The Erasmus Programme was created in 1987 as a large-scale European student exchange program. Although its scope and objectives broadened through the years, the main idea remains the same: to develop international cooperation between universities.

Name ‘Erasmus’ refers to the one of the Dutch philosopher, theologian and humanist, Erasmus from Rotterdam (1466-1536). It is not without a reason. Erasmus, and other prominent people of the Renaissance, was educated in many academic centers in different European countries, and his idea about education was deeply permeated with deep humanism.

From the 90’ the program included other forms of cooperation among universities from different countries in Europe and quickly became the largest and best-known community program for European universities and higher education institutes. In 1995 program was included into ‘Socrates’ - the European Cooperation on the field of education, which ended in the academic year 2006/07. Nowadays Erasmus enter a new phase as part of a new complex program of the European Union "Whole life learning".

See "Whole life learning" promotional video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2Kcn_FoNPM

In the first year of its existence 3,244 of European students participate in Erasmus Programme. Currently, each year there are more than150 thousand of scholars.

Poland participates in Erasmus since 1998. Until 2005/06 more than 42 thousand students from our country participate in program, and our universities welcomed over 7.5 thousand of foreign scholars. There have been over 7.4 thousand trips of Polish teachers and more than 4.5 thousand arrivals of foreign teachers who conducted classes in the host universities. In the academic year 2006/07 over 200 of our universities participated in program.

Source: National Agency responsible for the Erasmus Programme