The globalisation of higher education, through the mobility of students, has grown considerably over the past 40 years. Among the various categories of migrants,
international students have experienced the most rapid increase in relative terms (Beine et al., 2014), with the number of international students in Europe having increased by roughly 114% from 2000 to 2010 (ICEF, 2013). Internationalisation in higher education has become one of the priorities of the European Commission in recent years and, in 2011, a specific benchmark for learning mobility was established, requiring that by 2020 a European Union (EU) average of at least 20% of higher education graduates undertake a period of higher education-related study or training abroad, representing a minimum of 15 European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) credits or lasting a minimum of three months.