An Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree (EMJMD) scholarship pays your full tuition, flights to and from your host countries, health insurance, and a monthly living allowance that usually lands somewhere between €1,000 and €1,400, in exchange for you completing a two-year master’s program split across at least two universities in different countries. You apply directly through the specific joint program’s own website, not through a single EU portal, and most deadlines fall between November and January for a September start.
I’ve talked to a handful of people who went through this, and the reaction is almost always the same: relief that money isn’t the reason they can’t study abroad. That’s the whole point of the program. It’s run by the European Union through the Erasmus+ scheme, and it exists specifically to get talented students into international master’s programs without the usual barrier of “can I afford a second country’s rent, plus flights, plus tuition that’s priced for someone with a trust fund.”
What exactly is an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree?
An EMJMD is a single master’s program designed and taught jointly by a consortium of universities in at least two different countries, usually two or three, occasionally more. You don’t pick one university and study there for two years. You move. Semester one might be in Barcelona, semester two in Berlin, and your thesis year somewhere else entirely depending on the specialization track you choose.
At the end, you don’t get a random certificate. You get either a joint degree (one diploma with all participating universities’ names on it) or multiple degrees, one from each institution. Programs run 60 to 120 ECTS credits, which in practice means one to two years of full-time study, with the vast majority landing on the two-year model.
There are currently well over 100 EMJMD programs active at any given time, covering everything from nuclear physics to journalism to sustainable forestry. The full, updated list lives in the Erasmus+ project catalogue on the European Commission’s website, and that’s the only place I’d trust for current offerings, because programs open and close consortiums every year.
What does the scholarship actually cover?
This is where people get pleasantly surprised. The scholarship isn’t a token gesture, it’s built to cover nearly everything a student needs to physically live and study in a new country, sometimes two or three new countries in a row.
| Cost item | What you get |
|---|---|
| Tuition and participation costs | Fully paid to the consortium, up to €9,000 per year for students from Partner Countries (outside the EU/EEA) and up to €4,500 per year for students from Programme Countries (EU/EEA/associated countries) |
| Monthly living allowance | Roughly €1,000-€1,400 per month for the duration of your study period, paid to cover rent, food, and daily expenses |
| Travel contribution | A one-time lump sum based on distance between your home country and the host country, typically ranging from around €180 for shorter distances up to €1,500 for intercontinental travel |
| Installation costs | An additional lump sum for students from Partner Countries to help cover visa fees, first month’s deposit, and settling-in expenses |
| Insurance | Full health, accident, and travel insurance for the entire enrollment period |
Exact figures shift slightly year to year depending on the Erasmus+ Programme Guide update, so treat the numbers above as the ballpark you’ll see, not a guarantee. Each consortium also sets its own final tuition figure within those caps, so a program in the Netherlands might charge closer to the €9,000 ceiling while a program with lower operating costs charges less.
What genuinely surprised me when I first looked into this: the scholarship doesn’t distinguish much between EU and non-EU applicants in terms of who gets funded. Both categories get scholarships. The difference is mainly in the tuition cap and whether you also qualify for installation costs, which are reserved for Partner Country students who are, understandably, dealing with a bigger relocation.
How do you actually apply?
You don’t apply to “Erasmus Mundus” as an organization. You apply to one specific joint master’s program, and that program’s consortium reviews applications, ranks candidates, and nominates their scholarship recipients to the EU’s executive agency for approval. Here’s the actual sequence.
- Pick your program on the official catalogue. Go to the Erasmus+ project results database on the European Commission site and filter by field of study. Read the consortium structure carefully, because “studying in Europe” can mean four different countries over two years depending on the track.
- Check the specific program’s deadline and requirements. Every consortium sets its own dates and document list. Most fall between mid-November and mid-January for September intake, but I’ve seen programs with January-to-March windows too.
- Prepare your documents. Standard requirements: bachelor’s degree transcript and certificate, CV, motivation letter, two academic reference letters, English proficiency proof (IELTS/TOEFL, or sometimes a waiver if your prior degree was taught in English), and occasionally a research proposal for more specialized tracks.
- Submit through the program’s own application portal. This is usually a dedicated site built by the lead university, not a generic EU form. Double check you’re marking yourself as a scholarship applicant if that’s a separate checkbox, since some programs let you apply as self-funded too.
- Wait for consortium review. The academic committee ranks all applicants and creates a scholarship shortlist. This typically takes six to ten weeks after the deadline closes.
- Get your offer and confirm. If selected, you’ll get an official offer letter and scholarship confirmation, usually by March or April, followed by visa paperwork if you need one to enter your first host country.
One thing that trips people up: you can apply to more than one EMJMD program in the same cycle. There’s no rule against it. I’d recommend applying to two or three if your profile fits multiple fields, since acceptance rates for the well-known programs (Erasmus Mundus in Journalism, Media, and Globalisation is a famous example) can be brutally competitive, sometimes under 10% for scholarship slots specifically.
Who’s actually eligible for this scholarship?
Anyone with a completed bachelor’s degree (or equivalent, minimum three years of higher education) is eligible to apply, regardless of nationality. The EU doesn’t restrict this to European citizens. Students from anywhere in the world can apply, and in most cohorts, the majority of scholarship recipients actually come from outside Europe.
The eligibility split that matters is Programme Country vs. Partner Country, and it affects your funding category, not whether you can apply at all.
- Programme Countries include the 27 EU member states plus a handful of associated countries like Iceland, Norway, and Turkey. Students from these countries get the lower tuition cap (up to €4,500/year) since they’re already inside the EU higher education framework.
- Partner Countries cover the rest of the world. Students from these countries qualify for the higher tuition cap (up to €9,000/year) plus the installation allowance, recognizing that relocating from further away costs more.
Age isn’t a hard cutoff, but most programs are designed for people within a few years of finishing their bachelor’s, since the academic content assumes recent foundational study. There’s also generally a rule that you can’t have already benefited from an Erasmus Mundus scholarship at master’s level before, and you can’t have resided or worked in the host country/countries for more than a total of 12 months in the five years before applying, which exists to keep the scholarship focused on actual international mobility rather than people already living there.
When should you start preparing your application?
Start at least eight to ten months before your target intake. If you want to begin studying in September 2026, that means you should be researching programs and lining up reference letters by around November 2025, since most application windows open that same month and close by January.
The tightest