Questionnaire on student and staff mobility Preliminary results Andrea Herdegen Federal Ministry of Education and Research Meeting of the BFUG working group on mobility 04 November, 2010, Budapest

The questionnaire – some organisational details Deadlines and number of answers… 1st deadline: 30 September 2010  10 answers 2nd deadline: 20 October 2010  17 answers 5 answers later First results are based on 30 answers (2 answers have been transmitted too late to the data collectors to include them in the first results) Return rate until now: ~ 65%

The questionnaire – some organisational details Remarks by respondents on the nature of the questionnaire More time  possibility of updating answers in 2011 was welcomed More space to explain answers Situation of small states? Quality of answers High quality for about half of the responses 3

Preliminary results I National strategies & action plans to foster mobility Almost all countries have national strategies & action plans (differing in nature, scale and impact) In ~ 50% of the strategies, national quantitative targets for the different forms of student mobility are included Staff mobility is included in most of the national strategies, but only in one third of those strategies, quantitative targets for staff mobility are set Emphasis on EHEA countries, USA/Canada and Asia

Preliminary results II National strategies & action plans to foster mobility Almost all countries have strategies or programmes below the national level to foster mobility (mainly on the institutional, to a lesser extent on the regional level) Financial support of students‘ mobility: in half of the countries, students studying abroad or in the country have access to the same financial support Various restrictions concerning this equality Restrictions are more frequent for degree than for credit mobility  Major differences among the EHEA countries in this field

Preliminary results III Main obstacles to student mobility (according to number of entries) 6

Preliminary results IV Main obstacles to staff mobility (according to number of entries) 7

Preliminary results V Balanced student mobility flows?

Preliminary results VI Is the situation described above regarded as balanced mobility? What is “balanced mobility“? Possible definition, proposed by the majority of countries: balanced mobility is when numbers of incoming and outgoing individuals are approximately the same.

Preliminary results VII Imbalances of student mobility flows with particular countries or regions Tendency to go to English speaking countries (for credit and degree mobility) Increasing numbers of incoming students from Eastern European and Asian countries High fluctuation between neigbouring countries and/or countries sharing a common language Non-EU countries have a strong imbalance towards EU member states  Different positions (e.g. declining working age population, brain drain, economic factors etc.)

EHEA Strategy for Mobility What do we learn from those results for a future mobility strategy? Important guidelines for our discussion could be… Do we need to develop further our national strategies? How can we tackle different obstacles to mobility? How to come to a common definition of the term “balanced mobility“? How to balance the differences within the EHEA (e.g. imbalances of mobility flows, EU countries, ERASMUS etc.) Input from discussions today is welcome!

Thank you for your attention!