‘University Students as Migrants’ is a project jointly funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the German Research Foundation (DFG), within the framework of the UK-German Funding Initiative in the Humanities. Run by researchers from Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne and the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, it connects the history of student mobility to the changing migration policies and discourses in (and beyond) Western Europe. In doing so, it offers fresh insights into the development and transformation of selective migration regimes and the ways that students experienced and responded to them.

The project investigates the relationship between restrictive migration policies in Western Europe and schemes that facilitated the transnational mobility of students. Moreover, it shows how such mobility intersected with other forms of migration (such as flight, exile and labour migration) and considers the impact on students who often faced issues that shaped migrant experiences more broadly, from the navigation of visa bureaucracies to personal encounters with racism, xenophobia and discrimination. Focusing on the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, the project sets Western European developments in relation to comparable or contrasting mobilities to North America and to the state-socialist countries in Eastern Europe. As such, it shows how the politics of student mobility translated broader geopolitical constellations – including Cold War politics, decolonisation and European integration – into specific mobility patterns and policies. 

The project runs from 2025 to 2028. Our research team draw on sources from national archives, international institutions, universities and non-governmental organisations, combining comparative, international and transnational perspectives. With a view to sharing project findings and engaging in dialogue with student representatives, the project team is collaborating with the Global Student Forum and the European Students’ Union. A large project conference in Potsdam will place the team’s ongoing work within broader comparative and global contexts.