1. Statistical indicators on international student mobility Targets in balanced mobility and inbound mobility
Meeting of the BFUG working-group on Mobility
29-30 March 2011, Berlin
Presentation by Fernando Reis, Eurostat

2. 1. Balanced mobility
The first part of this presentation is about international student mobility in higher education in the European countries, in particular the balance between inbound (the students a country receives from abroad) and outbound (the students who leave the country and go abroad in order to study.

3. Inbound and outbound in absolute numbers
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Countries are ordered by the level of mobility, as measured by the sum of inbound and outbound – visualised in the graph as the size of the bar from the bottom under the axis and the top over the axis.
Europe in this chart means for inbound all the countries of the EHEA and for outbound the EU member-states plus HR, MK, TR, IS, LI, NO, CH and RU.
Note: data is in absolute numbers.
Messages:
3 countries stand out as the main recipients in Europe of international mobile students: UK, FR and DE.
Their importance as recipients is more significant when considering the students coming from outside Europe.
Those 3 countries are also the ones where most of the imbalance in the EHEA takes place; the 3 account for 70% of the sum of all imbalances.
Source: Eurostat

4. Inbound and outbound as a percentage of the student population
Academic year 2006 / 2007
In order to assess the importance of mobility in each of the countries, we need to take into account the size of the countries, in this case based on their student population. So we use inbound and outbound as percentage of student population.
Messages:
LI and CY are the countries where mobility is more significant; they are also the most imbalanced countries.
When considering only students who move within Europe the imbalance in CY is even more striking.
Source: Eurostat

5. Inbound and outbound as a percentage of the student population and balance
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Now looking closer to the remaining countries (apart from LI and CY).
The dots represent balanced mobility, measured as (inbound - outbound).
Messages:
Inbound is relatively important for UK, AT, CH and FR and they are the most imbalanced countries towards inbound.
Outbound is relatively important for Iceland and Ireland.
Together with Iceland, MK (Macedonia) and SK are the most imbalanced countries towards outbound.
Ireland is highly imbalanced if we take only the mobility flows inside Europe.
If we take only mobility within Europe, then inbound has a lower importance for UK and FR; Their imbalance measured as percentage of the student population is also significantly reduced.
Imbalanced depends on the regional scope we consider (e.g. worldwide mobility or only Europe).
Imbalance seems to be higher for countries with higher levels of mobility.
Source: Eurostat

6. Comparing balance with the level of student mobility
(as a percentage of the student population)
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Academic year 2006 / 2007
The relation between imbalance and the level of mobility can be better seem in a chart plotting the value of the imbalance in the countries against a value of their level of mobility
Imbalance is represented by the absolute difference between inbound and outbound; Each dot in the chart represents a country.
The chart on the left takes (inbound + outbound) as the measure of the level of mobility; The chart on the right takes the highest value of inbound and outbound for the country as its measure of the level of mobility.
The red line in the chart on the right represents the 25% imbalance benchmark under discussion in the WG; Countries above the line have an imbalance higher than 25% of the highest of inbound and outbound; Countries below the line have an imbalance lower than 25%.
Messages:
The charts show clearly that countries with higher levels of mobility tend to present higher levels of imbalance; This relationship is more evident when we take the highest of inbound and outbound as the measure of the level of mobility.
Most of the countries were in a imbalanced situation in the school year 2006/2007 (most of the dots in the right chart are above the red line).
Source: Eurostat

7. Balance between inbound and outbound as percentage of the highest value between both
Academic year 2006 / 2007
In order to take into account the fact that countries with higher levels of mobility tend to show higher levels of imbalance measured in percentage of the population, imbalance should be measured in relative terms, in percentage of the level of mobility.
Red line in the chart represents the 25% limit under discussion in the working-group.
Messages:
For the 2006/2007 academic year, the great majority of the countries were imbalanced in terms of international student mobility, taking as criteria the 25% threshold.
Only 6 out of the 33 countries have an imbalance of less than 25%.
If we consider only the flows within Europe then only 4 out of the 33 are balanced.
Source: Eurostat

