The government is commited to improving the reception of international students

All audiences

A budget of 10 million euros has been allocated to improve the reception arrangements for international students in public institutions under the supervision of the ministry in charge of Higher education : 5 million to improve reception services and 5 million as part of a call for projects to finance initiatives to promote mentoring schemes, FLE (French as a foreign language) courses and the foreign language offering.

As announced at the launch of the "Bienvenue en France" strategy, the government is supporting public Higher education institutions (placed under the supervision of the ministry in charge of Higher education) in the improvement of reception conditions for international students. A budget of 10 million euros has been announced and will be allocated in particular to institutions involved in the "Bienvenue en France" certification process led by Campus France.

5 million euros to make "one-stop shops" more widely available

Reception services covering all the administrative formalities to be completed on arrival are very popular with international students. Also known as "one-stop shops", they must be made more widely available within universities and given more resources where they already exist.

A budget of 5 million euros has been shared between the institutions, according to the number of non-EU students enrolled in the years 2016/17 and 2017/18. Amongst other things, this should enable new services to be offered, opening hours to be extended or to provide a multilingual offering.

A validation of the actions which have been implemented will be carried out in the autumn. Institutions are invited to return the monitoring form before 30 October.

Launch of a call for projects worth 5 million euros

Institutions under the supervision of the ministry of Higher education are also invited to suggest projects that would enable the improvement of the reception of international students, around three priority axes:

Student mentoring schemes, also known as "buddy programmes" to promote the integration of newly arrived students;
the development of French as a foreign language (FLE) courses to improve students' chances of success, including refugee students;
the foreign languages offering, including not only English courses but also multilingual reception services within institutions.

In order to ensure the rapid implementation of projects, the call for projects has been simplified and the selection procedure will be less complicated. The submission of projects is expected before 2 May 2019.

A single condition has to be met to be eligible for the Bienvenue en France call for projects funding: to be engaged in the "Bienvenue en France" certification process (Label “Bienvenue en France”) with Campus France and to have completed the first phase of application for the certification before 19 April 2019.

All the information on applying is available on the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation's website on the page dedicated to the Bienvenue en France call for projects.