Manipal: Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of European Union to India, on Friday lauded students and higher education institutions for their participation in EU-funded programmes.
Speaking to presspersons, Mr. Kozlowski said people-to-people connect and cooperation in higher education were the key features of the EU-India strategic partnership. Both sides were committed to take forward the cooperation through initiatives like India’s Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) programme and European Union’s Erasmus+ programme.
Since the opening of the Erasmus programme three decades ago, India was the largest recipient of Erasmus funding in the world. Directly supporting Indian students, Erasmus had financed close to 5,800 scholarships for Indian nationals over the years. Out of these, about 250 Erasmus alumni were from Karnataka and more than 25 from Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE). In the last four years since the Erasmus Mundus was upgraded into Erasmus+, almost 200 Indian universities had benefit from various types of funding.
Representatives of more than 60 Indian institutions participating in the Erasmus+ capacity building programme were meeting in Manipal on Friday and Saturday to discuss the progress of their respective projects with officials from the European Commission from Brussels and the EU delegation in New Delhi, Mr. Kozlowski said.
Mr. Kozlowski will inaugurate the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies, the first-of-its-kind in the country, at MAHE here, on Saturday. H.S. Ballal, Pro Chancellor of MAHE, and others, were present.