Academic mobility refers to students and teachers in higher education moving to another institution inside or outside their own country to study or teach for a limited time.
Academic mobility suffers from cultural, socio-economical and academic barriers. The Bologna process is an attempt to lower these obstacles within the European higher education area.
Mobile students are usually divided into two groups: free-movers are students that travel entirely on their own initiative, while programme students use exchange programmes at department, faculty, institution or national level (such as Erasmus, Nordplus or Fulbright). Nowadays, the traditional Erasmus exchange (which involves travelling) has been complemented with Virtual mobility, or Virtual Erasmus, in which students from different countries may study together without leaving their home.