To gain valuable insight from students with or without mobility experience, the SuMoS team prepared a student mobility survey/questionnaire.  The survey was accessible from 25th of  April until 16th of May 2025. 

538 students participated and provided valuable information. In total, 182 students with mobility experience, and 356 students without mobility experience, participated in the survey. Participation was anonymous. 

The goal of the SuMoS student survey was to gather data on international semester (credit) student mobility from the student’s point of view. The SuMoS project team analyzed this data to identify areas to improve upon, so that in the future, more students can carry out an exchange period during their study program.

The results of the SuMoS student survey helped the  SuMoS team to gain better understanding of the Institutional Student Mobility Ecosystem (ISME). 
Highlights from the survey are presented in the graphics below.

The results from the student survey support evidence in the literature that the primary motivation for undertaking study mobility is the desire to experience novelty: discovering a new place, a new culture, new people. Students are looking for a life experience more than they are looking for an academic experience.

In this same vein, students see study mobility as an opportunity to gain new personal skills, including adaptability, open-mindedness, self-confidence, etc., more than as an opportunity to gain academic and/or professional knowledge or skills.

Based on these results, if they hope to motivate their target audience to study abroad, IROs need to address these desires for life experiences and personal growth when promoting mobility opportunities, along with focusing on the academic aspects of the mobility project. This goes against the grain for many of us in academia and may engender a feeling of promoting “academic tourism” rather than academic excellence. From the institutional point of view, the academic program is the sine qua non for study mobility.

Additionally, the main barrier lies in the misalignment between study programs, which highlights the need for stronger partnership management between higher education institutions and for inter-institutional agreements based on the compliance in study programmes.