Mobility Programmes and Grants
UMONS reaffirms its active participation in the Erasmus ➕ programme for 2021-2027 period. The European Commission approved and validated the new Erasmus ➕ Charter for Higher Education in December 2020.
To view the commitments made by UMONS in this context, see the documents below.
UMONS Erasmus Charter for Higher Education 2021-2027
UMONS is fully committed to the Erasmus➕ 2014-2020 programme. In May 2014, the European Commission approved the UMONS Higher Education Erasmus➕ Charter for the period 2014-2020. For more information on the commitments made by UMONS, please consult the documents below.
Download the documents:
European Mobility ➕ Mobility outside Europe
Erasmus is a European Commission programme dedicated to higher education. It allows students, teachers and administrative staff to move to a participating country. Thirty-three countries participate in the programme: the 27 countries of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey.
UMONS has been heavily involved in the Erasmus programme since its creation in 1987. Since the 2014-2015 academic year, the ERASMUS programme has been reviewed in depth by the European Commission and is now called Erasmus ➕. To conform to the 2014-2020 Erasmus➕ Charter, which has been adopted by UMONS and was validated by the European authorities in May 2014, UMONS has completely revised its strategy to adapt to the parameters of the new programme.
Want to know more? See the Erasmus➕ Charter 2021-2027 section and consult the UMONS intranet.
Established in 2004, the Erasmus Belgica programme is an initiative to encourage the mobility of students in higher education in the three Communities of Belgium: the Flemish Community, the French Community and the German-speaking Community.
Objectives:
- To give students of higher education the opportunity to complete their studies in a recognised institution of another Community of Belgium, or to carry out a placement
- To give these students the opportunity to experience linguistic and cultural immersion in another Community of Belgium
- To give them the opportunity to adapt to a different environment, another way of life and a different menta
Under certain conditions, a mobility grant may be awarded. Want to know more?
Consult the UMONS intranet for more information.
Established by the Decree of 19th May 2004, the Fonds d’Aide à la Mobilité Étudiante is for students from higher education institutions of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
As of the 2015-2016 academic year, there has been no distinction between the two types of mobility, “study” and “placement” with regards to the procedures for awarding student grants.
The mobility grant consists of a “travel allowance” and a “living expenses” package.
Consult the UMONS intranet for more information.
In January 2014, the Conférence des recteurs et des principaux des universités du Québec (CREPUQ – Conference of Rectors and Principals of Quebec Universities) became the Bureau de Coopération Interuniversitaire (BCI – Office of Interuniversity Cooperation).
To encourage relations between peoples and cultures of different countries, the academic institutions of Quebec, through the BCI, have established student exchange programmes with university institutions outside of Canada.
Student exchange agreements have been established with nearly 500 institutions, or consortiums of institutions, in the following countries: Germany, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, South Korea, Denmark, Spain, the United States, Finland, France (including Réunion, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique and New Caledonia), Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, and Taiwan.
These programmes allow students registered at a university institution (the home institution) to pursue part of their studies at another university institution (the host institution) for between one term and one year.
By participating in a BCI exchange programme, students:
- Remain registered at their home institution
- Pay the usual tuition fees at their home institution and not at the host institution
- Receive credits obtained at the host institution for their degree at the home institution
- Where applicable, continue to receive financial assistance, which their student status entitles them, from their home institution.
Transportation and living expenses, as well as any other costs (administrative and health insurance, for example) that may be required by the host institution, are the participants’ responsibility.
The BCI does not offer financial support to students participating in exchange programmes.
Academic institutions do not usually award degrees to the students they host within the BCI exchange programmes.
Want to know more?
Visit the BCI’s student exchange programme website Programmes d’échanges d’étudiants (PÉÉ), and consult the UMONS intranet.
Wallonie-Bruxelles International is the agency responsible for the international relations of Wallonia and Brussels. It acts as an international policy instrument for Wallonia, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and the French Community Commission of the Brussels Capital Region.
Wallonie-Bruxelles International offers several funding opportunities for different kinds of mobility (courses, placements, training courses, etc.) in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation and abroad.
Consult all the funding possibilities on the Wallonie-Bruxelles International website.
Some examples of funding and grants
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WBI-World Excellence Fellowships – Doctoral or postdoctoral training abroad
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Grant for a research stay abroad
- Scholarships for a Master’s degree at UMONS (incoming students)
Wallonie-Bruxelles International (WBI) offers scholarships to international graduates wishing to pursue a Master’s degree, provided they hold at least a first-cycle degree obtained from a foreign institution recognized by the competent authorities of the candidate’s country in the field of higher education. The Master’s program must be carried out in Wallonia or Brussels within a higher education institution recognized by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FWB).
Eligibility criteria for this scholarship:
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- The candidate holds a Bachelor’s (Licence) or Master’s degree issued by an institution whose programs are recognized by the competent higher education authorities of the candidate’s country of origin.
- The most recent Bachelor’s or Master’s degree obtained in the country of origin must have been awarded no more than 5 years before the start of the requested program.
