Attaining information on the situation of graduates is crucial to assess the success and impact of higher education. For this reason, graduate tracking has gained increasing attention within the European Union in the past decade. “Tracking” in this context refers to enabling the assessment of graduates’ situations over a longer time (several years) after graduation.
The Higher Education Research Group at IHS has taken part in this process by participating in the implementation of a EUROGRADUATE feasibility study and a pilot survey (conducted in 2018/19) to research higher education graduates on an international level. At the same time, other processes such as a European graduate tracking initiative, accompanied by a capacity building project, and a mapping study on graduate tracking have pushed the issue forward.
The EUROGRADUATE survey 2022 is the follow-up project on the EUROGRADUATE pilot survey of 2018/19. It aims to assess study impact, competences, employment situation, mobility, and social outcomes of higher education graduates of 17 European Union countries. This will be done by combining administrative data with an online survey, which will be caried out by country research teams. The Higher Education Research Group at IHS is part of an international consortium coordinating and supporting the implementation of the project in the participating countries.
Data will be collected on graduates of all higher education programmes (with the exception of PhD programmes) that graduated in the participating countries either one year or five years prior to the survey. The field phase will take place in autumn of 2022. After this, a comprehensive dataset of all countries that will also be transformed into a Scientific Use File and a comparative report will be compiled. First results are to be expected in 2023.