A Comparative Analysis of the University Student Mobility Flows Among European Countries

Higher education institutions’ policies aimed at increasing the number of credits gained by university students abroad. Thus, the analysis of the internationalization process and the factors pulling and pushing students in a foreign country to complete their higher education are important features for academic institutions. In line with some previous studies, the present contribution aims to analyse the trend of the Erasmus student mobility flows and to capture the role played by each country by using the social network analysis approach. Data on Erasmus student exchanges among countries are gathered from the European Union Open Data Portal and used to build the network between countries. The main findings suggest that some countries in Europe are more attractive in terms of the number of incoming and outgoing students.