Project activities: The field phase for EUROGRADUATE 2022 was closed by all countries in June 2023. The field phase was originally planned to take place between October 2022 and February 2023. However, it had to be extended for some of the participating countries due to challenges related to, for instance, data protection restrictions, coordination with higher education institutions, programming the online survey, and/or improving response rates. Response rates vary widely across countries, ranging from below 5% (1 country) to above 45% (2). In-between, there were seven countries with response rates between 5%-15% and another seven countries with response rates ranging from 15%-45%. Several countries that participated in the previous EUROGRADUATE 2018 pilot survey managed to improve their response rates. Currently, the national research teams are working on the data processing and delivery, supported by the EUROGRADUATE consortium, who provided specific data processing guidelines and other supportive materials (e.g. coding syntaxes). The first national datasets have been provided to the EUROGRADUATE consortium. A first version of the international dataset is planned to be ready by the end of August 2023. Furthermore, the EUROGRADUATE consortium is currently developing templates for the national and comparative synthesis report to prepare the reporting on the EUROGRADUATE 2022 findings.

Lessons learned so far: The EUROGRADUATE consortium has identified three major learning points regarding the project organisation and set up:

1. Sufficient time should be allowed to prepare the field phase – e.g. for countries to get HEIs involved, organise the contacting, install all GDPR requirements, as well as for the EUROGRADUATE consortium to be able to deliver key materials, such as the master questionnaire, data protection information and data processing guidelines at an earlier stage. 
2. Participation in EUROGRADUATE via national surveys is possible but comes with challenges and restrictions. It requires tailor-made approaches for the countries concerned and reduces the scope of comparable data. Thus, this option should be limited to exceptional cases. For EUROGRADUATE 2022, two countries, Italy and Germany, used this option. 
3. Decentralised data collection works – but should preferably be complemented by a central data collection infrastructure for countries preferring such a set up. This would be more efficient and would address countries’ resources and experiences more flexibly. 

These findings were presented and discussed at the Annual Network Meeting of the European Network of Graduate Tracking in May 2023 in Stockholm.

Outlook: The upcoming months will focus on the finalisation and anonymisation of the international dataset, as well as the analysis of the data and reporting of results. In July, representatives of the EUROGRADUATE consortium will present the project and its methodology at the European Survey Research Conference in Milan, Italy. Furthermore, there will be a project meeting with all participating countries at the German Centre for Higher Education and Research Studies in Hanover in October 2023 (see article below). This meeting is meant to provide an opportunity to reflect on the project so far and to kick-off the next phase of the project which focusses on analysing the data and reporting.

For further information, please visit the EUROGRADUATE 2022 website and subscribe to the EURORGRADUATE 2022 newsletter using the links below.

• Project webpage: www.eurograduate.eu       
• Newsletter registration: https://www.eurograduate.eu/newsletter
• Contact: German Centre for Higher Education and Science Studies (DZHW), eurograduate@dzhw.eu