These general guidelines apply to most Europaeum events. Please also see the particular event page, which will provide further, more specific information.
All forthcoming events can be found on the Events & Activities page.
Admissions Policy
Who can apply for Europaeum events and opportunities?
Generally speaking, any graduate who is currently enrolled on a course with one of our member universities can apply. Our core events are aimed primarily at students from the Humanities and Social Sciences, but we are open to applications from students in other disciplines whose research interests are closely related to a specific event’s theme. The core events are ideally suited to masters students and early-stage PhD candidates who want to gain experience of presenting and conference participation in a friendly and supportive environment. Priority is given to those students with outstanding or excellent academic records who will benefit most from the opportunity that a Europaeum event provides.
When applying for events, be sure to pay maximum attention to explaining the relevance of the event’s theme to your intellectual interests. This will ensure that your application is competitive. Likewise, when applying for bursaries, make the case for why you want to do research in the field of European Studies (broadly defined).
Criteria
- Academic quality: we look for strong students with good previous and on-course marks who can argue their point well and write in good English. Preference is given to candidates who can demonstrate that they will gain clear benefit from their participation in the Europaeum event.
- CV: you should list your education thus far (including grades), and work experience. You can add any volunteer work you may have done, and skills that you have gained. Information about your English language skills will be useful. Please do not include a photo on your CV.
- References: your referee should comment on your academic qualities and achievements, and if at all possible, should give an indication of where you rank in your year’s cohort.
- Proposal/personal statement: This should be as concise and yet detailed as possible. We are looking for you making a coherent and convincing case for why you want to participate (or get a bursary). Your academic background and research interest in European Studies should be explained and much as possible within the limited space of the statement, and how the event or bursary trip would help you with your current research. In the case of applying for a bursary, you should be as clear as possible about how you are planning to spend your time during the trip, what you are expecting to achieve, and why the resources in that particular location are vital for your academic work.
Decision-making process
Our decision-making process is fair and transparent and aims at connecting with and selecting a diverse set of individuals through understanding and valuing different backgrounds and opinions. The Europaeum is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and welcomes applications from all members of the community.
All applications are considered, and we aim to have a minimum of two, if not three, assessors. Where possible we involve assessors from more than one member university.
We are sorry that we cannot offer feedback on unsuccessful applications.
Incomplete applications
Please make sure that you send all necessary documents as listed under ‘how to apply’ (above). If the address for applications is a member university, the Europaeum has no control over what happens to incomplete applications. If the address is the Europaeum office, we will get in touch with you as soon as we can to make you aware. The most frequent issue is missing references and we would ask you to chase these up to ensure we have them no more than two or three days after the deadline.
Attendance
Successful applicants are expected to attend the event in full, unless they have very good reason not to. This particularly applies to online events, so please flag to us as early as possible if you cannot attend a session, due to unforeseen and significant problems. Attendance certificates cannot be issued if a large portion of the event is missed, particularly without explanation, and we reserve the right not to include you in our Alumni network if we find that efforts to attend and be fully part of the event were not sufficient. The Europaeum’s philosophy is that students not only gain academic and professional experience at the events, but also find them to be networking opportunities to meet other students and we would hope that participants recognise these opportunities and participate fully in the event for which they have applied. This applies in particular to physical events and exchanges in coffee breaks and over meals.
Online events: these should never just be seen as a conference where you give a paper, only show up for your own slot and miss the rest of the event, just so that you have another line on your CV. This sort of behaviour is rude to other participants and you do yourself a disservice by missing out on the experience of networking with and learning from likeminded people (including excellent speakers!) from a range of excellent academic institutions.
Costs and reimbursements
For all events on this page the Europaeum covers travel costs to the location, except where indicated clearly that this is not the case. In most cases this means that once you have received confirmation of a place on the event, you will be asked to book your travel within a week and send the receipts to us. The limited time frame is intended to make sure that travel costs are kept to a minimum by booking travel as early as possible. In some rare cases travel will be booked for you, but this will be clearly indicated to you.
Where travel costs are reimbursed the Europaeum will make a bank transfer into your bank account as soon as possible after the start of the event, once confirmation has been received that you have arrived. If you cancel your attendance without explanation and without providing evidence of unforeseen and significant issues that prevented you from travelling, we reserve the right not to reimburse you.
If you have trouble pre-financing travel costs, please contact the Europaeum office once you have an offer, so that we can find a solution that helps you out.
Please note that we can only cover travel within Europe and we usually expect to cover travel costs from a student’s home university to the event. Students who need to travel from further afield should enquire with the Europaeum office whether it is possible that a contribution is made to their travel costs to the equivalent of another student’s travel costs from the same university. Where the event is happening at your home university, we do not cover travel costs. Equally, we reserve the right to query a scenario where a student is clearly trying to use the travel cost reimbursement system to cover a trip to their home country for a holiday.
We normally budget around £200-250 for intra-European flights for student to attend our events. If flights from your home city to the host city are likely to be more expensive than this please contact the European team for pre-authorisation before purchasing the ticket.
The Europaeum does not usually pay for taxis.
Accommodation is always provided by the host institution (or the Europaeum), but please note that this can be shared (twin) accommodation. We would like to ask participants not to bring guests along; they will not be able to attend the event. Our philosophy is that the social elements of a workshop are as important as the academic ones, and that this is where useful connections are formed for the future. Personal guests tend to be a distraction that isolates one participant from the group.
Food is normally provided during the event and where this is not the case, the Europaeum usually provides participants with a per diem contribution to the cost of meals. We do not cover food costs on non-event travel days.
Queries and certificates of attendance
If you have a question, or would like a certificate to confirm your attendance at one of our events, please contact the Europaeum Office – alumni@europaeum.org – and we will be happy to help.