CEEPUS

What it is

CEEPUS promotes cooperation in higher education in Central Europe. The programme supports multilateral academic mobility between higher education institutions of the partner countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe.

The member countries are Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Kosovo.

The National Agency for Scientific Research and Innovation acts as the CEEPUS National Office for the Republic of Albania.

Objectives

• Strengthening Albania’s position within the European Research Area (ERA) and the innovation networks.
• Easing the exchange of students, academic staff and researchers between higher education institutions.
• Developing university networks for joint research and curricula with a European dimension.

Who can apply

Students — including doctoral candidates — academic staff and scientific researchers at higher education institutions in the Republic of Albania, and the institutions taking part in the CEEPUS thematic networks.

Mobility takes two forms:

• Within a network. CEEPUS networks are academic alliances between universities, with one coordinating institution and partner institutions, organised around a given academic field. The partner institutions exchange students and staff under the network agreement.
• As a Freemover. This category serves as a flexible instrument for students and staff outside the fixed networks. Albania is an active part of the “Umbrella” network, which eases exchanges outside the established networks.

What it funds

The programme funds mobility scholarships — for study, research or teaching — measured in scholarship months, which are the programme’s standard currency. Albania has a ceiling quota of 130 months per year.

The technical rules for awarding and administering the scholarships are set by instruction of the Ministry of Education.

The application process

Applications are made through the central CEEPUS platform, at ceepus.info, where the applicant first checks whether they are eligible for a CEEPUS scholarship.

There are two application routes: network applications, submitted by the coordinating institution on behalf of the network, and individual Freemover applications. The call for network applications opens once a year; for the 2027/2028 academic year it opens at the end of September 2026, with a submission deadline of 30 November 2026 and an extended deadline for signed documents of 15 December 2026.

The CEEPUS National Office at NASRI provides information and guidance for Albanian applicants and publishes the announcements of open applications on the Agency’s official website.

The Agency encourages CEEPUS mobility beneficiaries to use the contacts they make to increase participation in COST Actions and in Horizon Europe, treating mobility as the basis for research collaborations and consortia.