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Time plan:
Until January 13th:
- Stocktaking of old content
- Agata focus on the data section and about
- Georg focus on use cases of all kinds (internal and external), news and training
- Check the proposed structure (does the structure work? Which subcategories are needed?)
- Start of updating of text
January 13th: Discuss and finalise structure and timing
By the end of January: have the text ready
Implementation by mid-February
Contents
Information for Data Providers + 24
Data for Download and Visualisations + 25
Video Tutorials (new section) 29
Resources https://eter-project.eu/#/info/documents (plus new material) 29
About us (Agata & all) V
Logo, Templates and Poster (will be updated) old version: https://eter-project.eu/#/promo-materials
Overview
Higher Education is at the heart of the national public agenda in a growing number of countries in Europe and globally. Effective policy formulation and debate on a continental scale require access to comparable higher education data and reliable, common benchmarks and indicators, which are both politically relevant and methodologically sound.
The European Tertiary Education Register (ETER) is a European-level database providing a reference list of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Europe and data at the institutional level on HEIs’ activities and outputs, such as students, graduates, personnel and finances, complementary to educational statistics at the country and regional level provided by EUROSTAT.
ETER has been developed through a series of contracts by the European Commission from 2014 onwards. The current contract with the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission (contract no. EAC-2021-0170) runs for three years from May 2021 to April 2024.
As of Spring 2022, ETER included 41 countries in Europe and provided data from 2011 to 2019, with a total number of XXX observations.
The European Tertiary Education Register is a joint undertaking of five partners:
- USI – Università della Svizzera italiana, Institute of Communication and Public Policy, Lugano, Switzerland
- JOANNEUM Research, POLICIES – Institute for Economic and Innovation Research, Graz, Austria
- AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Center for Innovation Systems & Policy, Vienna, Austria
- NIFU – Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Oslo, Norway
- The Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti, Rome, Italy
– together with a network of experts in the concerned countries.
ETER is implemented together with a network of data providers in the National Statistical Authorities and National Education Ministries in the participating countries. While not part of the European Statistical System, ETER is largely compliant with statistical regulations and manuals, specifically with the UNESCO-UIS/OECD/EUROSTAT (UOE) data collection on formal education manual (UOE manual) and with the OECD Frascati Manual on research and experimental development (R&D) statistics.
ETER also closely cooperates with different institutions and projects, providing data and analyses on European Higher Education. The register is further embedded within the OECD Analytical Database of Higher Education Providers (ADHEP) project.
Documents
Final Report of ETER III
The final report of the second ETER contract (2015-2017) provides a general presentation of the main conceptual and methodological choices of ETER, an overview of the database content and selected analytical results of policy interest. It has been written for a broader audience.
Additionally, you can download the executive summary.
Data Quality Report
The ETER data quality report describes the Data Quality Methodology developed within the ETER project, the role of data quality in the overall ETER implementation and certifies the data quality of the four waves of data collected (2014-2016).
Contract award notice
Belgium-Brussels: Implementation and Further Development of the European Tertiary Education Register, 2021/S 092-237155, Contract award notice, Results of the procurement procedure Services.
Project Team
The ETER contract is implemented by a consortium of five partners:
- USI – Università della Svizzera italiana
- JOANNEUM RESEARCH
- NIFU – Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation
- University of Rome La Sapienza
- AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology
All consortium partners, as well as a network of national experts, support data delivery.
Additional key functions of the project team (USI, Joanneum Research and AIT) are as follows:
• Coordinating the entire process and developing its methodology, as specified in the project Handbook.
- Preparing perimeter and data collection templates and sending them to NSAs.
- Performing data validation and quality analysis on collected data and reporting any problems to NSAs.
- Integrating the data in the ETER database and publishing them.
- External communication and dissemination.
- Training for data collectors and data users.
Within the project team, the USI is responsible for the leadership of consortium and central coordination, methodological development and external stakeholder relations, the AIT leads on dissemination and training as well as future developments, while JOANNEUM RESEARCH is responsible for managing the data collection infrastructure.
