The Manipal Centre for European Studies (MCES) is a unique centre dedicated to sharing and enhancing knowledge between India and Europe through new-age, multidisciplinary programs, and research projects. Established in 2009, with generous funding from the European Union, MCES stands as a testament to Manipal Academy of Higher Education’s long-standing commitment and belief in the need for facilitating cross-border education. MCES envisions to develop and further India-EU relations by fostering institutional partnerships between Higher Education Institutes (HEIs), leading to a mutually beneficial exchange of best practices.

Recognising MCES’ potential and its decade long efforts in strengthening India-EU relations, the European Union awarded MCES with the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in 2018, making it the first in the country. The EU’s prestigious recognition stands as a prelude to MCES’ vision to become a hub of European studies in India.

The Centre offers a one-of-its-kind master’s in European Studies for those interested in learning about Europe and its institutions from a multidisciplinary lens. This two-year program provides opportunities for students to study a part of their program in Europe with scholarships (full and partial) and is the only such program to be offered in India. MCES also offers a competitive PhD program which lends itself to three macro areas of research – Internationalisation of Higher Education; Multilingualism and multicultural education; and Intercultural studies.

MCES has been a recipient of many significant grants under the Erasmus+ program funded by the European Union. In the last decade, the centre has been successful in sending its students for a part of the study program in Europe with grants including Erasmus+ Credit mobility programs. Dr Neeta Inamdar, Head of the Department, was also successful in getting a Jean Monnet module in Cultural Analysis and European Identity in 2014 and was awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in 2017. MCES also completed a Jean Monnet Project in Internationalization of Higher Education and Bologna Process funded in 2015. An Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) project was awarded in 2016 to MAHE as the first in the country in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), a bilingual model for school education.