Brussels: Chinese and Indian university graduates have won the most scholarships to study for a master's degree in the European Union (EU) in the next academic year, EU officials said on Wednesday.

One in 10 of all the "Erasmus Mundus" master's scholarships offered - 188 out of a total of 1,833 - were won by Chinese graduates for the academic year 2009-10, officials in the European Commission, the EU's executive, said.

The scholarships provide for students from outside the EU to follow a one or two-year master's course at two or more universities across the 27-member bloc.

Graduates from around the world can apply, and winners are selected on merit, with no national or regional quotas, commission officials said.

Indian students were second only to Chinese ones in their success at bidding for the scholarships, with 118 winners confirmed. Brazil (90), Mexico (89) and Bangladesh (74) completed the top five, with students from 100 other countries also making the grade.

The Erasmus Mundus programme - named after Dutch Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus and the Latin word for "world" - aims at boosting academic ties between the EU and the rest of the world.

It is modelled on the EU's Erasmus programme, which organises exchanges between universities within the EU.

Its budget is set at 195 million euros ($275 million) per year between 2009 and 2013.

The programme also includes grants for shorter-term and post-graduate student exchanges. IANS