When you take a summer school course abroad, you can either apply for the courses offered by our partner universities and thus apply through AU Summer University on this page, but you are also welcome to investigate foreign universities and apply for their summer schools yourself - then you just have to pay to take the course.
The list of summer exchange destinations for 2025 can be found below. More destinations may be added.
Below you will find a list of destinations for 2025. More destinations may be added to the list.
| University | Country | City | Spots | Level | ECTS |
| The Chinese University of Hong Kong* | Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 8 | BA | 6-12 |
| Nanyang Technological University | Singapore | Singapore | 10 | BA | 5-7 |
| Fudan Nordic Centre | China | Shanghai | 3 | BA/MA | 5 |
| King's College | UK | London | 6 | BA | 7,5 |
| Liverpool | UK | Liverpool | 4 | BA | 7,5 |
| Leeds** | UK | Leeds | 10 | BA | 5-10 |
| Humboldt Universität | Germany | Berlin | 3 | BA/MA | 5 |
| Linköping University | Sweden | Linköping | 5 | BA | 7,5 |
| Nordic Centre in India | India | Hyderabad | 3 | MA | 7,5-10 |
*The Chinese University of Hong Kong has offered a full housing waiver for three AU students in their July Session. As Hong Kong housing is very expensive, this is a great offer.
**Please note that for this programme at University of Leeds, there is a mandatory package that you cannot opt out from, it includes:
Accommodation, breakfast and lunch, Monday to Friday, module field trips, weekend excursions, social activities, The Edge sports centre premium membership, Free transport service to the University from Manchester Airport and Leeds Bradford Airport during the LISS arrival period.
It costs £2,120 (approx.19.000 DKR) for four weeks or £1,260 (approx. 11.250 DKR) for two weeks. With everything it includes it is our experience that you would not be able to do it cheaper on your own anyways, considered that it includes many meals and housing fee, in a city with rather high living costs (this only applies to the University of Leeds programme).
You can apply here.
Always read the descriptions of the summer schools you want to apply to very carefully. Also, remember to check whether some of the universities demand documentation for your language skills.
Please note that you increase your chances of being granted an exchange spot abroad if you apply broadly.
The application to AU is for internal use only. If you are granted an exchange spot, you will also be required to apply to the host university. You will automatically receive more information about this by email.
It is a requirement that the courses you plan to attend at the foreign summer school must be eligible for credit transfer to your education at AU.
Application period: 5/2-26/2.
If you are allocated an exchange spot, you will automatically be nominated to the host university. You will then have to complete an application to your host university. You will be informed about the application to the host university by email from AU or directly from your host university.
Please note that being recommended for an exchange spot is no guarantee of admission to your host university. During the process of applying to the host university, a situation may arise which AU was not able to foresee when allocating the exchange spot. At the end of the day, the host university decides whether to admit you or not.
If you receive notification that you have been allocated a spot in the summer school, you should apply for pre-approval.
When you apply for pre-approval, the board of studies will give you its academic assessment of whether the course(s) concerned can form part of your degree programme.
Pre-approval is granted based on the academic content of the course concerned. You are responsible for ensuring that courses for which you have gained pre-approval do not overlap with other parts of your degree programme, including teaching, exams and your thesis.
You can apply for pre-approval via MYSTUDIES:
When you apply, you must enclose the following:
If you can’t get hold of a course description before the deadline, you should send your application before the deadline and state that you will be sending the course description at a later date.
The board of studies is responsible for deciding whether to grant your application for pre-approval.
In order for the board of studies to assess if a course can be pre-approved, you must attach a sufficient course description.
If the course description does not meet the requirements for content and form, you will be asked to obtain additional information on the course, which will delay the processing of your application.
A course description must contain:
The formal requirements:
In general
At many universities, the course descriptions are available via the university's website.
In some cases, however, it is not possible. A confirmation with the missing information must be sent from a lecturer or administrative staff at the university.
As a general rule, the board of studies requires a course description to conduct their assessment.
Once you have been accepted to your host summer school it’s time to start planning the journey and book accomodation and transport. In this stage you will most likely receive a lot of detailed pre-arrival information from your host university, which may include information on accommodation options, airport pick-up, social activities etc. it varies from summer school to summer school what they offer before you arrive but all our partners in general has a high information level for students about to arrive for their summer school, so please read and orientate yourself in the information you will receive from them. That is the best way to prepare for your arrival.
Did you not find any interesting places or courses from our list of free summerschool destinations? Then there’s plenty of options to go to a summer school abroad on your own. Almost any major or medium sized university will have an English taught summer school in one way or another.
The easiest ways to find them is to either just google summer schools in Europe or which part of the world you are interested in, or to go directly to one of the many online portals for summer schools, such as this one: www.summerschoolsineurope.eu
Going on your own means that you are arraning everything yourself, including paying the tuition fee the summer school might charge for their courses.
If you get a pre-approval for a self-arranged summer school you may be eligible for the Danish state scholarship for study abroad
Usually our semester partner universities also offer a discount for AU students, if we receive information about such discounts for certain destinations, we will post them in the table below.
