Exploring the regional changes in the structure of student mobility in Europe: before and after Covid-19

Abstract Student mobility represents the temporary migration of highly-skilled individuals and serves as an indicator of regional attractiveness from academic and economic perspectives. Understanding its spatio-temporal distribution can provide essential insights for regional planning, policy, and governance. This study examines how the structure of Erasmus+ student mobility has evolved post-Covid-19, using spatially enriched data from 2014 to 2022, encompassing over 2 million participants. Through cluster and statistical analyses, we investigate hierarchical and regional changes in Erasmus+ mobility and present methods to visualize complex origindestination data. Our findings highlight shifts in student mobility across NUTS 3 regions and countries, revealing evolving regional brain gain and drain dynamics, with significant implications for regional and educational planning and policies at both national and international levels.