International opportunities abroad – for researchers and teachers

What roles do you have and value most? What does your subject or department need? Reflect together! It can be beneficial for academic and administrative staff to travel for job shadowing together and bring back different useful experiences. Maybe it is time for course development and inspiration is needed? Travel to where your colleagues do it best! Do you want to grow stronger in your supervisor role? Can you travel with your doctoral student, act as a mentor and teach together? Or do you want to job shadow a colleague abroad who has achieved something you would like to achieve yourself? Maybe you are considering a career move and need to take a management or leadership course – in which case it might be interesting to do it abroad. Lund University is in the process of developing leadership development initiative with an international outlook (more information will be available soon on the Staff Pages).

If you choose to strengthen your teaching skills by teaching abroad, you should not have to catch up on teaching when you return home. Teaching abroad should be included in the professional development plan. Talk to your immediate manager.

Erasmus+ staff training is a funding scheme available to all categories of LU staff. You can apply for mobility lasting between two days and two weeks (job shadowing will usually be granted for only one week, while training can be carried out during two weeks). No underlying exchange agreement is needed, you just need a host at a receiving organisation to welcome you and sign your Mobility Agreement. Your department pays for the entire exchange (travel, accommodation, daily allowance) and it is also the department that receives reimbursement from Erasmus+ after you return home. Staff training is a flexible and useful form of funding, as almost everything is paid for and there are no requirements regarding the number of hours worked (in the context of job shadowing, for example). Please note that the main purpose of the staff training programme cannot be research.

Please note that it does not have to be a university, it could be a company, organisation, archive, library, publisher or any other interesting organisation that you want to visit. You are travelling as an employee of Lund University. Thus, the main thing you gain from the mobility is the opportunity to strengthen the skills needed for your current position at LU.

• No underlying exchange agreement is needed. All you need is a host who is ready to receive you and sign your Mobility Agreement. The only exception is universities in the United Kingdom. After Brexit, an exchange agreement is required for staff training mobility to take place. Talk to the International Office.
• You can apply for Erasmus+ staff training at any time during the year, but it must be at least one month before your departure. More information on how to apply can be found in the Canvas course “Planning and applying for a European mobility placement”.
• In principle, everything is paid for: your travel, accommodation, travel within the host country and daily allowance. Your institution pays for the exchange and receives reimbursement from Erasmus+ once you have returned home – and submitted the required documents (see the Canvas course).

Read how Elisabet Göransson travelled to Venice with Erasmus+ staff training funding.
Read about how Lina Sturfelt and Maria Småberg learned more about course development by way of an Erasmus+ staff training mobility to Manchester.

You can find more information on Erasmus+ staff training here.
 

Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility is very similar to Erasmus+ staff training. The conditions are virtually the same, you can go abroad for between two days and three weeks, and virtually the entire exchange is paid for (travel, accommodation and daily allowance). The only major difference is that with teaching staff mobility abroad you have to teach 8 clock hours per week.

However, teaching does not necessarily mean (only) giving lectures. It can include workshops, seminars, supervision of students or other types of educational activities. A new element of the Erasmus programme is the possibility to combine teaching staff mobility and job shadowing. This requires only a minimum of four clock hours of teaching, combined with job shadowing (following a colleague).

Another distinguishing feature of teaching staff mobility is the need for an exchange agreement with the university in question. If HT Faculties do not have such an agreement, one can easily be drawn up for you. The partner university needs to be on board.

On this website, you can see which universities the HT Faculties are partnered with. Select “Europe” to see the universities included in the Erasmus programme.

• An underlying exchange agreement is needed.
• Do you want to do a combined teaching staff and staff training mobility (four clock hours of teaching, job shadowing for the rest)? Apply for teaching staff mobility and indicate in your application that you are applying for this combination.
• You can apply for Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility at any time during the year, but it must be at least one month before your departure. More information on how to apply can be found in the Canvas course “Planning and applying for a European mobility placement”.
• In principle, everything is paid for: your travel, accommodation, travel within the host country and daily allowance. Your institution pays for the exchange and receives reimbursement from Erasmus+ once you have returned home – and submitted the required documents (see the Canvas course).
• Funding can be requested for up to 60 working days of mobility (2–60 days), i.e. 12 weeks. Normally, a maximum of 3 weeks of paid mobility is allocated to an individual staff member. If you would like to apply for a longer mobility than that, it is advisable to submit your application in May (at the end of the Erasmus+ budget year).

Read about how Nicolò dell'Unto travelled around Europe with Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility on several occasions.
Read about how Tomas Sniegon has travelled to Prague in order to teach - and to do much more - within the frames of the Erasmus+ teaching staff funding.

You can find more information on Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility here.
 

As you know, there are many opportunities for research stays and teaching outside of Europe, both within Lund University and in the form of numerous external funds and funding bodies.

Within the various research subjects of the HT Faculties, there is a good overview of the subject-specific opportunities. An important route to teaching staff mobility outside of Europe is STINT's “Teaching Sabbatical” programme. At Lund University this programme is usually announced in June and the deadline for application is in August each year. In September the LU Education Board decides on (up to three) scholarship candidates.

During the coming academic years there will be great oppor­tunities for LU teachers and researchers to apply for funding for mobilities abroad – even outside of Europe! Every year there will be calls for applications for Erasmus+ funding, most often with a deadline in August.

Read more about Alexander Maurits, who spent autumn semester 2022 on a Teaching Sabbatical at UC Berkeley and about Blaženka Scheuer, who travelled under the same programme to Williams College in the USA.

The Fulbright Scholar Programme provides opportunities for research and teaching in the USA.

