Boards of trustees are encouraging the move, but they are generally followers. The teaching staff is clearly the least motivated group, sometimes with recurrent objections about interferences between mobility and solid studies. Initiatives derive mostly from specific opportunities and are seldom linked to a strategic plan. Several examples can be given to illustrate this point. Sometimes cooperation starts from a language ability, sometimes from unplanned meetings.
French institutions are ready to go quite far in their internationalization.
Sometimes 50 percent or even higher is reached. In comparison, prestigious German institutions do not manage to go beyond the 5 percent level. Recently mobility has been developed in Europe, although relationships with North America still represent a quarter of the total. French institutions raise few formal obstacles to mobility. There is a clear consensus that any arrangement can be made in the curriculum in order to overcome formal obstacles.