The first webinar of the EUA series “Toward Tirana 2024, the Bologna Process and developments in the EHEA” will provide an introduction to mobility through the lens of the Bologna Process with insights into the historical and evolving role mobility has played. This event takes place on 12 December 2023, from 14.00 to 15.00 CET.
Over the history of the Bologna Process, student mobility has been both a goal, through an agreed benchmark, as well as a means for facilitating the internationalisation and partnerships within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Having been widely discussed during the first decade of the Bologna Process, the evolving concept of student mobility has not been addressed in depth during the last 2-3 cycles of the Bologna Follow-up Group (BFUG). However, current societal developments in areas such as migration, the housing market and technological advancement point to a need to reconceptualise student mobility, its support services, as well as to reevaluate traditional mobility benchmark.
The webinar will include a discussion on why the mobility benchmark (see EUA’s recent publication ‘Going beyond the 20% student mobility benchmark’), once a pioneering idea, may need a quantitative update in today’s educational landscape considering, for example, the contrast between mobility statistics at bachelor’s degree level and those at master’s and doctoral degree levels.
During the event, diverse forms of mobility, from physical exchanges to virtual and hybrid modes, and short-term to full degree mobilities, will be explored by addressing the current debate surrounding virtual mobility, as we consider whether this truly represents a mobile experience