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9 août 2011

EUROPE: Brussels pushes for more east-west mobility

http://www.universityworldnews.com/layout/UW/images/logoUWorld.gifBy Ard Jongsma. The European Union wants to increase mobility to and from its eastern neighbours. In general, the eastern neighbours agree. But a recent conference in Warsaw found that hurdles such as brain drain, visa issues, recognition and reciprocity still hamper a significant volume increase.
Brussels has set aside more funds for mobility under the EU's Eastern Partnership programme in the two years that remain before the anticipated grand overhaul of education and training programmes in 2014. But investing these funds in the most meaningful way is not so easy.
A large conference organised by the Polish presidency of the European Union in Warsaw on 6-7 July convened some 350 people from the EU and its eastern neighbours to discuss how best to expand and optimise mobility and its benefits for individuals, institutions and countries, and how the Eastern Partnership Platform IV, "Contact Between People", can contribute to this.
At the conference, education commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said she was hopeful that mobility could be increased but that some tenacious hurdles continue to thwart the development of mobility to its full potential. "There is no denying that the obstacles to mobility between our regions are numerous," Vassiliou said. "There is the lack of information about mobility opportunities, inadequate financial support and a poor knowledge of foreign languages. But there are also legal barriers, particularly when it comes to obtaining visas or work permits, and there are problems with the recognition of academic work completed abroad."
She was pleased, however, that the conference had identified areas where the two regions can work together to eliminate some of these obstacles. "We will provide financial support through our mobility programmes and we can also provide curricular support through a variety of mechanisms such as the Diploma Supplement and the European Credit Transfer System. But we must also lend more personal support, especially in the form of guidance and counselling, in order to more effectively convince a wider range of individuals to take part," Vassiliou told the conference. One of the people who has witnessed at first hand how mobility can be a life changer is Ukrainian Yegor Domanov. He travelled to Finland on a Marie Curie grant to perform research into lipid biophysics and now works as an engineer of advanced research at L'Oreal in Paris.
"My career track is a good example of how it should work," he said. It is, but it also exposes the caveats of mobility and the trial-and-error nature of European support to it. "I actually was funded twice by Marie Curie grants," said Domanov. "First I had the incoming international fellowship, which got me to the University of Helsinki. The second was a European Reintegration Grant, which got me to France and topped up a local foundation grant." European Reintegration Grants were originally meant to support reintegration in the sending country. That was a great idea but it failed to work. More...

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