You apply via this link.
You need preapproval for the course and space in your study program. The courses you take at a summer university will replace those you would otherwise take at AU. You will need to make an application to the study board to allow you to have the summer course replace an elective course, an IV elective, or a third type, depending on the academic regulations covering your degree programme.
It is difficult to predict how the interest will be for each university. For that reason, we are unable to say anything specific about the chances of getting a spot.
However, suppose your study board allows some flexibility in selecting the courses. In that case, we estimate that the chances of getting a spot are pretty good, and we have quite a few spots available. We will do what we can to help you secure a spot at a different university if you do not get one.
Yes, you can. You and your friend just need to be sure to have the same priorities and you will need to write the name of the person you are applying with in the “Other information” box. If there are more applicants than spots for the university/universities, you are applying for and we will have to allocate spots according to grade point average, it will be the grade average of the one with the lowest grade average that counts.
This means that by applying together with another student, you agree to the fact that we, on paper, juxtapose your grade average with your co-applicants grade average.
We will allocate the spots based on GPA if the number of applications is greater than the number of spots available. If several applicants have equal GPAs priority will be given based on seniority of study. If the seniority is equal as well, the spot will be drawn at random.
If you do not get a spot, you will be able to apply for a seat at one of the universities you did not apply for, provided there are spots available. The possible rejection letter will include information on how to do this.
Yes. But be aware that depending on what you study, there can be a requirement that you have at least 20, 25 er often even 30 ECTS left in your study programme in order to be able to get a semester exchange spot.
So if you are thinking about going abroad for a semester, then carefully consider how many ECTS you should obtain from a summer school abroad. If you for instance get 15 ECTS credits during a summer school exchange, you might not be able to go on semester exchange. So please check the guidelines for semester exchange concerning your specific study programme.
That we “give you a spot” at a university is unfortunately no guarantee that you can get a seat in a specific course at the host university. Some courses can be cancelled or become fully booked. This unfortunately means that you will have to apply for a new preapproval with the study board for the course you are accepted to by host university. Some courses may also be cancelled at the host university, in which case you may have to switch courses.
You are always welcome to send us an e-mail at summeruniversity@au.dk.
However, if your questions are of a more academic character, such as “can I get this course pre-approved for my studies at AU?” or “what kind of courses at AU could this course replace..”, we may not be able to answer since we do not have in-depth knowledge of all study programmes. We therefore suggest that you go to your course specific student counsellor with such questions.
We know that some universities, e.g Kings College only offers 7,5 ECTS credit courses and if you need a 10 ects credit course in order to have it transferred to AU this can be challenging.
At some universities it may also be necessary to combine more courses in order to get the required amount of ects credits. In such case the study council may decide that a given combination of courses at said university will be transferred as one block of 5 or 10 ects credits.
Yes, but you must wait to apply for Summer University at AU until you receive an answer on your application for summer courses abroad.
You will receive an answer on your application for summer courses abroad before the deadline for applying for the courses at AU, which is March 15th. Therefore, please wait to apply for the AU courses until you have received an answer as to whether you will get a spot abroad.
The spots at AU Summer University are not first come, first served. Therefore, it is not a disadvantage for you to wait to apply for the spots at AU until you have received the answer on your application for courses abroad. However, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the application process and find the subject you can and want to apply for, if you do not get a spot abroad.
Unfortunately, not many universities offer summer courses at a Masters level in general. We have no influence on which courses our partners offer, and therefore unfortunately we cannot offer more spots for Master’s students at this time.
The University Alliance Circle U. offers a range of Summer Schools for students at all levels and disciplines from across Europe. This year, undergraduate students can delve into climate science and policy at Humboldt University in Berlin. Master's students can explore democracy, politics, and poverty at the University of Oslo, while global health is the focus of the course at UCLouvain in Belgium, aimed at PhD students.
The application deadline for all three Summer Schools is February 29th 2024.
The courses are free for AU students, and if you are admitted, you can apply for an Erasmus scholarship to cover some of your travel and living expenses. Once you know if you have been admitted, feel free to email erasmus@au.dk to learn more about applying for a scholarship.
Read more about this year's Summer Schools on Circle U's website. The site is regularly updated.
You can travel abroad on Summer University on your own. Almost all academic subjects are offered in almost every country at a Summer University. The easiest way to find information about summer schools is searching on the internet, try searching for “summer school” or “summer university”.
Furthermore, the following link is a link to a website, where you can find summer schools in Europe: www.summerschoolsineurope.eu
If you travel on your own, remember that you probably need to pay a course fee besides the expenses for the travel and cost of living. If your stay is approved in advance by the study board, you can search for a scholarship to cover (some of) the course fee here: https://studerende.au.dk/su/udlandsstipendium/
Remember to look up the price and requirements before you apply for a summer university course!
Lastly, you will have to apply for an advance approval. You can read more about this under Step 4.