- The MASTER IN program does not fund a full bridging year (60 ECTS).
- The candidate holds a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree sufficient to access the targeted Master’s program and meets the admission requirements. Higher education institutions may impose additional conditions.
- The candidate must be admitted to the Master’s program to apply for funding and must be enrolled to benefit from it.
- Any candidate meeting the necessary and sufficient conditions to submit an application file to the targeted higher education institution may apply.
- Applications from candidates already engaged in higher education studies in Belgium will be rejected. The aim is to support new mobility, not extensions of an Erasmus➕ stay or a previously started program as a free student in a French-speaking Belgian higher education institution.
- The candidate must indicate, in the application form, the reference number of their admission file provided by the university. Note: this number does not confirm final admission.
- Candidates who completed their studies in the following countries/regions are considered priorities for WBI and higher education institutions: Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, South Korea, Japan, Lebanon, Morocco, Mexico, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, USA.
- All fields of study are considered in the selection process unless the institution restricts eligible programs.
- To avoid overlap between international mobility schemes, candidates who have already applied within an ongoing academic program or previously received a development cooperation scholarship from ARES are excluded.
- The scholarship application form and required documents must be submitted to the targeted higher education institution no later than March 31, 2026 at midnight (GMT – Europe/Brussels) for the upcoming academic year (2026–2027).
- Incomplete applications will not be submitted to the WBI selection jury.
- The application guide specifies submission procedures and the different steps to follow.
The scholarship application form and the 4 annexes must be sent to the following address: relint@umons.ac.be, indicating the reference “WBI MASTER IN SCHOLARSHIP – Last Name First Name of the candidate,” no later than March 31, 2026 at midnight (GMT – Europe/Brussels).
Find all WBI grants and funding on http://www.wbi.be/fr/bourses
Are you a professor or researcher in an Asian institution or within the Wallonia-Brussels Federation?
Would you like to carry out an exchange of one to three months with a colleague from a partner institution in Asia or the Wallonia-Brussels Federation?
The ASEM-DUO mobility grant makes it possible for professors and researchers to carry out this type of exchange.
Within the Asian-European political dialogue forum (ASEM, Asia-Europe Meeting), a specific cooperation process has been initiated between the two regions in the field of education, and more specifically higher education. At the 2013 Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers of Education in Kuala Lumpur, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation (FW-B) announced its intention to enrol in the ASEM-DUO Fellowship Program, which started in 2014.
The ASEM-DUO Fellowship Program was established to promote “mobility in pairs” of professors and researchers from higher education institutions of the FW-B and Asia. The mobility must be carried out over a period of one to three months and by “pair”, i.e. a teacher or researcher from an establishment of the FW-B goes to an Asian partner institution, and vice versa. Candidates must be from the same institution but not from the same department.
More information can be found at http://www.ares-ac.be/fr/relations-internationales/bourse-asem-duo
And at http://www.asemduo.org
The Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) is an independent foundation that supports the exchange of students, researchers and academics between the United States and Belgium, notably through the awarding of mobility grants.
This foundation came into existence after the First World War, thanks to the remaining budget of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) (USA) and the Belgian Relief Commission (Belgium) that Herbert Hoover had organised during the war. For more information, visit the BAEF website: www.baef.be
In 2015, one award and two post-doctoral fellowships were awarded by the BAEF to three young researchers at the University of Mons.
The Commission for Educational Exchange Between the United States of America, Belgium and Luxembourg offers Fulbright scholarships for study, research and teaching placements to Belgian and American students, researchers and professors who wish to undertake a mobility programme in the partner country.
The Commission and UMONS have signed an agreement to enable a Master’s student, a PhD student and a postdoctoral researcher to carry out a placement in an American institution.
ARES, through its Commission for Development Cooperation (CCD), offers students at universities in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation two ways of getting involved in development cooperation at their university:
ARES-CCD Travel Grants
A travel grant is a grant awarded to a student from a higher education establishment in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to spend a period of time in a developing country as part of an internship or end-of-study project on a development-related topic.
For more information on travel grants, visit the ARES website.
Student Micro-projects
A student microproject is a development cooperation project resulting from a joint initiative by North and South students and sponsored by a Belgian promoter and a promoter from the partner country.
The aim of student microprojects is to help raise awareness of development issues among students fro the Wallonia-Brussels Federation by carrying out a project in partnership with students in a developing country.
Further information and examples of microprojects that have been funded by ARES-CCD can be found on the ARES-CCD website.
Consult the UMONS intranet for more information.
As part of the T.I.M.E. network, the Faculty of Engineering (FPMs) has established double degree agreements with several prestigious European and non-European engineering institutions. The fundamental objective of these agreements is to allow certain duly selected students to simultaneously obtain two engineering degrees: one from the FPMs and another from a foreign institution. The duration of the stay abroad is two academic years.
For more information, contact:
Pierre Dehombreux, Professor, former Rector and delegate of the T.I.M.E. Network for the FPMs and International advisor to the Dean International
Uguette, your virtual assistant