Erasmus Mundus Joint Programme and EU’s Strategy on Higher Education Cooperation with China

Lessons from the MARIHE Programme

This paper discusses lessons learnt from the Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Research and Innovation in Higher Education (MARIHE) from a participant’s perspective and provides suggestions for European higher education institutions in their cooperation with Chinese counterparts. The MARIHE programme, implemented since 2012, is the first Erasmus Mundus joint degree programme with a Chinese university as a (potential) degree granting partner. The author, a Chinese scholar working at a European university as one member of the MARIHE consortium, has been deeply involved in the programme application and implementation, particularly regarding the communication between the Chinese university and other European partner institutions. The MARIHE case, as one of few pioneering joint degree programmes between European and Chinese universities, has revealed a number of barriers for academic cooperation between European and Chinese higher education due to differences of legislations, educational traditions and administrative practices in different systems. The efforts of the MARIHE consortium in resolving the problems may provide valuable experience for many other European universities when cooperating with Chinese partners, particularly in developing joint education and degree programmes. It has also been argued in the paper that the Erasmus Mundus joint programmes with Chinese partnership play a significant role in implementing EU’s strategy on higher education cooperation with China.