PurposeThe current student selection process for short-term mobility actions under the Erasmus + program (i.e. intensive programs and blended intensive programs) is based exclusively on the students' order of enrolment and their grades. This study offers an alternative approach using the analytic hierarchy process based on a four-layer model that collects information about the specificities of each project and the profile of the students and also promotes greater inclusion and homogenization of the project teams.Design/methodology/approachA decision support system was built by decomposing it into three stages: the predesign stage, in which the problem is characterized, and the user requirements are identified; the design stage, in which the models, the database and the interfaces are formulated; and the field stage, in which six test scenarios were built to validate the proposed solution.FindingsThe results show that this model can be applied with various selection criteria among students and consider both their hard and soft skills. It can also be applied to help build teams in which the students' knowledge is aligned with the technical skills required by the projects.Originality/valueThe proposed approach is innovative in that it responds to the emerging challenge of short-term European mobility programs that aim to involve students with multidisciplinary competencies. The solution considers both hard and soft skills in the selection of students, which allows changing the student selection paradigm and obtaining potentially more homogeneous multicultural teams with greater learning potential.