The aim of Tempus III was to promote the development of the higher education systems in the eligible countries through the most balanced cooperation possible with the partners from all the Member States of the Community.

More specifically, Tempus III intended to facilitate the adaptation of higher education to the new socioeconomic and cultural needs of the eligible countries by addressing issues relating to the development and reshaping of curricula in the priority areas, reform of higher education structures and establishments and their management, the development of training leading to qualifications (with a view to making good the shortage of high-level skills needed in the context of economic reform) particularly by improving and increasing links with industry, and the contribution of higher education and training to citizenship and the strengthening of democracy.

The Tempus programme will be continued in a fourth phase, Tempus IV, spanning the period 2007-2013.

The overall objective of the programme in this new phase will be to contribute towards facilitating cooperation in the field of higher education among Member States of the European Union (EU) and partner countries in the surrounding area. In particular, the programme will help promote voluntary convergence with EU developments in the field of higher education deriving from the Lisbon agenda and the Bologna process.

Tempus promotes multilateral cooperation among higher education institutions, authorities and organisations from EU Member States and partner countries and focuses on the reform and modernisation of higher education.

• Joint Projects: projects with a ‘bottom-up’ approach aiming at modernisation and reform at institutional (university) level. Joint Projects aim at modernising university curricula and governance through a transfer of knowledge between universities, organisations and institutions from the EU and from the partner countries as well as between partner country entities as appropriate.
• Structural Measures: projects which seek to contribute to the development and reform of higher education systems in partner countries, as well as to enhance their quality and relevance, and to increase their convergence with EU developments. Structural Measures will concern interventions designed to support structural reform of higher education systems and strategic framework development at national level.

The Community provisional funding available for the programme is:

• 0,00 Million EUR (None)