Preface

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Preface
Alessandro Cavalli and Ulrich Teichler
European Review / Volume 23 / Supplement S1 / May 2015, pp S1 - S5
DOI: 10.1017/S1062798714000751, Published online: 02 April 2015
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S1062798714000751
How to cite this article:
Alessandro Cavalli and Ulrich Teichler (2015). Preface. European Review, 23, pp S1-S5
doi:10.1017/S1062798714000751
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Preface
ALESSANDRO CAVALLI and ULRICH TEICHLER
International Centre for Higher Education Research, INCHER-Kassel, University
of Kassel, Moenchebergstr. 17, 34109 Kassel, Germany
E-mail: teichler@incher.uni-kassel.de
The mobility of academics has been always occurred and scientists have always
considered themselves to be living in a cosmopolitan world, even at a time when
worldwide communication and travel could not be realized with our present-day ease.
Some experts estimate that some centuries ago one tenth of academics, or even more,
could be viewed as ‘foreign’or ‘mobile’according today’s criteria. The development
of nation states in the 19th century was not only linked with features of moderniza-
tion and technological progress that facilitated worldwide communication and travel,
but also underscored the weight of national differences and national borders, thereby
creating new, often substantial, barriers to migration and mobility. Altogether,
however, we note that ideas moved ever more quickly around the world in the 19th
and early 20th centuries and that –at least in some disciplines –the search for the
most advanced knowledge all over the world became a matter of procedure.
After the Second World War, international cooperation and the mobility of aca-
demics spread more rapidly than ever before, following the expansion of student
enrolment and research activities. The growth of the higher education and research
system made such cooperation and mobility more visible, and these phenomena were
reinforced, notably because economic wealth increased, other conditions for physical
mobility dramatically improved and opportunities for migration also increased –not
always consistently all over the world, but altogether substantially. Today’s frequent
use of terms such as ‘knowledge society’and ‘globalization’suggests that crossing
borders in higher education and science is held in higher esteem than ever before. This
might be illustrated by the facts that some ‘ranking studies’of ‘world-class uni-
versities’even count quotas of foreigners as indicators of quality per se and that the
bundle of substantial higher education reforms in Europe in recent years, called the
‘Bologna Process’, were advocated primarily as a means of increasing student
mobility, even if actual achievements sometimes fell short of good intentions. Many
policy statements suggest that conditions for increasing border-crossing in academia
European Review, Vol. 23, No. S1, S1–S5 © 2015 Academia Europæa. This is an Open Access article,
distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
doi:10.1017/S1062798714000751

are more supportive than ever before, that there is a trend towards a further growth of
border-crossing and that this trend is desirable.
A closer look seems to be in order. First, there is an enormous conceptual vague-
ness in the identification of the theme under consideration. What phenomena of
border-crossing do we really have in mind when we talk about quantitative growth
and its beneficial consequences? Do we have more or less permanent relocations in
mind, which the use of the term ‘migration’suggests, or is mobility for certain stages
of learning and professional development the focus of attention? Are there different
rationales involved when ‘mobility’and border-crossing are addressed on the one
hand while ‘foreign’students and scholars and study or research ‘abroad’are con-
sidered on the other, or are these just coincidental variations of expression? What
range of phenomena is of interest in this context? Is attention paid to attendance at a
conference in another country, for example, by including such events in account-
ability reports and career incentives? Do we focus on phenomena that are the result of
academics’strategic action, i.e. moving oneself for shorter or longer periods to
another country, or do we also include persons having moved for reasons not linked
to their own academic activities, e.g. their parents’migration even before the scholars
under consideration were born?
Second, views vary as to how one should delineate the sector to be addressed in this
framework. Do we talk about ‘academics’,‘scholars’,‘researchers’, professionals
active in ‘science’,the‘knowledge system’, and so on? Often, we find that a distinction
is made between persons active in ‘academia’or ‘higher education’, i.e. a sector where
a link between research and teaching prevails, on the one hand, and ‘research’on the
other, i.e. a sector where research is seen as the prime professional activity and where
often a link between research and ‘development’can be observed. Additionally,
information provided on the former sector might address those professionally active
in ‘universities’,‘higher education’or even ‘tertiary education’. Moreover, varying
thresholds are chosen: doctoral candidates might be viewed as ‘students’or as early-
stage scholars; definitions of ‘researchers’might range from any person with at least a
bachelor degree employed in a unit in charge of research to only persons in such units
with at least a doctoral degree. Last but not least, views vary as regards the degree of
professional involvement in this area. Some statistics include researchers who spend
one hour per week on knowledge generation in a relatively loose contractual link to
their organization, while other analyses take note only of persons who are regularly
employed for at least half of a normal week’s work time.
Third, even if we opt for a certain conceptual framework and for the analysis of a
certain target group of persons professionally involved in systematic knowledge
generation, preservation and dissemination, we will face a lack of transparency. The
factual information is poor. Statistics on student mobility are frequently reported,
even though they are mostly ill-defined and incomplete. Reports on the migration and
mobility of scholars are less frequent; for example, they hardly play a role in reports
of organizations such as UNESCO and OECD on the international state of research.
This reflects the fact that statistics on migration and mobility of scholars are even
poorer than those on students.
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Fourth, a closer look at the magnitude of mobility calls for a more differentiated view
of the ‘map’. We note substantial differences of data depending, as already mentioned,
on whether citizenship (‘foreign’and ‘abroad’) or border-crossing for the purpose of
study or scholarly work is taken as the measure. Similarly, again as already pointed out,
the world of mobility looks different if we pay attention only to relatively long phases of
learning and research work in other countries or if we include, for example, mobility
within a sabbatical, a semester of study abroad, or also one or two weeks for exchange of
information within an internationalresearch consortium, teaching an intensive course in
another country or even the attendance of a conference in another country. For many
years in the past, policy discourses on the mobility of scholars have paid attention
primarily to relatively long periods, such as the students’whole degree programme, the
doctoral education and training abroad, or a visible period of the career as a scholar. In
recent years, accounts in this domain have started to pay more attention to relatively
short border-crossing encounters, e.g. mobility of students for a semester or a year,
short-term teaching in another country, etc. Data are collected even on short periods in
another country, for work on a doctoral dissertation, students spending an internship
period or attending summer school in another country, or scholars just travelling to
meet partners of an international research consortium or, as already pointed out,
attending a conference in another country. Short international encounters are referred to
more often in recent years because they may have an enormous impact on subsequent
research work. Recently, more attention has also been paid to mobility that is not part of
the rational choice of the scholars themselves, for example parental migration. This has
led to research into the phenomena of disadvantage and discrimination of scholars with
a migration background as well as to their specific potentials to contribute to inter-
cultural learning and understanding.
Fifth, as already briefly hinted at above, a closer look is needed with regard to the
extent and the ways migration and mobility actually affect the situation and the
scientific work of scholars and with regard to the scholars’overall impact on the
quality and the relevance of systematic knowledge. Mobility, obviously, could not
have become such a highly esteemed phenomenon if there were not plenty of first-
hand experience of its benefits. But there is a major public discourse as well regarding
the dark sides of mobility, e.g. a ‘brain drain’or the stealing of secret innovations.
Moreover, there are also studies that suggest that the impact of mobility assumed at
first glance might be less impressive if carefully scrutinized.
Sixth, the national policies and institutional strategies with respect to mobility and
migration deserve attention. We might ask, for example, why the magnitude and the
modes of mobility are so diverse even among countries with similar knowledge and
economic potentials. And we might ask why the respective policies and strategies are
convergent in some respects but so divergent in others across countries. We might
also try to assess the impact EU agencies have on migration and mobility within and
across the Union’s borders. Finally, we might address the overall scenario of ‘inter-
nationalization’and ‘globalization’policies in the world of higher education and
research. Do joint efforts for the worldwide enhancement of the knowledge system
prevail, or do ‘normal’phenomena of ‘healthy’competition, with wins here and losses
Preface S3

