Final Conference PRIME 2010

On 14th November, the final PRIME conference successfully took place at the Madou tower in Brussels, Belgium. There were 150 people attending the event, with 100 motivated ESNers travelling from all corners of Europe to celebrate the success of this ESN International project. Furthermore, the conference welcomed special guests such as Mr Filip Van de Poele and Johannes Gehringer from the Erasmus Unit, European Commission.

At the conference their were presentations from Adriana Perez (ESN Spain), Aiste Simanaviciene (Vilnius University), Sandrine Dickel (French NA) and Johannes Gehringer (European Commission) about the obstacles to recognition from a variety of perspectives, including students, universities, national agencies and the EU.
In addition the PRIME project and the key results of 2010 were presented by the project coordinator Justyna Pisera. Furthermore, 16 local and national PRIME conferences had taken place in Europe in the months preceding and their results were presented from the perspective of ESN France and ESN Hungary.

In the afternoon, the new student guidebook and video were presented with the aim of empowering students and giving them the relevant information they need to ensure full recognition of their study period abroad. Lastly, to round off the event, the academic value of the Erasmus Programme was discussed by a group of experts and all participants in a discussion moderated by Eva Ntovolou, former President of ESN International.

Overall, the conference was a great success and the perfect conclusion to the PRIME 2010 project. However, we recognise the work is never done, and ESN will be working tirelessly to promote the PRIME results, the student guidebook and we will be working with all the relevant institutions to ensure that we improve academic recognition for Erasmus students in  Europe.