It is the time of annual reports. The Erasmus+ agency in DAAD was not the only one to publish the achievements of 2018. So did one of ACA’s Swiss members, Movetia. The publication gives an account of exchanges and mobility in Switzerland in 2018 at all levels of education. It also presents statistical information for the academic year 2017/18 of the Swiss-European Mobility Programme (SEMP), the Swiss ‘shadow Erasmus programme’, with a focus on higher education.  

SEMP is the interim solution for Erasmus+, of which Switzerland is not (officially) part in the area of higher education. The programme provides Swiss higher education institutions with funding for the inbound and outbound mobility of students and academic as well as administrative staff. Countries of origin and destination are the 33 Erasmus+ programme countries. Like Erasmus+, SEMP not only funds study and teaching in another country, but also traineeships of students and professional stays of staff in companies. It does so in both directions, i.e. out of but also into Switzerland. The report presents a rich set of data, by country of origin and destination, level of study, subject area, type of higher education institution and individual institutions, amongst others.

The data demonstrate that the nationally funded exchanges of individuals and whole classes have on average grown strongly in the past year. While also growing, higher education mobility to Europe grew only modestly. But mobility to destinations world-wide (what in Erasmus+ are the “partner countries”) saw much bigger increases. Movetia is counting on the political and financial support of the cantons and the federal government to consolidate this growth in the coming years in order to be able to achieve the objective, set in the National Strategy, for all young people in Switzerland to take part in an exchange or mobility project at least once. National exchange and international cooperation now form an integral part of Switzerland’s education and training policy.

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