Erasmus Mundus is a postgraduate cooperation and mobility programme that aims to promote the European Union as a centre of academic excellence and boost the quality of European Master's and doctoral degrees through an intercultural approach. To this end, the Erasmus Mundus programme implements a selection procedure to support quality Master's programmes by providing scholarships for students and teachers over a five-year period.

The Mundus Urbano programme is an advanced Master's Degree specializing in international cooperation and urban development run jointly by four European universities: the Technische Universität Darmstadt (TU-Darmstadt), the host institution for the Mundus Urbano Consortium; the Université Pierre-Mendès-France (UPMF); the Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata; and the UIC's ESARQ School of Architecture. The Mundus Urbano Master's Degree was established in 2007 and has been associated with the European Union's Erasmus Mundus scheme since 2008.

Mundus Urbano is a two-year programme: all students complete the first year at TU-Darmstadt and may either stay there or move to one of the other three universities in the consortium for their second year. All students therefore graduate with a double degree.

The European Union has now renewed its backing of the consortium and the Erasmus Mundus Master's Degree for a further five years. This means that the ESARQ's Master's Programme in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture is currently the only Spanish Master's programme in architecture to hold the distinction of forming part of the Erasmus Mundus consortium.