The 5th European Student Convention was held in Athens, Greece, from the 21-23 February 2003. 140 student representatives from over 40 European countries gathered to discuss "How to achieve genuine student mobility". This Convention helped to formulate the student position on this topic in the lead up to the Berlin Ministerial Summit in September 2003 that is part of the process leading to the creation of a European Higher Education Area by 2010. The Convention also fed into the European Commissions consultation on the Socrates programmes and the future of the Erasmus mobility scheme.
 
The Convention was supported by the Greek Presidency of the EU and the European Commission. Speakers during the Convention included the Greek Minister of Education and Secretary General of the European University Association.

During the convention the student representatives discussed various aspects of mobility in plenary sessions and workshops, the outcomes were collected as input for the communiqué. The results from the Convention helped formulate the student input into the Ministerial Summit held in Berlin in September 2003 as part of the development of the European Higher Education Area (Bologna Process) and also into the European Commission’s Consultation ~ the future of the Commissions student mobility programmes such as the Erasmus and Tempus scheme.

Stefan Bienefeld, then Chair of ESIB said, “The Convention tackled how to overcome the barriers to genuine student mobility from the economic barriers of insufficient grants to the social and political issues, it also addressed the relatively new topic of e-mobility and whether this is an answer to encouraging mre mobility or whether this will become a cheap option for those that can’t afford physical mobility.”

 

 

 

Workshop 1: Vertical Mobility

This workshop discussed the varied and complex topic of vertical mobility. By vertical mobility we refer here to a full degree study period in a foreign university. Within the framework of this topic we especially looked into the degree structures, existing vertical mobility programmes, structures and initiatives as well as the recognition and quality. 

 

Workshop 2: EMobility 

The topic of this workshop is eMobility, mobility being the common theme for all the workshops at the Convention. However, the workshop alsos explored other aspects of eLearning, which served as input into the policy paper on eLearning. One of the workshop sessions was dedicated entirely to eMobility. 

 

Workshop 3: Social and Economic Aspects of Mobility

The workshop focussed on the economic and social conditions of mobile students. Concrete mobility programmes were left aside, but all issues discussed can be seen as points which should be recognised and taken care of in mobility programmes. General economic aspects of mobility, especially for societies and countries, were considered shortly in the beginning, as well as major differences in the cultural and economic preconditions for providing mobility. 

Download the Workshop Reader 

 

Workshop 4: Horizontal Mobility

 

Workshop 5: Access to Mobility 

The main goal of this workshop was to explore the circumstances surrounding access to mobility - the problems that students fear or face when deciding whether or not to even participate in some kind of the mobility experience. The workshop covered both the students participating in the EU mobility programmes as well as the so-called “free movers” and also analysed several imbalances that exist when it comes to mobility:

• incoming/outgoing students in one country (e.g. there are countries with a high rate of outgoing and low rate of incoming students and vice versa)

• different subject areas (e.g. the majority of ‘mobile’ students are those of business and language studies, while the participation of those in natural sciences is 5-7 times less)

• non-inclusion of a number of countries in mobility programmes (e.g. South East European countries)