Work programme 2009-2012
Working Group on Mobility 2009-2012 - meeting 4
Fourth meeting of the Bologna Working Group on Mobility 2009-2012.
The fourth meeting of the Mobility WG took place in Berlin on March 29-30, 2011, in conjunction with the DAAD seminar „From Imbalanced to Balanced Mobility in the EHEA – Current Challenges and Perspectives for the Future”.
The main objective of the fourth WG meeting was an in-depth discussion of the Working paper for the EHEA mobility strategy. For this discussion the group received two inputs.
The first input presentation included the first results from the fourth Eurostudent survey on mobility obstacles (with the title “First glance at preliminary data from EUROSTUDENT IV on the potential for and obstacles to short-term mobility”) and showed:
- the potential of the EUROSTUDENT data for better understanding the issues behind temporary mobility;
- that financial insecurities (specifically, the expected financial burden of a period abroad) continue to be a major barrier to mobility in almost all European countries.
The second input presentation on quantitative results came from Eurostat (with the title “Statistical indicators on international student mobility - Targets in balanced mobility and inbound mobility”) and showed some results of quantitative analyses of official statistics relating to the proposed definition of balanced mobility. The main finding was that the number of countries with balanced mobility is rather low, and that only very few countries combine balanced mobility with a high degree of inward and outward mobility.
The overall discussion that followed was focused on:
- whether a definition was needed or not for “imbalanced mobility” within the draft Working paper;
- whether “imbalanced mobility” was bad or not.
The WG agreed on the next steps and updated its Work Plan and, in this respect, for enabling both the BFUG Board meeting in Armenia (September 7, 2011) and the BFUG meeting in Cracow (October 13-14, 2011) to discuss the draft Mobility strategy, it was agreed that the next Mobility WG will take place in Berlin on August 24, 2011.
WG Mobility Berlin March 2011 - Draft agenda
WG Mobility Berlin March 2011 - Draft minutes