USI – Università della Svizzera Italiana
Institute of Communication and Public Policy, Lugano, Switzerland
JOANNEUM Research, POLICIES
LOGO Institute for Economic and Innovation Research, Graz, Austria
AIT – Austrian Institute of Technology
LOGO Center for Innovation Systems & Policy. Vienna, Austria
NIFU – Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education
LOGO Oslo, Norway
The Sapienza University of Rome
LOGO Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti, Rome, Italy
Country experts
The work of the project team is also supported by the Technical Support Group (TSG) and the Methodological Working Group, both playing a strategic role in the success of ETER. The Technical Support Group comprises representatives from National Statistical Authorities, international organisations such as the OECD and other higher education data experts. This group provides advice on statistical methodologies, availability of data, data sources, data analysis and feasibility of inclusion of new data and promotes communication and dissemination of ETER reports through national systems. The smaller Methodological Working Group focuses on the methodological advancements for ETER, coming to an agreement on any identified methodological issues, before these are put forward for a discussion in the larger forum of the TSG.
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board is composed of European Commission services, international organisations, representatives from national higher education authorities and other relevant stakeholders in the field of higher education data use and management. The Advisory Board provides leadership and steering on strategic directions for further development and facilitates partnerships to foster ETER’s contribution to the European Education Area and develop international cooperation on higher education data. Current members of the Advisory Board, as appointed by the European Commission, include: [a list of names and affiliations]
Participating Countries
Forty-one countries in Europe participated in ETER’s latest data collection round (2017-2019). While the coverage does not currently extend to all years in all countries, the ultimate goal is to obtain all such data wherever available. For majority of countries, the data is provided by the national statistical authorities or national higher education ministries which collect data and compile statistics for national and EU purposes.
| Albania | Andorra | Austria | Belgium (Flanders) | Belgium (Wallonia) | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bulgaria | Croatia |
| Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | Germany | Greece |
| Holy See | Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Kosovo | Latvia | Lichtenstein |
| Lithuania | Luxembourg | Malta | Montenegro | Netherlands | North Macedonia | Norway | Poland |
| Portugal | Romania | Serbia | Slovakia | Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | Turkey |
| United Kingdom |
Partner Institutions (Benedetto)
Besides the network of national partners in each participant country, ETER works in close cooperation with several external bodies and communities, to ensure the comparability of data at European level, interoperability with other datasets, and to extend ETER dataset with deta related to additional variables and indictactors, not available from national authorities.
Erasmus+ Programme
…nature of cooperation/data provided
European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) and Database of Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR)
…nature of cooperation/data provided
European Graduate Tracking Initiative (EUROGRADUATE)
…nature of cooperation
EUROSTUDENT
…nature of cooperation
European University Association (EUA)
…nature of cooperation
Eurydice
…nature of cooperation
International University Associaton (IAU) and World Higher Education Database (WHED)
…nature of cooperation
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
…nature of cooperation
Research Infrastructure for Science and Innovation Policy Studies (RISIS)
…nature of cooperation/data provided
U-Multirank
…nature of cooperation
Data Protection + (JR)
Legal Notice
Nature and Scope of this Notice
JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the https://www.eter-project.eu web application (the “Service”) on behalf of the ETER consortium. Your data are exclusively processed based on legal regulations (GDPR, TCA 2003). The purpose of this data protection information is to inform you of the most important aspects of data processing within the context of our website. It does not cover how data is processed by higher education institutions (HEI) and National Statistical Authorities (NSAs) operating under national and regional legislation.
This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data. We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://www.eter-project.eu.
This offer uses a self-hosted Matomo instance, an open-source web analysis tool. The service uses so-called “Cookies”, text files that are stored on your computer in order to analyse your website usage. You can prevent this by configuring your browser not to save cookies.
All information collected are processed on a server on a computing centre owned by JOANNEUM RESEARCH. The computing centre is located in Graz, Austria. The IP addresses are only processed in an abbreviated form in order to exclude direct personal referencing.
