In a recent study by Mabel Sanchez Barrioluengo from the University of Manchester and Sara Flisi from the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) has been mobilised as the main data source to address an important debate in higher education research. The authors investigated statistically which determinants may affect an increase of the pool of mobile students in tertiary education. Although the mobility of students has been considered as one of the main drivers in the internationalisation and globalisation of higher education for a long time, little research has been carried out on international student mobility determinants in general, on Erasmus student mobility in particular, or the regional dimension of learning mobility.
The study addresses this research gap, shedding light on degree and credit (identified as those students that moved abroad under the Erasmus exchange program) mobility at the tertiary level across and within countries (with differences across regions), as well as across education levels (from International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 6 to 8). The authors analysed the main factors associated with mobility at the EU level, comparing institutional factors (teaching and research activities of universities) and regional attractiveness (level of urbanisation, employment opportunities, and education systems). To do so, they relied on information from ETER between 2011 and 2017, complemented by secondary data at the regional level based on Eurostat information. Determinants were estimated by an econometric framework conducted at the level of European NUTS2 regions.
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