STUDENTS AND ACADEMICS

Aims is an on-line survey on the educational, professional and migration paths launched in September 2016 in France, the United Kingdom and Spain, to study the individual trajectories of students and of academics born abroad and living in the three countries. The questionnaire is divided into 6 modules: demographic and socio-economic characteristics,education, professional history, research practices, migration trajectory, and future prospects.

The target population is composed of:

• Students: all students born abroad (i.e., outside the country they are studying in) and enrolled in a first- or second-level Master’s or PhD programme in a higher education institution in France, Spain or the United Kingdom, regardless of discipline;

• Academics and researchers: all Master’s or PhD graduates working in higher education and/or research in France, Spain or the United Kingdom, regardless of level or status (post-docs, research assistants, junior researchers, senior researchers, associate professors, full professors, temporary teaching attachés, etc.), including those born in France, Spain or the United Kingdom.

The aim of the survey is to study the new dynamics of student, academic and researcher mobility in the direction of the three countries by analysing

• the characteristics of current student and academic and researcher mobility toward the three countries;

• individual migration, education and professional trajectories;

• conditions for integration into the academic and research labour markets of France, Spain and the United Kingdom;

• the impact of institutional context (migration policies and arrangements for attracting students) on these dynamics;

• research practices and academic ties with the country of origin.

The survey will make it possible to compare these dynamics in these three different European receiving contexts.

Download Questionnaire in PDF

Les mobilités académiques vers l’Europe : une comparaison France, Espagne, Royaume-Uni

Levatino, Antonina; Jolivet-Guetta, Mélanie; Toma, Sorana and Kabbanji, Lama

L’Institut National d’Études Démographiques (INED) réalise un projet de recherche financé par la Commission européenne au sujet de la migration temporaire et permanente en Europe (Projet « TEMPER ») en collaboration avec plusieurs partenaires internationaux. Dans le cadre de ce projet, une attention particulière est réservée aux mobilités étudiantes et scientifiques. Une enquête en ligne, retraçant les trajectoires éducatives, professionnelles et migratoires des étudiants et académiques étrangers sera diffusée entre les mois de septembre et décembre en France, en Espagne et au Royaume-Uni.

AIMS Survey Questionnaire

Methodological Note

We have contacted several universities and research centres in the three countries by email, inviting them to collaborate and providing the link to the on-line survey for the target population. We also send two or three reminder messages.

For some academics we send the email directly to the person’s professional address (these addresses, drawn from the on-line directory of the employer university or research centre, are public information), followed by three reminders. The initial email clearly explains that participation is optional and offers the possibility of “unsubscribing” so as not to receive reminders.

The survey has already been launched (or will be soon) in the following higher education institutions and research centres:

France:

– Boursiers CampusFrance (launch scheduled)

– CEPED

– INALCO

– INED

– IRD

– Laboratoires CNRS

– Université de Paris 1 (launch scheduled)

– Université de Perpignan

– Université de Strasbourg

– URMIS (Unité de Recherche Migrations et Sociétés) Nice

– URMIS Paris

United Kingdom:

– University College of London

– University of Leicester

– University of Newcastle

– University of Sheffield (launch scheduled)

– University of Sussex

– University of Warwick

Spain:

– Universidad de Granada

Working Paper 2: Inventory of programs aimed at attracting international students and academics to the EU

by Lama Kabbanji, Mélanie Jolivet-Guetta, Erica Consterdine and Amparo González-Ferrer

Abstract: This report aims at examining main political debates and legislations targeting foreign students and academics in France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom since 2000. Several changes in migration policies have occurred these recent years in the UK, France and Spain that affected the conditions of entry and stay of foreign students and academics coming to these countries. While in the UK migration policies became more restrictive since 2010, France adopted a more selective approach with the aim to diversify the geographical origin of students and academics and select more thoroughly those who are allowed to stay in France after the completion of their post-graduates studies. Spain is trying to promote the internationalisation of its higher education and research system with the adoption in 2008 of the “Estrategia Universidad 2015” – which includes measures to attract more foreign students and academics – while coping with the limited resources due to the effects of the economic crisis. These legal reforms and policy efforts to affect the internationalization level of the university system at its lower and higher ranks, from undergrad students to researchers and academic positions, are hard to evaluate in the short term, as it will be shown in Working Paper 3.

Working Paper 3: Descriptive report on pre-exiting data and research on international students and academics flows to the EU

by Lama Kabbanji, Tatiana Eremenko, Mélanie Jolivet-Guetta, Erica Consterdine, Amparo González-Ferrer and Yoan Molinero Gerbeau

Abstract: This report provides an overview of changing trends and dynamics of students and academics’ mobility into France, Spain, UK and Italy. The link between migration and higher education policies analysed in Working Paper 2, on the one hand, and these changing trends in flows and stocks of international students and academics in our four TEMPER EU countries, on the other, is examined in detail. In achieving this goal a multiplicity of data sources, both international (UNESCO, OECD, Eurostat) and national-specific ones, have been carefully reviewed and exploited. After such a thorough overview, we have identified major difficulties in establishing common statistical categories that allow, first, proper crossnational comparisons and, secondly, an adequate within-country assessment of the outcomes achieved by policies aimed at promoting internationalization of the tertiary education and research system, as well as increasing their diversification and competitiveness in attracting ‘the best and the brightest’ in the increasingly globalized educational market. These limitations affect data availability for all the main students’ categories (Undergraduate, Master and PhD. Students), but are particularly remarkable as we move up in the academic career trying to examine the extent to which academic and research positions have become more (or less) permeable to internationalization dynamics.