The web server of JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH is located in the Computing Centre of JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, Steyrergasse 17, 8010 Graz, Austria.
Liability Notice
All the information on our website has been thoroughly checked. We make every effort to extend and update this information on a regular basis. However, no guarantee can be assumed for the completeness, correctness and up-to-dateness of the information given. Our website contains links to external websites. These links are purely informational in nature. If you click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services
Copyright
This website has been developed by the ETER consortium, under a contract with the European Commission, to enhance public access to information about higher education in Europe. The website and the information are the property of the European Union. The European Commission’s goal is to keep this information accurate and up to date. If errors are brought to its attention, the Commission will endeavour to correct them. However, the Commission accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information on this site. The data available on this platform are publicly available and, accordingly, can be used to analyse European higher education and for descriptive and policy purposes. This includes both the data and accompanying information like flags and metadata. The ETER consortium, on behalf of the European Commission, has acquired permission from National Statistical Authorities to disseminate these data.
Use is permitted on the following conditions:
Reference to the ETER project has to be made as follows: “Data source: ETER project. Download date XXX”.
In scientific publications and reports, the following acknowledgement should be included: “Data have been provided by the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER), funded by the European Commission under the contracts EAC-2013-0308, EAC-2015-0280, 934533-2017 A08-CH and EAC-2021-0170”.
The user is invited to provide to the ETER consortium a copy of reports and scientific publications issued from these data.
When reuse involves modifications to the data, this must be stated clearly to the end user.
While users can download the entire dataset or parts of it for analytical purposes, they are not allowed to make available the dataset (or parts of it) on an on-line support.
The European Commission, the ETER consortium or the original data providers assume no liability for any interpretation of the data provided, nor for uses, which do not take into account any or all of the underlying methodological issues.
All statistical data, metadata, the content of web pages or other dissemination tools, official publications and other documents published on this website can be reused without any payment or written license provided that the source is indicated as ETER and when reusing involves modifications to the data or text, this must be stated clearly to the end-user of the information.
Cookies
This website, and associated websites, uses cookies in order to allow it to function as required and for analytical purposes. You have been asked to provide your consent for the use of analytical cookies. For more information, please see the ETER Cookies Notice.
ETER Cookies Notice
ETER Users Privacy Policy
Newsletter
The ETER project uses Mailchimp for managing newsletter subscriptions. Personally identifiable information may include:
- Email address
- First name and last name
- Country
- Institutional affiliation
By signing up for the newsletter, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.
Information and types of Data Collected by ETER infrastructure
If you register to ETER, we collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our service to you.
Personal Data
While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include:
- Email address
- First name and last name
- Country
- City
- Institutional affiliation
- Usage Data
Use of Data
ETER uses the collected data for various purposes:
- To provide and maintain the Service
- To notify you about changes to our Service (the newsletter, see more information above)
- To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
- To monitor the usage of the Service
- To detect, prevent and address technical issues
Transfer of Data
Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ from those from your jurisdiction. If you are located outside Austria and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to Austria and process it there. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
ETER will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organisation or a country unless there are adequate controls in place, including the security of your data and other personal information.
Disclosure of Data
Legal Requirements
ETER may disclose your personal data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
- To comply with a legal obligation
- To protect and defend the rights or property of ETER
- To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
- To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
- To protect against legal liability
Security of Data
The security of your data is important to us. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Your rights
According to Art 15 of the GDPR, you are authorised to request information from JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH at any time concerning data that has been stored about you. According to Art 16, 17 and 18 of the GDPR, you can demand that JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH corrects, deletes and restricts various personal data.
Furthermore, you can, at any time, exercise your right of objection according to Art 21 of the GDPR and change or entirely revoke the submitted consent declaration with effect for the future without stating reasons. You can transmit the revocation by mail, email or fax to JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH. You will not incur any costs other than postage or transmission costs according to the basic applicable rates.
For requesting any information related to GDPR in the ETER project, please contact Daniel Wagner-Schuster (eter@eter-project.eu).
