Students from outside the European Union will be able to tap into more than $1.2-billion in new scholarship money over the next five years through Erasmus Mundus, an academic-mobility program. The European Commission, the executive arm of the union, announced the new funds on Monday.

The Erasmus Mundus program is patterned on the 20-year-old Erasmus program, which encourages educational mobility within the European Union’s 27 member nations. Erasmus Mundus is intended to be competitive with the Fulbright program and to increase Europe’s attractiveness as a destination for foreign scholars. It began in 2004, and the European Parliament agreed last fall to expand it, based on the results of its first five years, a pilot phase.

Fifty-eight of the 323 universities that participated in the program’s first phase were based in non-European Union countries, according to EurActiv.com, an independent media portal for European Union policies. The next phase of the program is expected to expand ties with non-European institutions and to include greater support for doctoral-level studies, Ján Figel, the European commissioner for education, said in a written statement.

The program will also provide more-generous grants for European students to study outside the European Union, Mr. Figel said, “making the two-way exchange of the world’s best students and academic staff a reality.” —Aisha Labi