Founded in 1989 by former students on international mobility on the initiative of the Erasmus Bureau of the European Community, ESN (Erasmus Student Network AISBL) is an international non-profit student organization whose mission is to represent the interests of students on international mobility. Since 2010 ESN AISBL is a full member of the European Youth Forum.
ESN operates at three levels: international, national and local and, at the moment, has more than 500 sections in 40 countries. Its borders range from Iceland to Turkey, from Portugal to Lithuania, from Norway to Russia; over 18,000 active members work as volunteers, providing services to around 150,000 students. The number of sections per country ranges from a minimum of one to a maximum of 53 (Italy).
At the international level ESN has regular meetings with international authorities and organizations, to promote and discuss European student mobility and the needs of European students. The executive body of ESN International is the board of directors, which is based in Brussels and is elected every year from among the active members of the associations.
National representatives of all ESN member countries make up the Council of National Representatives (CNR), which is the consultative body of the Erasmus Student Network.
The most important meeting is the Annual General Meeting (AGM), during which members of all sections make common decisions about the future of the network.
Finally, countries with a sufficiently large number of sections also have a National Board responsible for coordinating the sections at the level of each country.
The sections work according to the “Students helping students” principle, to help exchange students to better enjoy their study abroad experience. Therefore, they provide support to incoming students, but also to outgoing ones. Their members are largely students who have gained an international exchange experience and want to make their experience available, or students who are about to have an international exchange experience and who through the individual sections can acquire skills useful for face an experience in countries with cultural and social backgrounds other than one's own.
Follow us