According to Art 19 of the GDPR, JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH is subject to a reporting obligation for all recipients with respect to correcting, deleting or restricting the processing of personal data. You will be informed of these recipients upon request. Moreover, concerning JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH, you have the right to data portability for personal data provided by you according to Art 20 of the GDPR.
Making a Complaint
You can issue a complaint to the regulatory authority if you believe that the processing of your personal data violates the data protection law or if your legal data protection claims have been violated in any way. In Austria, this is the Data Protection Authority, Wickenburggasse 8, 1080 Vienna, email: dsb@dsb.gv.at, Telephone: +43 1 52 152-0.
Contact Us about Data Protection
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via eter@eter-project.eu.
Contact us
Educational Tertiary Education Register
Università della Svizzera italiana
Institute of Communication and Public Policy
Via Buffi 13
6904 Lugano
Switzerland
[MAP HERE]
For general queries regarding the European Tertiary Education Register, please email Dr Agata A. Lambrechts at agata.lambrechts@usi.ch
For technical questions, please email Daniel Wagner-Schuster at daniel.wagner-schuster@joanneum.at
Vacancies
[Info here on visiting research opportunities]
Data (JR & Agata & all) V
Overview +
The ETER Consortium is responsible for collecting and disseminating student, graduate, personnel, financial, and other data for all European Higher Education Institutions which are part of its perimeter. These data form the ETER database.
ETER currently does not undertake a primary data collection but relies on secondary data sources provided by other entities. This choice is to reduce the burden of collecting data but requires intensive efforts to harmonise data collected on different grounds. Data in ETER undergoes extensive quality checks, but the ETER project team assumes no responsibility for errors in the original data.
ETER provides data on the following dimensions of HEI activities:
- Institutional descriptors including legal status, institutional category, foundation year, etc.
- Geographical descriptors including the region of establishment, the city and the geographical coordinates of the institution.
- Educational activities: data on students and graduates by level of education (diploma, bachelor, master; ISCED5-7), field of education, gender, citizenship, mobility and the number of incoming and outgoing Erasmus students.
- Research activities: research-active institution, PhD students and graduates (ISCED8), R&D expenditures.
- Expenditures, divided between personnel, non-personnel and capital, and revenues, divided between core budget, third-party funding and student fees funding.
- Staff: academic staff by gender, citizenship and field of education; non-academic staff; full professors by gender.
- A set of characterisation indicators concerning gender, citizenship, mobility, composition of personnel and HEI revenues.
- Information about demographic events in order to track institutions over time and observe development in the higher educations sector.
By providing the data on higher education institutions, their students, graduates and personnel, we provide the national highe education authorities, national ministries, and the European Comission with the necessary evidence to formulate effective higher education policy and national and regional levels.
Methodology
A core design choice of ETER is to rely on, as far as possible, existing methodologies, specifically from official statistics, for the definition of variables and indicators. This allows for the reusing of data collected in the framework of educational and R&D statistics for ETER and guarantees the possibility of comparison between ETER and international statistics.
More specifically, the definition of ETER variables largely builds on the UNESCOUIS/OECD/EUROSTAT (UOE) manual for the data collection on education. ETER definitions concerning students and degrees are based on the UOE with few adaptations related to different statistical units. ETER definitions concerning HEI personnel also largely comply with UOE definitions with some adaptation to the specific context of higher education (such as the explicit inclusion of educational personnel).
As for financial data, ETER has its own definitions since the unit of analysis is different (national budgets vs institutions). As for the definition of Research & Development (R&D) expenditures, ETER follows definitions and rules in the Frascati Manual 2015 also adopted by the EUROSTAT for R&D statistics.
Finally, ETER uses its own definitions and methodologies for variables of non-statistical nature (most institutional descriptors and geographical information) and variables from other sources (credit mobility, quality assurance).
Notably, even if definitions might be the same as adopted in UOE, different statistical units might imply different counting methods. For example, in UOE students enrolled at multiple institutions (for example, in the framework of joint programs) are counted only once, while in ETER they will be counted in each individual institution. Accordingly, the sum of students enrolled in ETER HEIs might exceed national totals in the UOE data collection. The focus on the institutional level might generate other discrepancies, such as institutions enrolling students but not awarding degrees.
