The Eurograduate consortium presented the key findings of the Eurograduate 2022 survey to the network during the 2024 ANM in Liège on 15-16 May, as well as during the Eurostudent 8 final conference in Vienna on 10-11 July:  

• There is an overall high satisfaction from graduates regarding their studies. Interestingly, the satisfaction is slightly higher among MA graduates than among BA graduates, with differences larger in the 2016-17 cohort compared to the 2020-21 cohort.
• There is a high degree of employability among graduates. While the unemployment rate was relatively low for most countries, in some countries it was close to zero (AT, CZ, DE and EE). However, in a selection of countries, the share of unemployment was slightly higher among graduates (CY, GR, IT, PT and RO).
• There is an overall good matching between graduate employment and level of education, but still considerable degree of vertical mismatches. For most graduates, the education level is matching well with the job. However, there is an overall larger mismatch between job requirements and education level among MA graduates than BA graduates. To some extent, this difference can be considered normal since the risk of overqualification increases with the qualification level. This mismatch is slightly smaller in the 2016-17 than the 2020-21 cohort, presumably because graduates enter the labour market with higher qualifications than required and attain higher job positions while progressing in their careers.
• International mobility has decreased but it is associated with better matching on the labour market. There was a clear reduction in learning mobility from the 2016-17 cohort to the 2020-21 cohort, which can likely be explained by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. There are also clear country differences, with lower levels of mobility in south-eastern European countries. MA graduates also demonstrate higher levels of mobility than BA graduates. Furthermore, the results show that graduates who have been internationally mobile during their studies had a 7 percentage points higher chance of matching their educational qualification with their job.

The Eurograduate 2022 consortium will also deliver a set of bridging activities to support the preparations for Eurograduate 2026:   

• Activity 10: Defining core indicators for Eurograduate 2026. The shortening of the survey requires a revision of the core set of indicators and policy/research questions to be covered, the module structure and the master questionnaire.
• Activity 11: Providing guidance for GDPR-proof collection/provision of graduate data. The consortium will prepare a guidance document that provides countries with greater confidence in handling contact and survey data, and information on how to address data protection issues. While there are also issues associated with administrative data, this cannot be comprehensively covered in the guidance document (although this may be covered through a complementary activity delivered by the Support Service for the European Network of Graduate Tracking).
• Activity 12: Revisiting the recommendations of the European Commission expert group on graduate tracking. The recommendations stem from 2020 and should be revised to take into account the discussions of the European Network of Graduate Tracking and the insights of Eurograduate 2022. The expected deliverable is a document with reviewed/revised recommendations.
• Activity 13: Developing a methodology for integrating institutional level data with Eurograduate data. Several research actors, including JRC, have requested to explore how individual level data and institutional level data could be integrated in a GDPR-proof way for research purposes. While this has been done to some extent in EUROSTUDENT, it is yet unclear whether and how this is possible for Eurograduate. In any case, this must be agreed on by the participating countries.
• Activity 14: Extending and continuing dissemination activities. With the aim of improving the response rates to the Eurograduate survey, there is a need to improve the dissemination of the survey among HEIs and students. The task is to prepare a 1–2-page leaflet targeting HEIs and students with interesting results from the Eurograduate survey, thus raising interest and awareness of the survey.

Country reports from Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Romania are already available on the Eurograduate website.