Wenner-Gren Foundations offer sabbatical grants (information in Swedish) that enable Swedish senior researchers to work at any foreign scientific institution.

The Japan Foundation (website in Swedish) offers travel scholarships for studies of Japanese community life. Only Swedish citizens can apply. The application deadline is on 31 October each year.

Are you interested in a specific region? Contact the Region Coordinator for that region at the External Relations Office to find out more about what is going on there, from LU's perspective.

You can also read more about LU's “roadmaps” for different geographical areas in the world.

Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility (ICM) is a mobility program that basically constitutes Erasmus+ outside of Europe. It is possible to apply for funding once a year, in early autumn. The requirements are a clear purpose, a partner university outside of Europe, and planned mobilities for both incoming and outgoing teachers, doctoral students and Master's students. The funding awarded is for three years. Collaboration with universities in developing countries is prioritised, as well as countries in the immediate vicinity of the EU.

You can read more about ICM on the website of the Swedish Council for Higher Education.

Have you recently defended your doctoral thesis? If so, you may benefit from the compilation of available funds and foundations for postdocs.
 

Subscribe to the External Relations newsletter to receive updates on all kinds of international activities and opportunities at LU and beyond. Send an email and ask to be put on the mailing list.

Research Services at LU regularly publishes the newsletter Research Funding News. Be sure to sign up to receive the newsletter.

The “Faculty Mobility Programme” is an initiative within LU that is being launched in 2023. The programme will enable permanent faculty members to apply for a longer research stay (two to five months) abroad at one of LU's selected partner universities (referred to as anchor universities). Keep an eye out for more information on the Staff Pages.

Keep an eye on the EURAXESS network.

Use the database provided by the EU project iMotion (“The Integration and Promotion of Staff Training Courses at Universities across Europe”). Search for the category “Research and development” and see if there is anything offered in your particular area of interest.

Perhaps you want to do what is known as blended mobility? First you job shadow a foreign colleague virtually (meetings via Zoom, for example), and then you visit them by applying for Erasmus+ staff training funding (job shadowing).

Take inspiration from the EU project “Best+” (“Blended Erasmus Staff Training”), which aims to combine virtual and physical “mobility”.

Lund University has held the EU HR Excellence in Research certification since 2020. Find out what this could mean for you.
 

• Are you developing a new course?
  Job shadow colleagues abroad who have created something really good (Erasmus+ staff training).
  Read about how Lina Sturfelt and Maria Småberg job shadowed colleagues in Manchester to develop a new Master's level course.
   
• Travel to a conference (Erasmus+ staff training)
  Read about how doctoral student Billy Jones represented Sweden at a UN conference in Bonn – with funding from Erasmus+ staff training.
   
• Job shadow colleagues who have exciting equipment and give them assistance (Erasmus+ staff training)
  Read how doctoral student Katarzyna Bobrowicz job shadowed zookeepers at a zoo in Poland so she could better conduct research on animal cognition.
  Read about how Stefan Lindgren of the Humanities Lab travelled to Pisa and Rome with Erasmus+ staff training funding.
   
• Maximise a mobility!
  Teach, visit interesting archives, libraries or museums, present your latest book, discuss a new joint research project, attend a conference, etc. (Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility).
  Read how Tomas Sniegon maximised his teaching staff mobilities.
   
• Travel abroad together with your doctoral student
  You can act as a mentor in terms of teaching or conference participation (Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility).
  Read about how Jordan Zlatev intended to mentor his doctoral student.
   
• Visit a European publisher, organisation, company or other business and job shadow there
  Perhaps they are well advanced in the use of a particular software or database or other management that may be of interest to you and/or your department (Erasmus+ staff training).
   
• Travel together with a colleague who has different duties
  It can be an advantage for administrative and academic staff to travel on exchange together, and help spread the new impressions and knowledge on their return home. A teacher can go abroad with a study advisor or librarian, an accountant could go abroad with a head of department, an IT technician could travel with a head of department, a programme administrator could go abroad with a study advisor, a communications officer could travel with a researcher, a study advisor could go abroad together with an educational support officer. This list goes on and on. Reflect together (Erasmus+ staff training)!
   
• Job shadow colleagues who have received funding for a large, multi-year international research project 
  Take home knowledge on how to secure funding for, plan, manage and run such a large project (Erasmus+ staff training).
   
• Travel with a good colleague and teach abroad
  Develop new teaching methods and materials with the colleagues there (Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility).
  Read about how Jordan Zlatev taught with his colleague and friend Göran Sonesson with funding from Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility.
   
• Do you have the opportunity to teach in Athens, Rome or Istanbul? 
  You can apply for accommodation at the Swedish Institutes there, find a quiet place to work in one of the libraries and meet other visiting Nordic researchers (Erasmus+ teaching staff mobility).
  Read more about how Lovisa Brännstedt and Elisabet Göransson spent periods at the Swedish Institute in Rome.
   
• Start a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), a new element in the Erasmus programme, you, your doctoral students or students may be able to benefit from (Erasmus+ BIP). You can be awarded €6,000–8,000 for the department if you start this type of collaboration with colleagues from at least two other foreign higher education institutions. If any of the other universities are members of the EUGLOH network, you have a very good chance of receiving funding. For the students/doctoral students, the programme involves both a virtual and a shorter physical exchange. The application deadline is in June each year.
   

• The Erasmus programme does not provide funding for staff training at EU institutions.
• It also does not provide funding to organisations managing EU programmes.
• You cannot travel to several different destinations within the same Erasmus exchange. However, it is possible to visit two institutions located in the same city or less than 100 kilometres apart.