Mobility

In this context, mobility can be understood as academically motivated periods of stay abroad undertaken by students and staff in the education sector. The task of producing the report enables SIU to follow the development of mobility into and out of Norway. Greater mobility and cross-border cooperation in education are increasingly important political goals for most countries.

The Mobility Report of 2010

The fourth edition of the Mobility Report appeared in 2010. For the first time the report included mobility among PhD students. About 35 per cent stated that they had been abroad in the academic context. Students who take PhD degrees in humanities are more mobile than students within other PhD. degrees.

PhD. students within medicine have the lowest share of stays in foreign countries. This is a contrast to the research among bachelor and master lever, where health and social care students constitute one of the largest groups taking part of their studies abroad.

Internationalization and mobility in the PhD degree is also the theme for this year’s Mobility Conference, which took place the 3rd. November at Gardermoen.

Other findings from the 2010 report – toward bachelor and master level:

• In 2009/2010, 7209 Norwegian students followed part of their studies abroad, the highest ever figure to date
• USA is still on top as the most important destination country for Norwegian exchange students who take part of their degree abroad, with 1080 students in 2009/2010
• The four countries which together with the United States occupy the top five list are Australia, Great Britain, Tanzania and South Africa
• In 2009/2010 Norway had the largest amount of foreign students in Norway; 14980 students. This number include students who take part of their degree or their whole degree in Norway
• The five largest groups of students with foreign citizenship in Norway are from Russia, Sweden, Germany, China and France
• In 2006/2007 Norway reached the highest number of Norwegians studying abroad through LLP’s Erasmus programme. In the academic years 2007-2008 and 2007/2008 there was a noticeably decrease of this number. However, statistics from 2007/2008 shows that the amount of Norwegian exchange students is increasing again.

In the OECD's 2009 report on education Education at a Glance, points out that about 1.9 percent of all Norwegian students are “international” students, a figure equivalent to 4.114 individual students.