Academic Mobility in the Western Balkans

Abstract

Background: With the aim of encouraging mobility between higher education institutions in the Western Balkan countries and those in the European Union (EU), the European Commission initiated a series of measures to increase the share of students primarily from the Western Balkans who spend at least one semester away from their home institutions, but also the share of young people from EU member states who come to Western Balkan (WB) countries. Objectives: Aim of the paper is to determine the degree of representation of internationalisation strategy and policy elements in the internal documents of higher education institutions and its direct impact on the development of mobility. Methods/Approach: An electronic survey has been created and sent to representatives of 9 EU and 11 WB universities. Respondents were mainly international relations officers or management representatives. Mann-Whitney test was applied in order to test differences between EU and WB universities. Results: The conducted Mann-Whitney nonparametric tests show that the degree of representation of internationalisation strategy and policy elements in the internal documents of a higher education institution has a direct impact on the development of mobility. Conclusions: By 2020, the European Commission aims to have 20% of all students acquiring an academic degree within the European Higher Education Area participate in mobility. This paper sheds light on this segment and indicates possible directions for actions aimed at developing mobility at institutions in Western Balkan countries.

Regional Mobility in Europe: The Importance of CEEPUS Based on Hungarian Evidence

“…The number of monthly scholarships should be revised as well; participants aspire for higher rates-especially in the Balkan States, where it is the lowest currently. Considering the EU enlargement policy, it would be of great importance to increase their activities and involvement in the European higher education practices (Bošnjović and Trivun 2013;TPF 2019b). Concluding the role of CEEPUS, it is not an alternative program to Erasmus+ but complementary that allows for additional and different opportunities for regional collaboration.…”