Mobility - Closing the gap between policy and practice

Elizabeth Colucci, Howard Davies, Jonna Korhonen, Michael Gaebel. Mobility: Closing the gap between policy and practice.
Making the case for mobility
As Europe struggles to emerge from the economic crisis, it seems inevitable that mobility will become increasingly essential to the learning process, particularly as young graduates are faced with a new economic landscape and evolving labour force requirements. Mobility might also increasingly be under threat, as national governments are crippled by austerity measures. Societal stakeholders, such as taxpayers, employers and parents will rightly demand to know the intended output of investing in mobility and internationalisation and its return. A natural defence is to link mobility directly to the employability of young graduates, an argumentation that the European Commission is currently using. However, one must not lose sight of the multiple social and economic benefits that mobility can yield. The discourse on mobility, while favouring notions such as employability, must not be subsumed under the perceived labour force demands. The values, skills and international perspectives that mobility generates for institutions, individuals, societies and business must be well evidenced, and underpin the reasons for investment in mobility.
4.2 Unanswered questions
Underlying all these concerns is a mixture of unanswered questions: how much mobility do we actually ‘need’ and should mobility be voluntary or a compulsory element of academic studies, regulated by institutions and/or national authorities? There are many different opinions on this topic and thus also different policy responses across the continent. Discussion on these issues relates closely to the question of whether it is possible to define the benefits and drawbacks of mobility unambiguously. Similarly, there is also an ongoing debate on whether ‘balanced’ mobility (into and out of countries) is desirable, achievable or a forlorn hope given the different traditions, contexts and situations of countries. In an environment where the separate logics of the labour market and of academic concentration seem increasingly to prevail, can one realistically hope for equitable academic exchange in Europe and globally? And in this sense, can the concept of brain circulation have a real application in relation to mobility strategies? Last but not least, there are practical questions to be answered in particular those related directly to the financing of mobility, the changing application of tuition fees and also the portability of student finance. Responses to these broader issues will to a large extent be conditioned by the funding policies and incentives put in place to support mobility at national and European level.
These questions seem of a different order to those addressed in this report, but institutions will soon have to consider them and others that are equally challenging. Many national higher education systems are in flux as they endeavour to resolve, simultaneously, the problems of demography, employability, value creation, funding and widening participation. The socioeconomic fabric of Europe is changing far more rapidly than was anticipated when the Bologna Process began. All the more reason, therefore, for higher education institutions to have the autonomy and resources to address its needs. Their ability to think strategically is essential: it can create a sense of corporate identity and foster full multi-stakeholder participation; it can ensure that rich contact is maintained with the constituencies that institutions serve; it can help institutions project towards potential partners locally and internationally. In this context, to ignore mobility is to ignore both the wider policy frame and many of the open scientific, social and ethical questions that universities aspire to answer.
The MAUNIMO Mobility Mapping Tool is an aid to strategic planning. It cannot resolve every problem, but it can help institutions formulate reasoned responses to volatile circumstances and define mobility in terms of what benefits the individual, the institution and society.
Download Mobility: Closing the gap between policy and practice.
See also: MAUNIMO project report and final conference, EUA reviews strategies for higher education mobility, Evaluating the ‘Mobility Mapping Tool’, Mobility Mapping Tool.