Eurostudent

About us

The EUROSTUDENT project collects and analyses comparable data on the social dimension of European higher education. A wide range of topics related to students’ social and economic conditions are covered. The project strives to provide reliable and insightful cross-country comparisons. It does this through coupling a central coordination approach with a strong network of national partners in each participating country. In this way, an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the respective national frameworks in international comparison can be made. The main users of our findings are higher education policy-makers at national and European level, researchers in this field, managers of higher education institutions and - of course - students all over Europe. EUROSTUDENT makes all collected data available in the EUROSTUDENT database. Comparative analyses by the EUROSTUDENT consortium are published in open access format. The national and comparative data have also been used for many associated reports. Browse the publications database to see whether we have already published on your favourite topic! Currently, the project is in its eighth round, which began in September 2021. The results will be published in spring 2024. A Scientific Use File, allowing external users to conduct in-depth analyses with the EUROSTUDENT micro data, is also planned.

Due to its broad thematic coverage and the involvement of different stakeholder groups, EUROSTUDENT aims to benefit different target groups, either through direct involvement in the project, or by drawing on the publicly available data and results.

  • Policy-makers at European and national levels. EUROSTUDENT provides comparative data and analyses on students in the European Higher Education Area that are not available elsewhere. Publication formats such as Intelligence Briefs are aimed specifically at this group, presenting a concise overview of relevant topics.
  • Researchers. EUROSTUDENT national teams benefit directly from project participation by taking advantage of the expert network, which the project provides, to exchange expertise on conducting and analysing surveys at the national level. Especially in countries with little to no prior experience, EUROSTUDENT takes on a strong capacity-building role. Furthermore, the results and data collected in the project are available to the research community beyond the project, informing and enabling further research, both comparative and focussed on single countries. EUROSTUDENT data are regularly used and cited by external researchers.
  • Students in the EHEA and the general public. EUROSTUDENT data and results are also of interest to students themselves. Besides its usefulness for students as political stakeholders (e.g. European Students’ Union), EUROSTUDENT data can also provide information to individual students. For example, a student planning studies abroad might use EUROSTUDENT to gather information on average living costs or typical living situations. Students can also draw on the published data for their own studies, e.g. Bachelor theses. The general public is addressed through wider media activities informing them about interesting results.