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.

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