More comprehensive efforts, such as a recent study by the European Institute of Education and Social Policy, have remained one-time exercises. The members of ACA clearly have an interest in the availability of improved data on the flow of international students. All of the members have a role in the policy-making with regard to internationalization of higher education in their respective countries. In some of these countries, the inflow of foreign students, and the outbound mobility of their own nationals, has become an important issue in the higher education debate, be it for economic or more generally cultural considerations. In order to test the feasibility of such an undertaking, ACA has approached relevant institutions and individuals in all countries of Western Europe and most countries in the east of the continent, as well as in the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan, to provide from their existing stock a set of data on international students in their countries, based on a set of single and combined descriptors which go beyond those of the publications noted above.
Examples are country or region of origin, level of study, gender, discipline, receiving region, etc.
Answers that provided material of a sufficient quality to be included in the study were received from about half of the countries targeted. Again, not all of these provided sufficient material on each descriptor. The ESSM project is going to result in two major outcomes. First, a publication, consisting of the systematized and annotated data received. This publication should come out at the end of 1998.