The 23rd annual EAIE conference convened in Copenhagen on 13-16 September and brought together more than 4 200 delegates from 87 different countries. It also provided ACA with a prime opportunity to showcase several projects underway (or recently completed) by the Secretariat in Brussels, work that has been carried out in large measure in conjunction with ACA members.

ACA’s standing as a leading analyst of international student mobility trends was clearly visible in the context of the two sessions in which Irina Ferencz, ACA Policy Officer, served as a speaker. “The new mobility agenda: making students move and measuring progress”, a session chaired by the European University Association, provided an opportunity to present key findings from ACA’s highly-anticipated Mapping mobility in European higher education study (formerly known as EURODATA II), which should be made public by the European Commission sometime this year. ACA is also pleased to announce that its German member, DAAD, will publish the study (in two volumes) in December. Likewise, ACA representation in the session titled “Attracting international doctoral level students to Europe”, chaired by ACA member CampusFrance, allowed her to share insights on the mobility data available for this important yet still somehow ‘elusive’ mobility sector.

Meanwhile, ACA Deputy Director Laura Rumbley collaborated with several ACA members (NUFFIC, DAAD, CIMO and CampusFrance) in a session designed to expose those conference attendees with an interest in research on internationalisation to key information about the roles played by national-level organisations and agencies in the areas of research, assessment and analysis. ACA representation in the central workshop directed at EAIE’s new special interest group, Researchers in International Education, also provided a forum to spread the word about ACA’s work in this important field.

Throughout the conference, formal and informal networking activities allowed the two ACA Secretariat staff present in Copenhagen to disseminate information about the Association’s activities and outputs, explore possible new project ideas and partnerships, and interact with representatives of potential new members.