Erasmus Mundus Scholarships for a MiM: The EU Award That Funds a Whole Master's

“Erasmus” is one of the most recognised words in European study-abroad — and one of the most misunderstood. Two very different things share the name, and applicants routinely confuse them: the Erasmus+ mobility grant that helps pay for a semester abroad, and the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master whose EU scholarship can fund an entire degree. Getting them straight is the whole point of this guide, because one of them is a modest travel top-up and the other is one of the most generous funding routes in European education.

The short version. An Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters (EMJM) scholarship is the EU award that funds a whole master’s: €1,400 a month for the full programme, no tuition, plus travel, installation and insurance. But it isn’t a grant you attach to a normal MiM at HEC or Bocconi — it exists only inside specific joint programmes run by a consortium of universities across at least three countries, and you apply directly to that consortium. So the mental model is the reverse of a normal scholarship hunt: with Erasmus Mundus you choose the programme because of the funding, and accept a mobility-heavy, multi-country degree in return. It’s the wrong route if you’re set on one named school; it’s an outstanding one if a fully-funded master’s is the priority.

This is the honest, MiM-specific decode: how Erasmus Mundus differs from the Erasmus+ grant people mix it up with, what the scholarship actually pays, what a Joint Master actually is, and who it does and doesn’t fit. For the wider landscape of merit, need-based and government funding, start with how MiM scholarships work in Europe; this piece zooms all the way in on the EU’s flagship award.

First, clear up the confusion: Erasmus+ vs Erasmus Mundus

Almost everyone who searches for “Erasmus scholarship” is really asking about one of two separate schemes. They are not the same, and conflating them is the single most common mistake.

• Erasmus+ mobility grant. This is a contribution toward one exchange period — a term or two at a partner university — inside a degree you’re already enrolled in. It softens the cost of living abroad; it does not pay tuition (you keep your normal arrangement with your home school) and it does not fund a whole degree. If your MiM includes an exchange semester, this is what you’ll use — we cover it in full in Erasmus+ and mobility grants for a MiM.
• Erasmus Mundus Joint Master (EMJM). This is an entire degree, delivered jointly by a consortium of universities in different countries, whose EU scholarship can fund the whole programme. You don’t bolt it onto an existing enrolment — you apply to, and study, the joint programme itself.

Hold onto the distinction: Erasmus+ helps pay for a semester away; Erasmus Mundus can pay for the whole master’s. The rest of this guide is about the second one.

What an Erasmus Mundus scholarship actually pays

This is where the scheme earns its reputation. For students awarded a full Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters scholarship, the EU provides:

• €1,400 per month, for the entire duration of the master’s — so 12, 18 or 24 months depending on the programme length.
• Travel, visa, installation and insurance costs on top of the monthly allowance.
• No tuition. This is the decisive part: institutions cannot charge tuition or other mandatory participation fees to Erasmus Mundus scholarship holders. Where DAAD or the Eiffel scholarship give you a living stipend but leave the tuition bill with you, an Erasmus Mundus scholarship removes the tuition bill entirely.

Put together, a full EMJM scholarship is close to a complete funding package — the living allowance plus the tuition exemption plus the moving costs. That is genuinely rare: most European scholarships fund living costs or tuition, not both. (Figures are set per cycle by the European Commission, so treat €1,400/month as the current level and confirm it on the official Erasmus+ page before you plan around it.)

What an Erasmus Mundus Joint Master actually is

The catch — and the reason the funding is so generous — is baked into the format. An Erasmus Mundus Joint Master isn’t a normal one-campus degree. By design, it is an international, multi-country programme:

• It is delivered by a consortium of at least three higher-education institutions from at least three different countries, of which at least two must be EU Member States (or countries associated to the programme).
• You complete compulsory physical mobility: at least two study periods in two different countries, each worth at least one academic semester (30 ECTS). So you don’t sit in one city for two years — you move between partner universities.
• The degree runs 1 to 2 academic years (60, 90 or 120 ECTS) and awards either a joint degree or multiple degrees from the partner universities.

More than 50,000 students have studied on Erasmus Mundus programmes since 2004, across every field — management and business among them. The programmes are branded and marketed individually (each has its own name, consortium and website), which is part of why people don’t realise they’re all one EU scheme underneath.

