Outbound procedure

Guidance and support for managing outbound exchange students

Announcement of Faculty agreements and university-wide agreements

Exchange places at partner universities are announced at each faculty, whether they are subject-specific or university-wide places.

The faculties are responsible for their own process of announcing their faculty- and subject specific exchange places, while the External Relations office is responsible for the process of announcing the university-wide places, including the announcement and application processes for University of California.

The main part of the information on this page is focused on explaining the process for announcing the university-wide seats, since this process is the same for all faculties.

The announcement of university-wide places is preceded by an allocation procedure once per year. In June, the places are allocated for the following academic year. A preliminary version of the allocation is sent out in June. The final allocation sheet is usually compiled in August.

The allocation sheet can be found in LU Box – please contact Marie Herner Hällström to get access to the current document.

Autumn or spring semester places

The document ”When can you announce what?” (LU Box – ”UT: När kan man utlysa vad?”) contains information about which universities can be announced in the autumn/spring semesters. The document is based on the two deadlines for the faculty to send the nomination information to Student Experience and Mobility (MMS), i.e., 25 January/1 April.

Go to LU Box for "UT: När kan man utlysa vad?" (OUT: When can you announce what?")

Find out whether the range of courses offered on the university-wide places suits the students at your faculty and whether there are course restrictions within the subject area that interests the students at your faculty.

You can find this information about the university-wide places in SoleMove under the tab ”Exchange destinations abroad and feedback”.

Make a search: Use the search tool and ‘Advanced search’, select university-wide agreements by selecting ‘exchange program’ UNIWIDE, then see under ‘Additional Information’.

Go to "Exchange destinations abroad and feedback" in SoleMove

For questions about the allocation procedure, please contact the Team manager for Student Experience and Mobility (MMS).

For questions about individual universities within the university-wide agreements, please contact the relevant officer at Student Experience and Mobility (MMS)

Preparation in SoleMove before announcement (all agreements)

You need to keep the following in mind when setting up an announcement.

All exchange mobility presumes the existence of a valid exchange agreement. The officer who has signed and/or administrates the agreement is responsible for the following updates in SoleMove:

Checking the validity of agreements and renewing agreements when required. Please note that agreements that have expired are not possible to add in an application period. If you do not want a university to be visible to students in the ‘Destinations’ search tool, you have to change the status to ‘passive’ in Units & Partners.
Updating the number of places and months for both incoming and outbound students. One semester corresponds to five months.
Checking and updating information about the agreement and partner.
Signing Erasmus Inter-institutional agreements digitally in SoleMove and send it to the partner universities via Erasmus Without Paper. More information about EWP can be found in SoleMove Teams.

Outgoing exchange students are encouraged to follow the accessibility-adapted application guide that SoleMove support has produced to support the students during the application period.

Refer students to the SoleMove application guide

Information about the partner universities that is found under “Additional Information” is always accessible in SoleMove and searchable for students, even outside the application periods. Bear in mind that this information must be updated no later than the start of the application period. Make it as easy as possible for students to compare information about different universities by streamlining the information provided.

The following information about partner universities must be provided:

Link to information about exchange studies and range of courses offered
Study periods and link to academic calendar
Language information (admission requirements, language test and available language courses)
Course level and course information including course restrictions (undergrad./grad)
Number of credits for full-time studies
Insurance information
Accommodation information
Services for students with disabilities
Costs (estimated cost of living)
Specific grants or scholarships

Find "Additional Information" about partner universities in SoleMove via the search tool 'Destinations'

To update information about a partner university in ”Additional Information” in SoleMove, go via the ”Agreements” tab.

Find the SoleMove manual “Instructions on partners and agreements” in Sharepoint (in Swedish)

SoleMove calculates the number of places used within an announcement, per academic year. Note that the system does not count the number of semester places according to the agreement, but is based on the number of months used. This means that if the faculty has 5 places (25 months) available and nominates 4 (20 months) students, then there is 1 place left for the remaining announcement. When you create your announcement of remaining places, you can use the function "Places available" in the "Application periods" interface. The calculation of places only works per academic year, provided that the correct number of places and months have been added to all agreements.

Setting up an announcement in SoleMove

Instructions on how to set up an announcement in SoleMove can be found in the SoleMove manual ”SoleMove Outgoing. administration IRO” in Teams. Please note that "announcement" is referred to as ”Outgoing Application Period” in SoleMove.

Find the SoleMove manual ”SoleMove Outgoing. administration IRO” in Sharepoint (in Swedish)

It is useful to bear the following in mind when nominating students for university-wide places:

Credits from the studies should be able to be accredited within a degree.
The study plan is not to contain courses that are listed as ”restricted” at the partner university.
For universities with high admission requirements for language skills, it helps to pay particular attention to students’ knowledge of English. There is currently no recommendation as to how this should be done.
Some universities require the students to exceed a certain grade average.

Decisions on nominations of students to university-wide exchange places are to be made available to the officer responsible at External Relations (in SoleMove).

