Erasmus Mundus Scholarships are addressed to highly-qualified non-European students with outstanding academic records which will begin the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics in fall 2009.

These scholarships are awarded by the European Commission for the complete duration of the studies (two years) after a selection procedure performed by the Board of Studies of the Master Course. The application for these scholarships coincides with the application to the master course (tic the corresponding question in the online application procedure).

The application deadline is 8 am (GMT) January 31st 2009 to do electronic data entry and upload of required documents in the on-line application tool.

This call is subject to the general conditions of the Erasmus Mundus programme. In any disagreement between the contents of these pages and those of the Erasmus Mundus programme, the latter will prevail. Prospective applicants are referred to the following pages:

General Information about the Erasmus Mundus programme:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/index_en.html

FAQs about Erasmus Mundus Scholarships:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/faq/index_en.html

We would appreciate if you can distribute this information to potential applicants

The details of the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics/Erasmus-Mundus scholarship call follow.

ELIGIBILITY

In the eventual case that a student applies to more than three EM Courses he/she will be excluded from the selection for an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship

Candidates must hold by fall 2009 a Bachelor of Science in Engineering or in Applied Mathematics, Physics or a similar science based subject, or appropriate degree deemed to be a satisfactory standard for admission (at least 3 years programme). Other non-graduate qualifications, such as professional experience or accumulated ECTS credits can also be considered by the Board of Studies provided their professional experience is validated as accumulated credits by the partner institutions.

Applicants should qualify as "third-country nationals", as defined in the Erasmus Mundus programme, that is nationals coming from all countries other than the 25 EU Member States (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the UK, Sweden, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia), the EEA-EFTA states (Island, Liechtenstein and Norway) and the candidate countries for accession to the EU (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, and Turkey), who are not residents of any of the above countries, and who have not carried out their main activities (studies, work, etc.) for more than a total of 12 months over the last five years (period between 28th February 2004 and 28th February 2009) in any of the above countries.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Students will be selected on the basis of their CVs, study and academic merits, recommendations, language skills (English), etc. Priority will be given to applicants whose background and interest matches closely with those of the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics. To check this, prospective applicants are strongly encouraged to see the program description here.

Candidates will be required to provide:

(a) the degree classification, class rank and full academic transcript;
(b) the IELTS or similarly internationally recognised English language proficiency score;
(c) two letters of recommendation;
(d) a statement of purpose, describing their interest in computational mechanics, their personal aims in this field and their preferred areas of specialisation;
(e) a complete Curriculum Vitae including additional language skills other than English and any additional information available that may relate to the potential performance of the student in the course.

This data as well as the standing of the University awarding their degree will be used to rank students.

DURATION, CONDITIONS AND AMOUNT OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

Scholarships will be awarded for two years. In each of these years, the student will receive a total of 21.000 Euro in 10 monthly grants per year, for a grand total of 42.000 Euro. Tuition fees are 8.000 Euro per year and will be deduced from the scholarship.

Note also that, if the scholarship is granted, no payments will be made until the grant recipient arrives at the host university. No payment advances will be sent abroad for covering travel and moving expenses.

CALENDAR

* Online Application System: 15th December 2008
* Deadline for online application: 8am (GMT) January 31st 2009.
* Deadline for receiving supporting paper documents at the Master Course admissions office: February 14th 2009.
* Pre-notification of Scholarships: March 2009.
* Notification of Scholarships: May-June 2009.
* Induction week and initiation of studies: September 2009.


APPLICATION-SUBMISSION

Application for the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics-Erasmus Mundus has to be done as follows:

* Personal data and electronic copies of supporting documents have to be uploaded in the CIMNE Virtual Centre Application Tool. This tool supports most current web-browsing software, and will be used to check the applicant's eligibility, get his/her contact data, and upload relevant files such as CV, etc. It allows applicants to enter their personal data and the electronic versions of documents to support the application (CVs, copies of academic certificates, recommendation letters, etc.). Only PDF, JPG and GIF formats will be allowed for upload.

* All original supporting documents (academic certificates, letters of recommendation, English proficiency if required) in the list INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED must be received by mail or courier in the Master Course admissions office by February 14th 2009.

INFORMATION TO BE PROVIDED

The Virtual Centre application will prompt the applicant to enter/upload the following information:

1. Citizenship and country of residence.
2. Periods of stay in Europe during the last 5 years (if any).
3. University degrees (held or currently studying) and universities where those degrees where obtained.
4. Gender
5. Name
6. Email
7. Birth date
8. Postal address
9. IELTS or similarly internationally recognised English language proficiency score.
10. Scanned image of your passport showing your picture (GIF/JPG/PDF).
11. CV-Resume (GIF/JPG/PDF)
12. (Optional) Name of a faculty member involved in the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics who knows you and knows the most relevant items in your CV*
13. Academic certificates (school certificate/diploma, University transcripts, University degree certificate, rank) relevant to the Master Course topics.
14. Description of the contents of the courses taken to obtain the degree of the previous point.
15. Two recommendation letters.
16. Statement of purpose (motivation letter), describing their interest in computational mechanics, their personal aims in this field and their preferred areas of specialisation. 17. Order of preference of the first hosting institution (Barcelona or Swansea). 18. Order of preference of the second hosting institution, which should be different from the first one (Barcelona, Swansea, Nantes, Stuttgart).

* Please note that the acceptance/rejection of an application is a decision jointly taken by all consortium universities. Therefore, it does not entirely depend on the opinion of a single faculty/staff member, even though such opinions might positively influence the outcome of an application.

OTHER SCHOLARSHIPS

Other scholarships are also available depending on the student's geographical origin. Check the following links:

- http://www.programalban.org/
- http://www.becasmae.es/
- http://www.britishcouncil.org/
- http://www.daad.org/
- http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/
- http://www.iie.org/

Remember that acceptance to the Master of Science in Computational Mechanics is in any case necessary and thus the application process via the CIMNE Virtual Centre Application Tool is necessary.