Joint Degrees -
Benefits for students, staff and higher
education institutions
Good joint degree programmes offer a series of interrelated benefits for students, staff and institutions alike. In particular, institutions are able to combine their strengths in a collective endeavour in which one unified programme becomes more valuable than the sum of its parts. In addition to opportunities for developing and practising language and cultural skills, joint programmes also offer the potential to develop more internationalised, multi-dimensional curricula. Students experience the intellectual stimulation of viewing their chosen subject through more windows, developing new learning methods and ways of thinking. In the same way, university staff can be exposed to unfamiliar approaches to their subject through more sustained contact with partner colleagues. In doing so, they may also explore how different methods of teaching and learning in their areas of specialisation can complement and enrich each other.
- Mobility is integral to the course content and design rather than an ‘add on’. Students are thus required and assisted to study in a partner institution in a different country.
- The preparation of integrated joint degree study programmes encourages more transparent academic recognition procedures. The correct use of ECTS and the Diploma Supplement (DS) can greatly help.
- Quality enhancement of programmes is encouraged through teaching staff devising curricula that are open to scrutiny from partner colleagues abroad.
- Students who experience high quality joint programmes have a greater chance of becoming internationally employable graduates.
- Teaching staff in joint programmes have opportunities for professional development outside their home country. Within joint degree networks, they can thus establish links that build a firm foundation for further international cooperation including transnational research.
- Joint degree programmes, particularly at Master and doctorate levels, are of great potential interest to students from outside Europe, and opportunities for such students have been extended by the Erasmus Mundus programme. Institutions can thus use these programmes to position themselves strategically in an international market.