non-European students willing to study the MERIT programme in two of the above institutions beginning September 2007.

The application deadline is 10PM (GMT) February 2nd 2007 to do electronic data entry and upload of required documents in the on-line application tool. The documents that support your application must be sent to the admissions office by mail or courier and must be received at the MERIT admissions office by February 16th 2007 (see Calendar below).

This call is subject to the general conditions of the Erasmus Mundus programme. In any disagreement between the contents of these pages and those of the Erasmus Mundus programme, the latter will prevail. Prospective applicants are referred to the following pages:

General Information about the Erasmus Mundus programme:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/index_en.html

FAQs about Erasmus Mundus Scholarships:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/faq/index_en.html

We would appreciate if you can distribute this information to potential applicants

The details of the MERIT/Erasmus-Mundus scholarship call follow.

FRAMEWORK

MERIT is a research oriented Master programme within the guidelines of the Bologna process whose scope is Information and Communication Technologies. The MERIT partners above have specific funding from the EU Erasmus Mundus programme to set up a scholarship scheme for third-country graduate students and scholars from the whole world. This scholarship scheme addresses highly qualified individuals who come to Europe to follow the MERIT Masters academic program. Students have to take two 1-year terms at two different institutions to complete the 2-year MERIT Master programme.

ELIGIBILITY

Applications are sought from students in their final year of university programs in engineering, sciences, or an equivalent university degree involving at least 3 years of coursework. Applications from persons holding university degrees in these disciplines will also be considered. In any case, applicants should hold a university degree by September 1st 2007.

Applicants should qualify as “third-country nationals”, as defined in the Erasmus Mundus programme, that is nationals coming from all countries other than the 25 EU Member States (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Sweden, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia), the EEA-EFTA states (Island, Liechtenstein and Norway) and the candidate countries for accession to the EU (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Turkey), who are not residents of any of the above countries, and who have not carried out their main activities (studies, work, etc.) for more than a total of 12 months over the last five years in any of the above countries.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Students will be selected on the basis of their CVs, study and academic merits, recommendations, language skills (English), international test results (GRE), etc. Priority will be given to applicants whose background and interest matches closely with those of MERIT. To check this, prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to see the program description at:

http://www.meritmaster.org/programme

In the case that the applicant has taken the GRE general test and, possibly, the GRE subject test in mathematics, scores from these tests should be sent to UPC directly by the organization administering these tests (ETS). To request this you should use the GRE institution code corresponding to UPC (7124). See http://www.gre.org for details.

DURATION, CONDITIONS AND AMOUNT OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

Scholarships will be awarded for two years. In each of these years, the student will receive a total of 16.000 Euro in 10 monthly grants per year, for a grand total of 32,000 Euro.

Note that the Erasmus Mundus scholarship also includes a yearly payment of 5,000 Euro for fees, travel expenses, relocation costs, etc. This payment will be used to cover the MERIT tuition fees for non-European students (5,000 Euro / year).

Note also that, if the scholarship is granted, no payments will be made until the grant recipient arrives at the host university. No payment advances will be sent abroad for covering travel and moving expenses.

CALENDAR

•     Online Application System: 15th December 2006
•     Deadline for online application: 10PM (GMT) February 2nd 2007.
•     Deadline for receiving supporting paper documents at MERIT admissions office: February 16th 2007.
•     Notification of Scholarships: May-June 2007.
•     Start of MERIT studies: September 2007.

APPLICATION-SUBMISSION

Application for MERIT-Erasmus Mundus has to be done as follows:

•     Personal data and electronic copies of supporting documents have to be uploaded in the MERIT Erasmus Mundus Online Application Tool (MEAT), http://www.meritmaster.org/meat. This tool supports most current web-browsing software, and will be used to check the applicant’s eligibility, get his/her contact data, and upload relevant files such as CV, etc. MEAT allows applicants to enter their personal data and the electronic versions of documents to support the application (CVs, copies of academic certificates, recommendation letters, etc.). Only PDF, JPG and GIF formats will be allowed for upload to MEAT.
•     All original supporting documents in the list INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED must be received by mail or courier in the MERIT admissions office by February 16th 2007.

INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED

MEAT will prompt the applicant to enter/upload the following information:

1 Please note that the acceptance/rejection of an application is a decision jointly taken by all consortium universities. Therefore, it does not entirely depend on the opinion of a single faculty/staff member, even though such opinions might positively influence the outcome of an application.