At this meeting, the group considered the results of the two Bologna Seminars on mobility that had already taken place: 

• “Fostering student mobility: next steps?”, organised by the French Community ofBelgium in Brussels on 29-30 May 2008.
• “National Pension Schemes as an Obstacle to Mobility for Researchers in the EHEA”, hosted by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) and financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Berlin on 12-13 June 2008.

The group also discussed the seminars that were still to come: 

• “Let’s Go! Where to Now?”, EI and ESU mobility conference in Lille on 6-7 October 2008 (see update from EI and ESU)
• “Europe, an Area of Student Mobility” in Nancy on 4-5 November 2008 
• “Joint programmes and student mobility” in St. Petersburg on 22-23 January 2009

In line with its mandate and in preparation of the BFUG meeting in Prague in February 2009, the coordination group agreed to integrate the results of the seminars into a concise and coherent report with the following structure: introduction, progress report, new challenges and recommendations. The detailed official reports and recommendations of the seminars will be annexed. To finalise the draft report for BFUG, the group will meet again in Vienna on 30 January 2009 – after all the Bologna Seminars on mobility have taken place.

At its Yerevan meeting, the coordination group also discussed the mobility section of the “Beyond 2010 report” and agreed on the following position:
The mobility coordination group welcomes the idea to make mobility one of the priorities of the next phase of the Bologna Process and also supports the proposed measures. The proposal made on page 10 that each programme should provide “mobility windows” is considered to be of particular importance and should therefore also be taken up in the conclusions (2nd paragraph of chapter 4). Since it is not entirely clear what is meant with “mobility code”, this proposal needs to be further specified.

In addition, the mobility coordination group suggests including the following proposals:

• Data should be collected to get a better view of (a) mobility flows and (b) the funding available to support mobility.
• To substantially increase the number of mobile students and staff additional funding is needed, at both national and European level.
• Efforts should be continued to achieve mobility that is reciprocal and equitably balanced across the EHEA.

The group also advocates the introduction of clear benchmarks to be reached by 2020. Of the different proposals that were put forward, the following received the biggest support:
By 2020,

• 50% of all graduates in the EHEA should have been mobile at least once during theirstudies. 20% of all graduates should have spent at least one semester abroad.
• the number of international students in the EHEA coming from non-EHEA countries should have increased by 20%.
• the number of joint programmes in the EHEA should have been doubled.

Additional proposals might be put forward by the coordination group in a later stage,
depending on the results of the remaining seminars and further discussions in the group.

BFUG_FR_14_10.1 Bologna Coordination Group on Mobility - update