La University of La Laguna has seen a significant increase in requests from its students to participate in a study mobility within the ‘Erasmus+’ program for the upcoming academic year 2025/26.
Specifically, there have been 961 requests, 230 more than the 731 made in the current academic year 2024/25, and 284 more than the previous year (2023/24).
One of the reasons for this increase has been the implementation of the digitalization process for requesting mobility by the Vice-Rectorate of Internationalization and Cooperation, which has streamlined the process for both applicants and processors, as detailed by ULL in a statement.
In terms of the priority destinations chosen by University of La Laguna students based on the number of requests submitted, Poland ranks first with 219 requests, followed by Italy (122), Slovenia (85), Germany (70), Czech Republic (66), Portugal (63), France (35), Ireland (29), Netherlands (25), Denmark (18), Croatia (16), Finland (14), Greece (11), Lithuania (11), Romania (11), Albania (10), Belgium (14), Bulgaria (5), Sweden (5), Slovakia (4), Latvia (2), and Switzerland (1).
Another highlight of this call has been the modification of priority groups to increase mobilities between the partner universities of the STARS EU alliance. The first and third distribution groups now consist of students selecting foreign institutions associated with the alliance as their destination.
Consequently, there have been 69 requests for STARS EU destinations as first choices, 62 as second choices, and 58 as third choices.
The average number of alliance destinations requested across all priorities is approximately 8.5% of the total.
The Department of European Programs is currently working on a project to modernize the management of the procedure in various phases, in collaboration with the Secretariat for Analysis and Process Modernization, the ICT Service, and the Analysis and Planning Office.
In the previous call for 2024/25, a common calendar was implemented for all centers, along with the automation of destination assignment records, student acceptance of placements, and language accreditation, among other processes.
For the 2025/26 call, the procedure has been significantly modified while maintaining previous advances and introducing new improvements.
Regarding mobility management by the centers, secretariats no longer need to intervene unless there are discrepancies in student data for the scoring process.
INCREASE IN MOBILITIES
The destination assignment criteria have been unified for all studies at the institution, and the language requirement set by the University of La Laguna has been replaced by whatever is established in the bilateral agreement, potentially leading to an increase in mobilities.
For students, the application interface has been refined to allow for the consultation of relevant data for placement and scholarship allocation procedures, streamlining the application process by only displaying options relevant to their studies.
The deadline for language accreditation requests has been adjusted to align with the application submission deadline. Furthermore, the generation of the grant agreement has been automated by simply entering the start and end dates of the mobility, reducing the workload of the department in managing the process and optimizing financial resources. This could enable more individuals to receive assistance and decrease the need for reimbursement requests to exceptional cases.
This modernization plan for the procedure will be fully implemented in the 2026/27 call. In addition to the aforementioned changes and improvements, the scoring of participant requests for destination assignment will be automatic, eliminating the need for mobility coordinators to intervene and potentially enabling the establishment of a waiting list process similar to that of undergraduate degree program admissions for destination allocations.