8. Balance as a measure of the attractiveness of the education system of a country
Academic year 2006 / 2007 0% 2% 4% 6% 8%
10%
12%
14%
-100%
-80%
-60%
-40%
-20%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Outbound mobility
Balance between inbound and outbound
(inbound – outbound) / (highest of inbound and outbound)
Limited systems
(high outbound and negative balance)
Open systems
(high outbound but positive balance) CH NO TR MK HR UK SE FI SK SI RO PT PL AT NL MT HU LT LV IT FR ES GR IE EE DE DK CZ BG BE
Closed systems
(low outbound and inbound even lower)
Attractive systems
(low outbound and positive balance)
Balanced mobility is not a goal by itself; the objective in Bologna Process is to combine it with high levels of mobility, namely opportunities to go abroad (outbound).
Chart plots balance against outbound mobility;
dots represent countries;
countries more to the right have a high imbalance towards inbound, countries more to the left have a high imbalance towards outbound and countries closer to the middle are balanced;
countries up in the chart have high levels of outbound and countries down in the chart have low levels of outbound;
Vertical black line represents the average of the balance and horizontal black line represents the average of outbound (countries un-weighted); Crossing of the two black lines mark the centre of the cloud of country dots;
Red lines represent the 25% threshold for balanced mobility; countries between the two lines are balanced;
Black lines split the chart in four quadrants:
Bottom right quadrant includes the countries with relative low outbound mobility and an excess inbound over outbound which is above the average; we can see these countries as highly attractive countries to the point where not only they attract students from abroad but also their attractiveness impacts also the willingness of domestic students to go abroad;
Upper right quadrant includes countries with an excess inbound over outbound which is above the average, indicating that they are attractive, but at the same time a relative high outbound; these countries have a relative high number of students going abroad to study, but apparently not because their education system is not attractive; we can see these countries as having an open education system;
Upper left quadrant includes countries with relative high outbound and an excess of outbound over inbound above the average; these education systems appear to have some capacity or attractiveness difficulties as students go abroad to study and students from abroad feel less attracted than by other systems in Europe; we can see these countries as having limited education systems;
Lower left quadrant includes countries with a relative low outbound and an inbound which is even lower; education systems in this quadrant are not attractive comparing with other European countries and students do not seem to have the same opportunities to go abroad as in other countries; we can see countries as having closed education systems;
There’s a slight negative relationship between balance and outbound; countries with a higher excess of inbound over outbound tend to have lower levels of outbound mobility; (the underlying factor might be attractiveness, as it impacts both the balance of the country and its ability to send students abroad);
Countries above the line show a level of outbound higher than what we would expect given their balance;
Countries below the line show a level of outbound lower than what would be the average for countries with the same level of imbalance;
Messages:
Of the six countries with balanced mobility, four lye in the quadrant of closed systems;
Some of the imbalanced countries (e.g. MT) may be imbalanced because of the limitations in the education system imposed by the size of the country;
More than being balanced what countries could do is to move towards the upper right quadrant;
Source: Eurostat

9. Mobility flows between individual countries as a percentage of the
combined population of the two countries
(%)
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Balance in international student mobility flows can also be looked at by pair of countries;
In chart:
each dot represents a pair of countries (Cntry1 , Cntry2);
horizontal axis represents the flow from Cntry1 to Cntry2; the more to the right the higher the number of students going from Cntry1 to Cntry2 in percentage of the student population of the two countries;
vertical axis represents the flow from Cntry2 to Cntry1; the more to the upper side of chart the higher the number of students going from Cntry2 to Cntry1 in percentage of the student population of the two countries;
Messages:
A particular imbalanced flow is the one of SK and CZ with a much higher number of students going from SK to CZ than students from CZ to SK;
Other imbalanced flows are the ne one from CY towards GR, from MK towards BG, from IE towards UK and from GR towards the UK;
(%)
Source: Eurostat

10. Mobility flows between individual countries as a percentage of the
combined population of the two countries
Academic year 2006 / 2007
(%)
As there is a tendency for the pairs of countries to be more concentrated the lower are the flows as percentage of the combined student populations, we can use a logarithmic scale in the axes in order to improve visualisation;
Perfect balanced between the flows of students between two countries is represented by the diagonal grey line;
The two red lines represent the 25% threshold for balance; balanced flows are the ones which dot is located between the two red lines;
Message:
The vast majority of the pairs of countries is outside the balanced band: 35 cases out of around 400;
The 25% threshold is aiming at a very narrow target, considering the current situation;
(%)
Source: Eurostat

11. Cases of balanced mobility between individual countries
These are the 35 cases of pairs of countries which are currently balanced (inside the 25% balance band);
Some of the cases, in grey, refer to very small numbers and are not statistically significant (a very small increase in the flows would easily move the cases to an imbalanced situation);
Cases to highlight:
The flow between Germany and France involves a big flow of students and it is balanced;
Flows between DK and UK, and others in bold;
Source: Eurostat

12. In the ERASMUS programme
Balance between inbound and outbound as percentage of the highest value between both
In the ERASMUS programme
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Looking at balanced mobility in the ERASMUS programme as an example of credit mobility;
Messages:
The general picture is not very different from the one for diploma mobility (but the imbalanced and balanced countries are not the same);
However, there is a higher number of countries with balanced (within the 25% threshold) mobility in the case of ERASMUS (11 against 6 for diploma mobility);
Source: Eurostat

13. combined population of the two countries
Mobility flows in ERASMUS between individual countries as a percentage of the
combined population of the two countries
Academic year 2006 / 2007
(%)
51 cases of balance (14%)
(8% for degree mobility)
Looking at pairs of countries;
For credit mobility in the ERASMUS programme the 25% target still seems narrow;
However, the number of balanced cases is higher;
(%)
Source: Eurostat

14. 2. Inbound mobility

15. Distribution of inbound mobility by origin of the student
Academic year 2006 / 2007
Chart shows distribution of inward mobile students by origin: Europe and outside Europe;
Messages:
In academic year 2006/2007, almost half of the inward mobile students in Europe came from outside Europe;
Countries with the highest proportions of inward mobile students coming from outside Europe were PT, CY FR and UK; however, in the case of PT and FR the figures are based on citizenship, so some of those students might be immigrants and not mobile students;
Source: Eurostat

16. Distribution of inbound mobility by origin of the student
Academic year 2006 / 2007
In absolute numbers;
Message:
France, UK and Germany account for almost 80% of the inward mobile students that Europe receives from outside Europe;
Source: Eurostat

17. Percentage of students enrolled who came from outside the EHEA
Message:
The percentage of students in Europe who come from outside Europe is 1.93%
Source: Eurostat

18. Share of worldwide mobile students studying in the EHEA
Source: Eurostat