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Slovenia joined the second phase of the Eurograduate initiative in 2022. The results were presented during the project final conference on 22 April 2024. Different stakeholders' views were confronted on the need for monitoring graduate employability with experts in the field, university representatives, line ministries, national authorities for quality in higher education and other relevant publics. The discussion brought fruitful synergies.

Future Network activities and meetings

The European Commission recently adopted the 2024 European Degree package which aims to increase employability and skills relevance, the adaptability and visibility of higher education systems, as well as drive strategic cooperation and global competitiveness in the EU. Graduate tracking will play a role in this package, as criteria for the European Degree will include a graduate tracking commitment and the European Commission plans to further support the implementation of the European graduate tracking system through the future Council recommendation on a European Quality Assurance and Recognition System in higher education.

The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) organised, in partnership with the Ministry of Education in Romania, a national conference for the launch and dissemination of the Eurograduate 2022 national study in Romania on 27 March 2024 in Bucharest. The conference aimed to outline the major developments on higher education graduate tracking in Romania, as well as the national participation in Eurograduate and the European Graduate Tracking Initiative. Romania participated for the first time in 2022 to Eurograduate and is expected to be part of the third wave in 2026.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic organised a final conference on the Czech Eurograduate 2022 results on 25 April 2024 in Prague. The conference provided an opportunity to discuss how to use the results and microdata from Eurograduate 2022 both at national and HEI level. The conference also reflected on the future of graduate tracking in the Czech Republic. The conference included presentations and interventions from the European Commission and the Eurograduate consortium. Experts from the Czech Centre for Higher Education Studies presented the Czech results of the Eurograduate 2022 survey through the prisms of the national context, work, mobility and citizenship. The conference also included parallel discussions focused on how to follow the career paths of graduates, ways to use Eurograduate data results and the European graduate surveys and graduate tracking.

With the aim of improving the interconnection between higher education and the labour market in Cyprus, the Department of Higher Education of the Ministry of Education, Sport, and Youth, in collaboration with PwC Cyprus, organised the conference entitled “Connecting Higher Education with Labour Market: Building the Future-Ready Workforce” on 9-10 May in Nicosia. The conference aimed to raise awareness about the two national surveys for graduate tracking and employers’ skills, present findings from the first graduate tracking cycle and Eurograduate 2022 and highlight and illustrate the importance of combining administrative and survey data.

The Eurograduate 2022 survey is coming to an end with the main results having been presented to the European Network of Graduate Tracking during the 2024 ANM as well as during the Eurostudent 8 final conference. Key results include that graduates are overall highly satisfied with their studies; they are highly employable; there is an overall good match between graduate employment and their level of education, but vertical mismatches are still present. While international mobility has decreased, it is associated with better matching on the labour market. The publication of the comparative report is envisaged for the second half of 2024. A number of bridging activities are also planned to support the preparations of Eurograduate 2026.

As a major initiative under the European Strategy for Universities, the European Higher Education Sector Observatory (EHESO) will be available by the end of 2024. Building on ETER, U-Multirank data and other data, the EHESO platform will be a valuable resource designed to provide comprehensive insights into the European higher education sector. Subscribe to the EHESO newsletter to stay informed about the upcoming EHESO developments.

The Council recommendation ‘Europe on the move’ – learning mobility opportunities for everyone was recently adopted on 13 May 2024 and aims to normalise learning mobility and improve the quality of mobility and inclusion of education in all education and training, youth and sport sectors. Member States are encouraged to reach the mobility target of 23% in the field of higher education of which 20% should be inclusive mobility. As the tracking of mobility is complex, graduate tracking is cited among the tools to support the monitoring of these new targets. The Commission is invited to work with Member States on ‘further improving data quality and availability and developing EU-level methodologies for data collection and analysis – including surveys, for example the European graduate tracking survey – on learning mobility in all education and training sectors’.

The 2024 Annual Network Meeting (ANM) of the European Network of Graduate Tracking took place in Liège, Belgium, on 15-16 May 2024. The ANM aimed to share developments from the past year and identify priorities and next steps for the Network. The meeting included a set of informative presentations, as well as exploratory workshops and group discussions on priority topics and the Network’s annual work programme.

Future Network activities and meetings

An ad-hoc meeting to discuss the launch of the small group discussion initiative in the European Network of Graduate Tracking took place online on 13 December 2023. Launched at the request of countries during the Annual Network Meeting 2023 in Stockholm, the small group discussions are a new initiative to allow the Network to exchange on shared priorities and challenges in a more focused setting. These discussions aim to respond to the heterogeneity of graduate tracking systems and offer additional meeting spaces for Network members to deep dive into shared interests during a set timeframe.

On 29-30 November 2023 the European Commission hosted a peer learning event on Unlocking the Future: Harnessing Graduate Tracking to Address European Skills Priorities. The event explored how graduate tracking can provide intelligence and insights that can inform national activities around Green and Digital Transitions as well as to create a more dynamic and responsive VET system which matches industry needs.

The Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) has published a working paper on the ‘Norwegian experiences with EuroGraduate 2022: Implementation and adaptation’.

The report of preliminary findings of the first National Graduate Tracking Survey in Cyprus is now published. The publication of the report was an interim target in the context of the project entitled “Development of a National Graduate Tracking Mechanism and Design and Implementation of an Employers’ Skills Survey” which is funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility.

The conference also presented some of the most recent findings of AlmaLaurea on the topic of students’ and graduates’ international mobility. Data from the two latest surveys conducted by AlmaLaurea in 2022 covers nearly 1 million graduates (1, 3 and 5 years after graduation) with response rates around 70%.

Tracking mobile graduates has become a core issue for institutions and systems at national and cross-border levels. The international conference “Tracking graduates and their mobility: comparing experiences in the international framework”, organised by AlmaLaurea in cooperation with the University of Bologna on 1 December 2023, deepened core themes on the topic.

The second peer learning activity (PLA), organised as part of the European Network of Graduate Tracking, was held in Madrid, Spain, on 7-8 November 2023. The PLA focused on examining the different uses of graduate tracking data and intelligence at the EU, national, regional, and institutional level; and was hosted by the Spanish Ministry of Universities, the Ministry of Education and VET and the National Institute of Statistics.