CEEPUS: exchange grants for studying and teaching in Central Europe and the Balkans

Published 2026-10-31

Students and teachers who want to spend time at a university in Central Europe or the Balkans usually think first of Erasmus+. There is an older, smaller and less known alternative built specifically for this region: CEEPUS, the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies. It funded many of the short stays, intensive courses and teaching visits that kept networks like the one behind Europe and the Balkans alive, and it still runs today, with its central office in Vienna.

This guide explains how CEEPUS works, who can apply, and how to plan an application. Rules change from year to year and differ between countries, so treat it as a map and check the current details on the programme's own site before you apply.

What CEEPUS is

CEEPUS is a multilateral university exchange programme in what its organisers call the extended Danube region. Unlike Erasmus+, it is not an EU programme: it rests on an international agreement between governments, and each member state funds the grants for the people it hosts. The current members are Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia; universities in Kosovo, including Pristina, Prizren and Peja, also take part. The programme has awarded mobility grants since 1995.

The programme's unit of account is unusual. Instead of a sum of money, each country pledges a number of incoming "scholarship months" for the next academic year, and one scholarship month is a full grant at the host country's standard of living. That is why the monthly amount you receive depends on where you go, not on where you come from. Each country has a National CEEPUS Office, which awards the grants for stays in that country; the Central CEEPUS Office in Vienna coordinates the whole.

Networks: the core of the programme

Most CEEPUS grants are awarded within thematic networks. A network brings together at least five universities from five different member countries around a subject, such as healthcare communication, architecture or, in our field, the history and politics of the region. Faculty members apply on behalf of their institutions once a year; one institution acts as coordinator, and each partner names a main contact person.

Network applications are evaluated by experts and ranked. Those that rank high enough are funded with a set number of scholarship months. Most of those that fall short become "umbrella" networks: they receive no guaranteed months at first, but National CEEPUS Offices can later assign unused months to them, so mobilities within an umbrella network are still possible.

For an individual student or teacher, the practical consequence is simple. The easiest route into CEEPUS is through a network your department already belongs to. The programme's "Find a network" database lets you search by institution; if your department appears, the network coordinator or the local contact person is the first person to talk to.

Freemovers: applying without a network

If your department is not in any network, you can still apply as a freemover to an eligible institution in another member country. Freemover grants are limited, and some countries accept them only for one semester or apply other restrictions, so ask the National CEEPUS Office of the country you want to go to before you start. Student freemovers need a letter of acceptance from the host institution and two letters of recommendation from their home institution; teachers need a letter of acceptance from the host. Templates are on the programme's download page.

Who is eligible

CEEPUS grants are for students and faculty members of eligible universities in the member countries who are also citizens of a member state. Each country publishes its own list of eligible universities every year. Students must have completed two semesters of regular study, or one semester for intensive courses. A grant cannot be used to study in your own country.

Students enrolled at a CEEPUS university who hold another citizenship may still qualify by providing an "equal status document" from their university, but some countries restrict this to EU or EEA citizens, and a tuition-fee waiver at home can count as a grant under local law and rule out a second one. The safest step is to ask your home National CEEPUS Office before anything else.

The types of grant

Semester stays for students: from 3 to 10 months of regular study at a partner university.
Short stays for theses: master's and PhD students can come for less than three months to work on a thesis or dissertation. Thesis supervision abroad is one of the uses the programme highlights; PhD students are not subject to the cap of 12 months of grants per study cycle that applies at bachelor's and master's level.
Intensive courses: summer schools, winter schools and similar courses of less than a month, open to undergraduates after one semester. This is the category that most resembles the CEI International Summer School and the intensive courses the network organised.
Excursions: group study trips for students, of at least three days.
Teaching stays: teachers must teach or supervise six hours for each five-day week they spend at the host, and list the courses in advance. A teacher can make up to ten stays per academic year.
Staff and network meetings: short visits for international-office staff (two to five working days) and for network contact persons (one to three days). Conferences are explicitly excluded.

A few countries also fund virtual or hybrid exchanges; at the time of writing the programme lists the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

Deadlines to plan around

The CEEPUS calendar is fixed and early, which catches many first-time applicants out:

1 June: network mobility applications for the following winter semester.
1 November: network mobility applications for the following summer semester.
1 July and 1 November: freemover applications, where the host country accepts them.
30 November: the usual deadline for new network applications by universities, for the academic year after next. For 2027/28, signed letters can follow until 15 December 2026.

After a mobility application, the National CEEPUS Office of the host country makes the final decision, usually within two weeks to a month. Grant holders file a mobility report and a letter of confirmation after the stay.

CEEPUS or Erasmus+?

The two programmes overlap but are not interchangeable. Erasmus+ is larger and covers the whole EU, plus associated countries such as North Macedonia and Serbia; Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro take part as partner countries, where exchanges depend on agreements between individual universities. CEEPUS covers the region as a whole on equal terms, including Moldova and the Western Balkans, and its short formats (thesis stays, intensive courses, excursions, teaching weeks) suit research visits that do not fit an Erasmus semester. Many students combine them: an Erasmus semester during the master's, a CEEPUS thesis stay later. You cannot, however, hold two grants for the same stay in the same host country.

If your stay abroad is part of a longer research career, the practical questions of where to live and how cost of living affects your grant are covered in our guide to choosing a university city for a PhD or postdoc.

A checklist before you apply

Check that your university is on this year's eligibility list of your country.
Search the network database for your department and the host you have in mind.
Contact the network coordinator, or the host's National CEEPUS Office if you are a freemover.
Agree on the dates, the supervisor or the courses with the host before the deadline, not after.
Ask your home office about travel refunds and national restrictions; the host office about visas, insurance and the monthly rate.
Create an account in the online system and submit before 1 June or 1 November.