Erasmus student mobility flows

Abstract

The Erasmus programme has undoubtedly contributed to the present international orientation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and to stimulate student mobility flows. In 2017, the Erasmus programme (currently Erasmus+) celebrated its 30th anniversary. Jones (2017) noted that it was "a programme that works". A recognized and successful EU initiative, which has provided grants to boost student and staff mobility, for developing intercultural competencies and promoting the European dimension and collaboration. In 1987, only 3,200 students participated in the mobility programme. Three decades later, roughly 300,000 students have benefited yearly from the same programme (Erasmus+, 2017). More than 9 million participants will benefit from the programme by 2020 (Jones, 2017). The idea behind the Erasmus programme was visionary: "promoting joint courses of study between universities and higher education institutions" (Jones, 2017). Political developments in Europe from 1992 onwards supported the idea of free circulation of students and researchers within the European context. These

Gender bias in the Erasmus network of universities

“…A similar application can be found in Breznik and Djaković ( 2016 ) which analyze the mobility related to Slovenian universities in the years 2007/08 and 2011/12 and highlight the most attractive countries and universities for Slovenian students as well as the top destinations for Erasmus students in Slovenia. The same approach is extended by Breznik and Skrbinjek ( 2020 ) with an analysis of hubs and authorities focusing on the countries participating in the Erasmus program. The authors provide a general overview of Erasmus mobility trends, revealing 3 different groups of countries: good senders and receivers, good senders only, and good receivers only.…”

“…If the issue of gender bias has been faced often in the context of international student mobility, to the best of our knowledge, when considering the specific context of Erasmus mobility, gender differences have not been thoroughly studied, with the exception of Bottcher et al ( 2016 ), whose findings about female over-representation in the program are in line with the results of this paper. Our contribution aims at filling this gap and, in addition, ii) it uniquely combines the analysis by gender, by field and at the university level rather than at country level, as most preferred in the extant literature ( Restaino et al 2020 ; Bottcher et al 2016 ; Breznik and Skrbinjek 2020 ).…”

The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) from the perspective of Irish teacher educators

“…This aspect of our findings is particularly surprising given that Ireland welcomes twice as many ERASMUS students as it sends abroad and is categorised as a ‘good importer only’ member of the ERASMUS network (Breznik et al, 2013).…”

Inclusive universities: evidence from the Erasmus program

“…Whereas current research has adopted qualitative methods, our approach is quantitative and relies on social network analysis to highlight the structure of students' flows. The network approach is not new to the study of international student mobility (Shields 2013) and Erasmus in particular (Restaino et al 2020;Breznik and Skrbinjek 2020;Breznik 2017;Breznik and Djaković 2016;Derzsi et al 2011;Breznik and Ragozini 2015). Prior research mostly conducted analysis at country level rather than university level, with the exception of De Benedictis and Leoni (2020) who focused on differences by gender and Derzsi et al (2011) who studied the topology of the Erasmus student mobility network in 2003, revealing an exponential degree distribution and a small-word type random network with a giant component.…”