there, dominate, or are there increasing signs of inequality, domination and conflict in
the world of higher education and research? What do we head for in this sector of
society: towards a ‘global village’,a‘global market’or a world characterized by
domination, mistrust and various kinds of explosive open conflicts?
Beyond such an in-depth view on the current scene of mobility and migration in
science, we might look ahead. What do we expect in the future? Do we expect a long-
term growth trend, and do we expect a continuous value of mobility and migration?
Some voices ‘warn’that the growth of worldwide virtual communication in science may
favour a reduction of physical mobility. The value of first-hand experiences in another
country might diminish when the world becomes increasingly international and ‘inter-
nationalization at home’replaces first-hand experiences abroad almost completely. And
recent developments such as a rise in the worldwide numbers of political refugees, poli-
tical campaigns in favour of unlimited espionage, and increasing worldwide anti-terror
measures creeping into the daily life of citizens might be indicators that the necessary
trust for supporting international mobility and cooperation in science might be short-
lived. Do we have reasons to consider certain future scenarios more likely than others?
The Academia Europaea initiated the conference ‘Migration and Mobility in
Science: Impact on Cultures and the Profession in Institutions of Higher Education’
in order to take account of the trends, policies and actual consequences of migration
and mobility in science. The conference was held at the Palazzo Corsini in Rome on
14–16 November 2013 in cooperation with the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and
supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo. Within the Academia Europaea, the
HERCULES (Higher Education, Research and Culture in European Society) group
has organized numerous conferences on salient issues in higher education and science
in Europe over the past 20 years, the scope of which was never limited to Europe only.
The conference, from which the papers collected in this special issue of the European
Review result, was organized by Alessandro Cavalli, Anne Buttimer and Ulrich
Teichler, with the much-valued effective support of the Secretary General of the
Academia Europaea, David Coates, and his colleague, Teresa McGovern.
This special supplementary issue of the European Review documents some key
contributions to the conference. Two articles –by Ulrich Teichler and Michele
Rostan and Flavio Antonio –present an account of the available information on the
frequency and pattern of migration and mobility: the sources of information, the
concepts and methods underlying the collection of information, the major findings
and their implications for understanding the roles migration and mobility actually
play in higher education and research in general. Two further articles –by Peter Scott
and Marijke van der Wende –summarize the policy discourse on migration and
mobility in science: what is expected by governments, universities and research
institutes, scholars and other actors? What is noted as valuable and problematic?
What changes are considered and pursued? An article by Adriano Zecchina points to
some unintended consequences of the implementation of the granting policies of the
European Research Council on researchers’mobility. Finally, the article by Anthony
Welch looks at how the international map of mobility and migration in the field of the
sciences changes when countries that had for the longest time been marginal in the
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domain of international communication, cooperation and mobility begin to play an
internationally visible role. Welch’s case study concerns China, a country in which the
increasing wealth and involvement in the international scene of academia and
research is most visible due its sheer size. Finally, the two editors of this issue –
Alessandro Cavalli and Ulrich Teichler –highlight various issues of migration and
mobility in science that cut across the discussions held at the conference and in the
articles presented here.
Preface S5