The catch that reframes everything: you choose the programme for the funding

Here is the mental shift that trips people up. With a national scholarship like DAAD or the Eiffel Excellence Scholarship, you first pick the school you want — Mannheim, HEC, wherever — and then look for money to fund it. Erasmus Mundus works the other way round.

• There is no central EU fund you can point at an ordinary MiM. You cannot take an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to HEC Paris, Bocconi or ESADE and have it pay your fees there.
• The scholarship exists only inside specific Joint Masters, and you apply directly to the consortium that runs the one you want. The consortium selects its own scholarship holders — the best-ranked applicants worldwide — from a limited pool.
• So the funding effectively chooses the format for you: a multi-country, mobility-heavy joint degree, not a single prestigious campus.

That’s the honest trade-off. If a named single-school MiM is what you want, Erasmus Mundus is not your route — the school’s own scholarships plus a national scheme are. If a fully-funded master’s is the priority and you’re genuinely open to a multi-country joint programme built around the funding, it’s one of the best deals in European education.

Who it fits — and who it doesn’t

Erasmus Mundus is a strong fit if you:

• Rank funding above a specific school brand, and would rather graduate debt-free from a well-regarded joint programme than pay for a marquee name.
• Are excited by mobility — genuinely happy to study in two or three countries rather than settle in one city.
• Can plan a year ahead and apply to the consortium on its early timeline.

It’s the wrong route if you:

• Are set on a named single school (HEC, LBS, Bocconi). Those aren’t Joint Masters, so Erasmus Mundus can’t fund them — look at the school’s own awards and national schemes instead.
• Want the stability of one campus and city for the whole degree.
• Are applying too late to hit the October–January consortium windows.

If you’re weighing a joint, multi-country structure more broadly, our explainer on what a double-degree MiM is covers how these multi-institution programmes work and what to watch for.

How and when to apply

The process is different from a normal school application in two ways that matter:

• You apply directly to the consortium, on the Joint Master’s own portal — not to a central Erasmus Mundus office, and not through your home university. Each programme runs its own admissions and picks its own scholarship holders.
• The window is early. In most cases you apply between October and January for a course starting the following academic year — so, like DAAD and Eiffel, it’s a plan-a-year-ahead award. You need a bachelor’s degree, or to be in your final year and able to graduate before the programme begins.

Map the consortium’s deadline against your other applications with our MiM application timeline, and track your single-school rounds in parallel on the deadline tracker so an early Erasmus Mundus cut-off doesn’t slip past while you’re focused on school deadlines. Because full scholarships go to the best-ranked applicants worldwide, the application itself has to be excellent — the same craft that wins a competitive single-school place. (Building that application to a jury standard is exactly what our Ultimate Guide to European MiM Admissions is for.)

How it compares to the national schemes

Erasmus Mundus sits alongside the big national funding routes, but it’s the odd one out in a useful way:

• DAAD (Germany) and the Eiffel Excellence Scholarship (France) give you a living stipend but leave tuition with you — so they’re worth the most at near-free public universities.
• Chevening (UK) is fully funded but needs about two years’ work experience and a return-home commitment.
• Erasmus Mundus is the one that removes tuition and pays a living allowance — but only inside its own joint programmes, on its own multi-country terms.

The shared lesson across all of them is the one the scholarships overview keeps returning to: these awards run on early, year-ahead timelines, each with a distinctive quirk, and the applicants who win them are the ones who started planning before the school deadline, not after. For the full map — merit, need-based, government and school-specific — see how MiM scholarships work in Europe and our practical guide to how to fund a MiM in Europe.

The honest read

Erasmus Mundus is the most complete funding route on this list — and the most misunderstood. Two things do most of the work:

1. It funds a whole degree, not a semester. Don’t confuse it with the Erasmus+ mobility grant. €1,400 a month, no tuition, travel and installation covered, for the full programme — that’s an EMJM scholarship, and it’s exceptional.
2. You choose the programme for the funding, not the funding for the programme. It only exists inside specific multi-country Joint Masters, and you apply to the consortium directly. That’s the trade: give up the single named campus, get a fully-funded, mobility-rich degree in return.

Decide which of those matters more to you — the school or the funding — and Erasmus Mundus either drops off your list or jumps to the top of it. Either way, decide early: the windows close a year before you’d start.