The minimum period for an internship is normally at least 2 months to make it possible for students to apply for an Erasmus+ funding grant – but to do so, the internship needs to be completed as full-time internship.
1. The funding with an Erasmus+ grant for internships is paid by the sending university of the student that would come to Mainz and is calculated by each national agency (responsible for Erasmus+) based on the living cost of the hosting country (here Germany). This would mean that the rate might differ a bit in different FORTHEM universities but would approximately be around 350 – 500 EUR per month for an intern coming to Mainz for an internship starting from September 2021 (new Erasmus period).
2. Once the student has obtained the internship opportunity, he/she could apply in his/her international office. Normally, students would need some time for preparing their application and their stay, so that we estimate a preparation period of e.g. three months before the actual start of the internship.
3. The salary of the intern is not affected by the Erasmus+ grant in itself, but in Germany, companies need to take into consideration the minimum wage regulations which do apply for voluntary internships with a duration of more than three months. The regulation does not apply for compulsory internships (embedded in the student’s curriculum).
4. Yes, to apply for an Erasmus+ grant, the students need to be enrolled in one of the FORTHEM partner universities at the time of the application as well as at the time of the internship, but they would not follow courses at their home university during their internship period.
5. There are some exceptions for students recently graduated applying already for the funding before their graduation (which needs a longer preparation period and to be planned in collaboration with the International Office of their home institution). The requirement for those so called “graduate internships” is that they need to be completed within 12 months after the student’s graduation.
