European and National Policies for Academic Mobility
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Irina Ferencz, Bernd Wächter (eds.) Ferencz/Wächter (eds.) European and national policies for academic mobility Linking rhetoric, practice and mobility trends The promotion of international student and staff mobil- ity has over the past decades become a major policy objective of the European Union. Large-scale mobility programmes, such as ERASMUS, have been created, and ambitious mobility targets (20% of all students) have been set at the European level, to ensure that more and more European students become internationally mobile. Have these European efforts been mirrored by similar attempts at the national level? Are national policies and strategies in line with the European mobility ambitions, and if so, on which issues and to what extent? More generally, is there cross-country convergence in the mobility policies, priorities and instruments of individual European countries? These are some of the questions the present study explores. It was produced by the Academic Cooperation Association in cooperation with NUFFIC and DAAD, and with financial support from the European Commission. The study finds that very few European countries have a fully-fledged mobility policy in place. Most European countries have a rather piecemeal mobil- ity approach. The book explores similarities and differen- ACA Papers on ces between national approaches with regard to type of European and national policies for academic mobility International Cooperation in Education Lemmens mobility, quantitative mobility targets, priority regions/ countries, and policy making actors, amongst others. Next to a Europe-wide overview, the study contains in-depth explorations of eight European countries. ISBN 978-3-86856-005-3 Irina Ferencz, Bernd Wächter (eds.) European and national policies for academic mobility Linking rhetoric, practice and mobility trends ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education Irina Ferencz, Bernd Wächter (eds.) European and national policies for academic mobility Linking rhetoric, practice and mobility trends Lemmens Die Deutsche Bibliothek – CIP-Einheitsaufnahme European and national policies for academic mobility – Linking rhetoric, practice and mobility trends/Irina Ferencz, Bernd Wächter (eds.) – Bonn: Lemmens Medien GmbH, 2012 (ACA Papers on International Cooperation in Education) ISBN 978-3-86856-005-3 NE: ACA Papers © Copyright 2012 Lemmens Medien GmbH, Bonn Alle Rechte vorbehalten Anschrift des Verlages Matthias-Grünewald-Straße 1-3 D-53175 Bonn Telefon: +49 228 4 21 37-0 Telefax: +49 228 4 21 37-29 E-Mail: [email protected] Internet: www.lemmens.de Gesamtherstellung: Gebr. Molberg GmbH, Bonn This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the informa- tion contained therein. Contents Contents I. Introduction 7 II. European mobility policies 10 III. A comparative overview of national mobility policies 32 IV. Austria 58 V. Cyprus 85 VI. Germany 110 VII. The Netherlands 129 VIII. Norway 145 IX. Romania 164 X. Spain 186 XI. United Kingdom (England) 210 XII. Concluding thoughts 229 Annex 233 Introduction I. Introduction The present study was produced in the time between November 2010 and January 2012. It was funded by a grant from the Lifelong Learning Programme (Accompanying Measures) of the European Commission. The project which resulted in the present report – and which was officially entitled ENPMOB (Comparative study on European and National Policies and Practice on aca- demic MOBility) – was led by the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), with the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) as institutional partners. Irina Ferencz and Bernd Wächter (both ACA) are the editors of the study. They also acted as authors of individual chapters, as did Nicole Rohde of DAAD and Adinda van Gaalen, Rosa Becker and Sjoerd Roodenburg, of NUFFIC. Finally, one chapter was contributed by Iris Schirl of the Fachhochschule des bfi Vienna, but in a personal capacity. The study continues the long-standing commitment of the Academic Coop- eration Association (ACA) to matters related to the international mobility of students (and staff), which found expression in recent publications such as EURODATA1 and Mapping Mobility in European Higher Education.2 It is dedi- cated to the strategies and policies of the European Union and its member states in the area of international student and staff mobility. The key ques- tion behind the study is whether or not the European Union, and the single countries of Europe, avail of a systematic approach to mobility at all. Related questions pursued refer to the • rationales of such strategies (i.e. the reasons given for them), • the quantitative targets set (if at all), • the favored types of mobility (credit or degree mobility, inbound or outbound), • the geographical focus, if any, • the focus by level of study, and • the disciplinary orientation. Another set of questions refers to the development of these policies over time, and to whether or not they are converging (between the single coun- tries, and between the level of the European Union and its member states). 1 Kelo, M., Teichler, U., and Wächter, B. (2006), EURODATA. Student Mobility in European Higher Education, Bonn: Lemmens. 2 Teichler, U., Ferencz, I., and Wächter, B. (2011), Mapping Mobility in European Higher Educa- tion, 2 vols., Bonn: DAAD (Dok&Mat 69, 70). 7 European and national policies for academic mobility A multiplicity of methods was used to produce the present report. Among these were • the analysis of pertinent research literature on academic mobility, relat- ing to the EU as a whole, the individual 32 countries covered by this study, as well as literature relating to the Bologna Process; • the analysis of official EU policy documents with a bearing on mobility in the tertiary sector in particular and to internationalisation in higher education more generally, as well as like government documents of the eight countries investigated more in depth in this study (Austria, Cyprus, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom); • an online questionnaire-based survey of national governments (minis- tries of education and /or science and research) in 32 countries (EU-27, EFTA-4 and Turkey); • a series of interviews with relevant persons in ministries, internationali- sation agencies, and rectors’ conferences, amongst others, as well as with higher education researchers, in the eight countries studied more in depth (see above). Throughout the study, the stated aims of national governments and European institutions are being compared to the latter’s actual “investments” in mobil- ity, i.e. to the programmes and mechanisms they provide to foster mobility. This comparison serves as a “reality test” of the strategies and policies. The study is organised in 12 chapters, as well as an annex. Chapter I is the present introduction, which, very briefly, describes the main traits of the study. Chapter II is devoted to the analysis of European-level documents relating to student and staff mobility. Next to official documents of the European Union and its institutions, these include also texts emerging from intergovernmental contexts, like the Bologna Process (European Higher Education Area). The chapter deals with: the legal issues pertaining to Union engagement in (high- er) education, the modes and directions of mobility, the regional focus and levels of study, quantitative mobility targets, mobility obstacles, as well as rationales for mobility. The chapter also takes into account the mobility fund- ing programmes of the European Union. Chapter III creates an overview, analysis and comparison of the national poli- cies identified in the 32 countries covered by the above-mentioned ques- tionnaire survey. The results are based on the responses to the said survey, as well as on an analysis of government policy documents carried out in 8 Introduction the framework of the study Mapping Mobility in European Higher Education.3 As the chapter finds that very few European countries actually have a fully- developed mobility policy in place, it analyses cross-country convergence on different mobility policy elements rather than fully-fledged policies as such. Chapters IV to XI are devoted to the analysis of the higher education mo- bility in eight countries studied more in depth, i.e. to Austria, Cyprus, Ger- many, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The countries were selected to represent a variety of geographical, cultural and linguistic contexts, as well as systems at different levels of development, as far as the aggregation of mobility policies is concerned. The issues ad- dressed are similar to those in the European chapter. A typical chapter would include a look at the recent history of mobility strategies, it would explore the emphases with regard to mobility modes and directions, disciplines and geo- graphical regions, numerical targets, rationales for promoting mobility, and, importantly, it would compare the political statements with a government’s concrete action in the area of mobility, i.e. with its funding programmes and other mobility-facilitating instruments, but also with the recent mobility trends. Chapter XII contains the conclusions drawn from the previous chapters. It identifies the issues on which EU and national policies “converge”.