Student Application for admission in the PANGEA programme is entitled for students holding a Bachelor in Earth Sciences or equivalent education in the field of Natural Sciences or Biology (provided a sufficient number of Earth Sciences courses are completed). Students from all over the world are welcome to join the programme.
A THREE-STEP SELECTION PROCEDURE
1) Administrative checking and validation
Following the closure of the call for applications, all applications are checked in order to remove incomplete applications (required information is missing or misfiled; compulsory document(s) not provided) and incorrectly completed applications (documents or information provided not in English, illegible documents, unreadable files, etc.).
2) Evaluation and ranking of valid applications
Two members of two different institutions of the consortium board that are not involved in the relative selected track will evaluate all valid applications (i.e. passing evaluation step 1) independently.
- Eligibility of previous studies
Reviewers first check eligibility of the applicant’s previous studies (marked 0, fail; or 1, pass). Applications receiving divergent marks on this mandatory criterion will be sent to a third reviewer.
Applications receiving two 0 will be dismissed.
- Evaluation and ranking of eligible applications
Evaluation and ranking of all valid applications are based on academic merit and excellence, and determined according to the following criteria (the percentages in brackets represent the weight of each criterion):
The reviewer will mark each selection criterion on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 10 (outstanding).
The final scores of the applications are automatically generated based on % weights indicated above, then the average is calculated.
An application receiving significantly divergent final marks (differing by at least 2 points over 10) will be sent to a third reviewer in the consortium, and its final score will be calculated based on the 3 evaluations.
An interview could be organised after the written evaluation is finished. It will help test the English skills of the student as well as the motivation.
The generated ranking is used by the Academic Board to establish a selection of approximately 50 applicants. To ensure academic excellence of enrolled students, the Academic board can decide to apply a threshold to the final application grade, based on average scores obtained (generally 5/10) even if this implies that the maximum size of the cohort will not be reached.
3) EMJMD scholarships
Note: For 2024, there will NOT be any call for applications with EMJMD grants awarded by the consortium. However best-rated applicants will be able to benefit from a total fee waiver (subject to the availability of funds).
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According to the Erasmus rules, the selection process involves two categories of applicants: Programme countries and Partner countries. 60 EMJMD scholarships (11 for programme countries, 49 for partner countries) were allocated to the PANGEA programme by EACEA.
Each year, the academic board decides on the number of EMJMD scholarships to be awardedper category of applicants and per Pangea track, considering that the number of scholarships allocated to each track will be balanced each year and for the whole programme duration (20 scholarships per track in total). A minimum of 3 scholarships will be allocated to each track per year.
Applications for EMJMD (one call for applications each year), are ranked as explained above. EMJMD scholarships are allocated according to the position in the final ranking and by respecting geographical distribution ( each nationality can only receive a maximum of 3 EMJMD scholarships in one intake).
Scholarships are first allocated to the highest ranked applicants based on their preferred profile (see ‘application procedure’). If scholarships are no longer available for the selected profile, students will be offered three alternatives:
- The student decides to maintain his/her first choice of track and to be placed on reserve list. The candidate’s ranking on the reserve list shall be communicated.
- Based on the ranking of reserve list, the applicant can decide to register to his/her next favourite track (as indicated in application form) with the available scholarships.
- Applicant decides to cancel his/her application for the EMJMD scholarship and therefore maintain his/her registration to his/her Pangea favourite track.
For each Pangea track, two final lists of selected students for the award of an Erasmus+ scholarship (European and non-European) and a reserve list including all the other selected students are established and communicated to EACEA by mid-April each year.
COMMUNICATION OF THE SELECTION RESULTS
After each call for applications and selection procedure, applicants are individually informed whether they have been individually offered a place with or without scholarship, a place on the reserve list, or if they have not been selected. According to each of these options, the candidates are requested to confirm their acceptance of the decision to the Consortium and if applicable by signing the student agreement specifying the track they are registering to.
APPEAL
Students who want to appeal the decision made by the consortium must send a filled ‘Pangea appeal form’ within 7 days after receiving notification of the selection results. The Pangea coordinator will prepare an argued response (possibly after consulting with the relevant EACEA staff), and both appeal and proposed response will be submitted to the Executive board for approval. The student will be notified of the outcome of the procedure within 14 days after his/her appeal submission. This decision of the Executive board is final and cannot be subject to any further appeals.