For Erasmus+ partners
Erasmus code: S UMEA01
Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (pdf)
Erasmus Policy Statement (pdf)
Umeå University is a comprehensive university covering research and education in medicine, science and technology, social sciences, arts and humanities, and educational sciences. We offer close to 300 courses in English to exchange students and have highly international staff as well as modern facilities, ensuring qualitative education to our incoming students.
Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) over Campus Umeå.
ImageMattias PetterssonLevel of exchange
Undergraduate courses, graduate courses
Short semester, one semester, a full academic year
Semester dates
The academic calendar at Umeå University is divided into two semesters, each lasting 20 weeks. The autumn semester usually starts at the beginning of September and ends in mid-January. The spring semester begins in the middle of January and ends in early June.
Insurance
Exchange students are covered by an insurance policy, Student IN.
The insurance covers necessary and reasonable costs for health care, emergency dental care and damage to property. Travels outside of Sweden is not included in the coverage. EU/EEA citizens are required by the Swedish authorities to bring the European Health Insurance Card.
No matter which nationality, students are strongly advised to have their own Health, Travel and Accident insurance policy.
Support for students with disabilities
We offer individual support to students who have a disability. The support aims to ensure the student may pursue their studies under the same conditions as their peers.
Course catalogue
Umeå University offers a wide range of courses in English for exchange students.
Students can apply for all courses in the above-mentioned catalogue. To be admitted they need to fulfill all the requirements and there must be available places.
The course selection should be discussed with the home university to make sure it is approved.
Students who want to apply for courses instructed in Swedish, need to have reached a level of B2 or C1 depending on which course they apply for.
Contact the International Office for more information: incoming.io@umu.se
Swedish study system
According to the Swedish study system full-time courses (100 % tempo) are taken one at a time rather than parallel. Therefore, it is important to carefully check the start and end dates for each course. More information about the Swedish study system.
Grading system
The Higher Education Ordinance states that the following grades may be awarded, unless the institution decides to grade on some other scale.
A number of courses use only two grades: Pass or Fail. Others, for example in Law and Engineering, traditionally use scales with several levels – expressed as letters or numbers.
No overall grade is given for a degree and students are not ranked.
The home university is responsible for the conversion of the Swedish grades. To support the translation, the ECTS grading table is used at Umeå University. It shows the distribution of awarded grades since the course was established with the current course code, until the date the student has completed the course. The distribution will only show for courses established at least two years before the student completed the course.
Course load
One academic semester comprises 20 weeks. This corresponds to approximately 40 hours of study per week including a varying number of lectures and classes. Most courses consist of 7.5, 15 or 30 ECTS.
1.5 ECTS is the equivalent to one week of full-time study.
Examination period
Normally there are no final exams that cover the entire semester’s course work, or that cover an entire general study programme. This means that exams are given at the end of each course, and not at the end of the semester.
Digital nominations are submitted via the mobility tool, Solemove.
Instructions for nominating your outgoing students.
Exchange students must be nominated online through Solemove (Umeå University's administrative system for student mobility). Should you not have received log in information, please contact the department at Umeå University which you have signed the exchange agreement with. For university-wide agreements, please contact the International Ofice at incoming.io@umu.se
After the nomination is submitted, an automatic e-mail with the application instructions will be sent to your student(s).
Proficiency tests in English are not required from students under formal exchange agreements. However, please make sure to nominate students who have sufficient knowledge of English, both oral and written, so they are able to succeed in their courses.
Nomination period
In the event of the dates below fall on a weekend/holiday, the deadlines are moved to the nearest workday.
For the Autumn semester and for the full academic year: 1 March–1 April
For the Spring semester: 1 September–1 October
Important! Only online nominations in Solemove within the nomination period will be accepted.
Which information should be included?
When you log in to Solemove you will be asked to provide us with the following details:
When is the nomination and application deadline?
In the event of the dates below fall on a weekend/holiday, the deadlines are moved to the nearest workday.
Spring semester
Nominations: 1 October
Applications: 15 October
Autumn semester
Nominations: 1 April
Applications: 15 April
Umeå University offers a wide range of courses in English for exchange students.
Students can apply for all courses in the above-mentioned catalogue. To be admitted they need to fulfill all the requirements and must be available places.
The course selection should be discussed with the home university to make sure it is approved.
Students who want to apply for courses instructed in Swedish, need to have reached a level of B2 or C1 depending on which course they apply for.
Contact the International Office for more information: incoming.io@umu.se
Detailed application instructions are found at:
Application instructions
Recommended arrival days
Spring semester 2023: The recommended arrival day is TBD (for students who have accommodation through the Housing Office).
Orientation
The Orientation consists of a series of lectures and activities that are designed to help you become acquainted with life in Umeå and studies at our university. Digital pre-arrival will preliminarily take place 16 August. Orientation will take place 23 August.
Accommodation
Umeå University offers halls of residence close to the university.
More information on student housing
Meal plan: Students are responsible for cooking their own meals, and the residence halls are equipped with common kitchens for this purpose. At Umeå University there are lunch rooms where students can heat (microwave) their food. Students can also buy their meals and fika at Umeå University's restaurants and cafés.
Off-campus accommodation: It is possible to rent from private landlords. If so, we strongly recommend student to start the search early and not to rely on finding their accommodation after their arrival in Umeå.
More information on finding accommodation
We have gathered information and tips for your students in several areas: housing and budget, residence permit and visa, insurances, health care, travel, and social life.
All current exchange agreements we have can be found in Solemove.
In addition, we participate in a number of international cooperations and networks:
International Cooperations
Does your university want to sign an exchange agreement with Umeå University?
Exchange agreements are mainly signed at departmental level. If your university wants to sign an Erasmus+ or Nordplus agreement with our university, you need to contact the international contact person at the respective department. You find a list of contact persons at our student pages:
International Contact Persons
Promotional material
If you would like promotional material about exchange studies at Umeå University please contact International Office's communication officers at komm.io@umu.se
Information for Erasmus+ partner institutions regarding the connection to Erasmus Without Paper (EWP)
Umeå University has connected to EWP according to the EU timeline requirements using SoleMove as our mobility system.
Online Learning Agreement – OLA
Incoming OLA
All departments use OLA for incoming students via SoleMove. If you use Erasmus Dashboard or your software is connected to EWP – we can sign OLAs for your outgoing students. All OLAs are currently handled by incoming.io@umu.se
Outgoing OLA
Umeå University is about to implement OLA for outgoing students during spring 2023. All departments will then be ready to use OLA for outgoing students via SoleMove. If you use Dashboard or your software is connected to EWP – we will soon be able to send digital LAs for our outgoing students to you during spring 2023.
Inter-Institutional Agreements – IIA
Spring 2023
Umeå is processing digital IIAs via EWP - please contact the department you already have an existing agreement/ wish to have an agreement with BEFORE initializing a digital IIA. Umeå is using SoleMove for IIAs. Please DO NOT send digital IIAs without prior contact/confirmation with a specific department.
Departments at Umeå University
ESI
The European Student Identifier has been implemented, and is available in EWP via SoleMove, and through login via Umu-id for Umeå University students.
Questions?
Please contact us at solemove@umu.se
Erasmus code: S UMEA01
Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (pdf)
Erasmus Policy Statement (pdf)