25 January
1 April

Officers at Student Experience and Mobility (MMS) manage the students who have been nominated to university-wide places and contact students no later than one month after the deadlines above. It is helpful for the student to get information from the faculty about the approximate date when the officer from External Relations is expected to get in touch, to avoid unnecessary worry and questions.

If the student cancels the exchange before the nomination deadlines above, the faculty deals with the cancellation.

If a faculty has vacant study places left on university-wide agreements after announcing the places to the students, there are two alternatives:

Seats are saved for a planned second announcement.
Seats are saved for the following academic year to be included in the allocation procedure.

If the faculty is considering saving study places for its own faculty's second announcement, it is important to go through the document "När kan man utlysa vad?" ("When can you announce what") in LU Box to ensure that the university has a sufficiently late application deadline to be included in a second announcement.

MMS no longer redistribute vacant study places between faculties. They are instead saved for the following academic year, to be included in the allocation procedure for the next round of main announcements (in accordance with minutes from Interhand, February 2024).

A student is nominated in SoleMove by the faculty (before 25 January/1 April)
The faculty informs Ladok which ”undertaking” is to be created (the ”undertaking” is crucial to which department is to receive a HST for the outbound student).
Ladok informs each faculty when the ”undertakings” are ready.
When the ”undertaking” is ready, an officer (at the faculty and MMS) is to add ”expected participation” to the exchange.

In LU-box you will the manual ‘Ladok-utresande’ that shows how you add ”expected participation” (förväntat deltagande) to the exchange.

Manual in Swedish can be found in 'Mobilitet − Utbyteshantering och praktik', LU Box (login required)

On arrival at the host university, the student is to self-register in Ladok to confirm their participation in the exchange. The self-registration is a final confirmation for CSN (student finance). The registration will also generate an HST for the faculty and department.

If no self-registration occurs, the exchange is registered as cancelled, which leads to CSN terminating any payments of student finance; no HST is generated for faculties and departments either.

The officer is responsible for informing the student about registering in Ladok on arrival. Usually, a reminder is sent out from Ladok just before mid-semester. The reminder is sent to the student and a copy goes to the faculties’ official email addresses.

Management of changes

It is important that changes are managed in a consistent way to ensure that statistics are accurate and that unused places can be re-announced.

The officer notes the cancellation in SoleMove (Cancelled) and asks the student to register the "cancellation" or "interruption" in Ladok.

Cancellation (återbud) – the nominated student withdraws before the start of the exchange.
Termination (avbrott) – the nominated student withdraws after the start of the exchange.

 For university-wide places, the faculty responsible and MMS are to inform one another.

If the original exchange was for two semesters (60 hp), and the student interrupts after one semester (30 hp), the exchange has to be shortened as below:

Shortening an exchange: Ask Ladok to do an opportunity change (tillfällesbyte) from 60 to 30 hp. Delete the 60 hp undertaking (åtagande), and enter 30 hp undertaking.
Extending an exchange: Ask Ladok to do an opportunity change (tillfällesbyte) from 30 to 60 hp. Delete the 30 hp undertaking (åtagande), and enter 60 hp undertaking.

Travel reports

Exchange students, trainees and students on fieldwork abroad are to write a travel report on conclusion of their mobility experience according to the faculty’s instructions. The faculty is responsible for asking the student to write the report. The faculty is also responsible for reviewing the travel reports before publication. You can help market the portal via the faculty website and information meetings. External Relations are responsible for running and developing the system.

We do not want to censor travel reports. If the travel report contains information that you do not want to publish, for example strong criticism of the host university, the study country, the country's inhabitants or attacks on named people, contact the student and tell them which part of the content you are hesitant to publish. In discussion with the student, it may be discovered that it is a matter of a misunderstanding or unfortunate wording. In that case, you can suggest that the student clarify the text before you publish. If the student does not want to update the text, we can let the student know that we have received the travel report, but that we choose not to publish it due to the reasons you choose to list.

Go to www.utlandsstudier.lu.se

Contact the administrator of the Travel report system: reseberattelser [at] er [dot] lu [dot] se (reseberattelser[at]er[dot]lu[dot]se)

Transcripts and credit transfer

When transcripts are sent from partner universities to MMS, either digitally or in paper form, they are forwarded to the international office at the relevant faculty for further handling and credit transfer.

The document ”Number of credits per semester” (LU Box – ”OUT: When can you announce what?”) includes recommendations from Student Experience and Mobility prepared in agreement with Interhand.

Go to the document ”Number of credits per semester” in LU Box 

Statistics and utilisation of places

The balance sheet shows the degree of utilisation per faculty over a 5-year period.

Once per semester, officers at MMS update the balance sheet showing the distribution of university-wide places and the use of places per faculty and semester. A place is counted as used, even in case of termination.

The balance sheet is based on the agreement at the allocation meeting, so if a faculty uses a place from another faculty, this will be reflected in the rate of utilisation of places. This means that a faculty which has used places from another faculty may have a utilisation rate of 110%. The faculty which has not used its allocated place will be assigned a utilisation rate of 0%. The balance sheet shows the utilisation rate per faculty over a 5-year period. The utilisation rate is currently only for information and does not determine future allocation of places. Find the "Balance sheet" in LU Box.