On 3 July 2024, Ms Patricia Llombart Cussac, European Union Ambassador to Morocco, and Mr Abdellatif Miraoui, Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation, in partnership with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, announced the signing of an important partnership programme between Morocco and the EU on Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Mobility (ESRIM). They also jointly presided over a reception in honour of the 27 new Moroccan recipients of scholarships under the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees programme, which celebrates its twentieth anniversary this year.

The MAD 490 million (€46 million) programme in support of Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Mobility (ESRIM) accompanies Morocco’s “National Plan for the Acceleration and Transformation of the Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation Ecosystem” (PACTE ESRI 2030). This partnership between Morocco and the EU for the sector aims, among other things, to support Moroccan universities in strengthening and internationalising higher education, research and innovation. It also seeks to promote greater mobility of PhD students in European universities, with a grant of MAD 50.42 million (€4.7 million). The overall objective is to continue to forge human, academic and scientific ties between Moroccans and Europeans.

On this occasion, Ms Patricia Llombart Cussac declared: “We’re proud to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Erasmus Mundus programme,  A programme that has revolutionised international university mobility worldwide.  There are now more than nine million Erasmus graduates in the world.  Today’s celebration is marked by the departure of 27 new Moroccan scholarship holders,  Young people – twenty of them women – who are highly qualified, and who will benefit from a two-year scholarship to pursue their master’s degree studies in a number of different European universities.” 

For his part, Mr Abdellatif Miraoui declared: “Today we celebrate a prime example of cooperation between Morocco and the European Union in higher education, under the enlightened Vision of H.M. King Mohammed VI, whom God preserve.  The strengthening of human capital is at the heart of our national priorities and an essential lever for our international standing.  The new scholarship holders we celebrate today are the ambassadors of Moroccan youth, bridges between cultures and civilisations, who have been given this opportunity of enriching their academic careers in a spirit of openness and dialogue.”

Mobility as a token of excellence

Morocco has the distinction of being the second partner country in the southern Mediterranean region of the “Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees” programme. This programme, which this year marks its twentieth anniversary, plays an essential role in promoting internationalisation, academic recognition and student mobility. 181 Moroccan students, spread over master’s degrees in 90 different subjects, have so far benefited from the “Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees” scholarship, in thirty different European countries. Twenty Moroccan universities are associate partners in the programme. This mobility favours the development of knowledge, skills and ideas, thus enriching the educational systems and research and innovation environments in Morocco and Europe.   

With a substantial investment of close to a billion euros for the Erasmus Mundus scholarships in the total budget of the Erasmus+ programme (2021-2027), the EU reaffirms its firm commitment to excellence and international openness of higher education.