With the Erasmus + programme, MRU smoothly continued the activities from previous LLP Erasmus and first year of Erasmus+ experience – facilitated student and staff mobility, sought for the balance between incoming and outgoing mobility. Exchanges of both students and staff continue to be considered as the one of the key measures for maintaining quality of studies and widening the internationalization at the University. All it is a part of the general University strategy (its dimensions relevant to internationalization). MRU seeks that as many students, as possible, wouldhave real opportunity to study or undertake a traineeship abroad thus expanding their own educational experience, growing as personalities and global citizens, interculturally sensitive people, easier adapting to different situations, etc. and put a lot of efforts in guidance to students achieve their personal development plans and finish study programmes in flexible manner adaptable to their needs. Flexibility in educational opportunities, tailored personal guidance, financial support system for students from lower income backgrounds are considered as important measures to keep a high ratio of MRU graduates. For students with disadvantaged backgrounds, additional grant is promoted and paid (out of all study mobility participants 10 % were with disadvantaged backgrounds). For students with special needs, additional grant is also promoted although in the project of 2015 there were no such students participating. With the new rules of Erasmus+ programme (such as possibility for several mobilities in each study cycle and traineeships for recent graduates) our flow of outgoing students began increasing. 2015/2016 was a year of reasonably balanced Erasmus+ student mobilities at the University: outgoing 305 students (SMS and SMP), incoming – 239 students as registered by the University’s database (SMS and SMP). Most populardestination countries for MRU students were Czech Republic, France, UK, Spain, while the most numerous sending countries to MRU were Turkey, Germany, France, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy. Traineeships for recent graduate were of growing tendency – 39 graduates benefitted in the project of 2015 (in comparison with 30 graduates in 2014/2015). Popularity of this type of traineeships expected to grow next year.Staff mobility increased substantially - outbound number grew due to higher national co-funding and inbound numbers were increased by efforts of organized staff training and teaching weeks. Ultimately, the outbound and inbound flows were acceptably balanced: outgoing 117 staff (STA and STT), incoming 81 staff (STA and STT) in comparison with 85//59 (outgoing//incoming) in 2014/2015.Staff mobility is considered as highly valuablemean to exchange new teaching methods, facilitate new joint projects, implement joint teaching of certain modules or joint programmes (at MRU several joint study programmes and some inter-university modules use Erasmus+ staff mobility grants).

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from EU Member States and third countries associated to Erasmus+ to any country in the world. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.

This is a project for higher education student and staff mobility between Programme Countries and Partner Countries. Please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

International credit mobility project of Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) aimed to facilitate University's partnerships with Universities from targeted Partner countries with the help of scholarships for individual learning mobility (student mobility for studies, staff for teaching and staff for training). The targeted regions, based on the University's strategic priorities in terms of partnership developments (as outlines in the European Policy Statement, publicly announced on http://erasmus.mruni.eu), were ENI Eastern partnership countries (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia), DCI Asia (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India), DCI Central Asia (Kazakhstan), PI Other industrialized countries (Japan, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, USA). Altogether, MRU was granted scholarships for partnerships with 15 Partner countries under the KA107 Project of 2015. Due to exceptionally high demand for mobilities from/to Ukraine and Georgia, number of implemented mobilities is higher (59) than granted originally (54) - MRU used part of OM grant to scholarships of students (incoming) and staff (outgoing), moreover some mobilities were implemented as 0-grant mobilities. The overall impact of the project was and continues to be remarkable to both institutions and individuals. Partnerships in all targeted countries grew substantially stronger, especially due to staff mobility (for teaching and for training) - new forms of cooperation appeared (f.e. implementation of international teaching weeks with professors from both Programme and Partner countries, International staff exchange week focused on partnerships between European and non-EU countries) new common research activities developed, new projects were drafted and submitted. There were numerous challenges as well. In the course of implementation of the project it was encountered that from most of the Partner countries, there were staff for training visits preferred to teaching visits. Accordingly, changes to the types of staff mobility were requested from and granted by the NA. Despite the well in advance planning, there was one country (Japan) from/to which a staff mobility was not implemented and only student mobility took place. Due to late cancelation of staff mobility just before the international staff exchange week which took place in July 2017 at MRU (due to staff change at Partner institution), it was not possible to neither substitute participant from the same institution nor to replace partner institution. In the overall estimation, the short term and longer-term impact of the international credit mobility project is visible and still growing (f.e. With Universities from Partner countries, such as Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Republic of Korea, MRU has started negotiations for additional double degree programmes implementation, which was caused partially due to the ongoing exchange of students which helped testing and comparing of procedures in place (especially selection ad academic recognition). As the longer term impact most of the Universities expect closer and more intensive research and project-based cooperation, also higher visibility nationally, also in the partner institution's country. After the first sucess of implemented mobilities and because of mutual interest to continue activities with the same partners in all countries, after consulting with all partner institutions, MRU has applied for Erasmus+ international credit mobility with all this project's Partner countries in 2016 and in 2017.

This is a higher education student and staff mobility project, please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.