Data Sources
The ETER database contains data and indicators from a variety of sources and through different processes.
Data derived from the UOE data collection on educational statistics
Primary data are the same as those in the country and regional education and training statistics published by EUROSTAT but disaggregated at the institutional level. These data are provided by National Statistical Authorities (NSAs) or Higher Education Ministries; for few countries, they are collected by the ETER team from official sources, such as the NSAs’ websites.
Albania – Institute of Statistics
Andorra –
Austria – Statistics Austria
Belgium (Flanders) – Flanders Education
Belgium (Wallonia)
Bosnia and Herzegovina – Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria – National Statistical Institute
Croatia – Croatian Bureau of Statistics
Cyprus – Statistical Service of Cyprus (CYSTAT)
Czech Republic – Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
Denmark – Statistics Denmark
Estonia – Ministry of Education and Research
Finland – Statistics Finland
France
Germany – Federal Statistical Office
Greece – Hellenic Statistical Authority
Holy See
Hungary – Ministry for Innovation and Technology
Iceland – Statistics Iceland
Ireland – Higher Education Authority
Italy – Ministry of University and Research
Kosovo
Latvia – Central Statistical Bureau
Liechtenstein – Statistics Office
Lithuania – Statistics Lithuania
Luxembourg – Ministry of Higher Education and Research
Malta – National Statistics Office
Montenegro – Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports
Netherlands
North Macedonia – State Statistical Office
Norway
Poland – Ministry of Science and Higher Education
Portugal – Directorate-General for Education and Science Statistics
Romania – Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education
Serbia – Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia
Slovakia – Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information
Slovenia – Ministry Of Education, Science And Sport Directorate For Higher Education
Spain – The Ministry of Education and Vocational Training
Sweden – Swedish Higher Education Authority
Switzerland – Federal Statistical Office
Turkey – Turkish Statistical Institute
United Kingdom
Data collected by the ETER project team from public sources
Such sources include institutional websites and NSA websites. These include data such as foundation years, demographic events, and institutional addresses.
Data derived from existing databases at the European and international level
- credit mobility supported by the Erasmus program, data on researcher’s mobility funded by European Framework Programs from the EUPRO database;
- data on quality assurance from the DEQAR database.
Read More
Data Sharing Agreements
Data sharing increases the ability of policymakers and researchers to analyse and translate data into reports, contributing to knowledge production and policy-making. In particular, combinging data from multiple sources, as done in ETER, allows for comparisons across national and regional lines. Making data publicly available through data sharing discourages duplication of effort in data collection, and enourages accountability and transparency.
The National Statistical Authorities and/or national ministries have made and entered into a Cooperation Agreement with ETER, covering the following activities:
- Delivery of data to be included in ETER.
- Data validation and checking.
- Formatting of the data and their publication on the ETER website.
- Data dissemination activities.
In particular, in relation to data publication, the parties agreed that data delivered for the ETER project are public at the individual Higher Education Institution-level and will be made available to the public on the ETER website. These data are not subject to restrictions or authorisation, but users are requested to indicate the original data source. At the moment of the data collection, however, the data deliverer may—in exceptional and well-justified cases (e.g. binding legal requirements)—request to restrict publication of some of the data. Access to these data can be granted for research purposes and carrying statistical analyses on the condition that direct identification of statistical units in the final product is not possible. To this aim, the ETER Consortium has set up a registration system where data users agree to the indicated terms of usage.
Data Collection Process
The ETER data collection and management process is illustrated in Figure 1 below. It is organised around the ETER central database and data infrastructure, described in further detail in the ETER Handbook. The ETER central database stores all ETER variables and indicators based on ETER ID per year as a primary key (e.g. AT001.2015), i.e. all data and indicators are stored for each HEI and year.
[Figure 1. The ETER data collection and data management process – here]
The main processes can be shortly described as follows:
- The goal of the perimeter validation process is to establish – for each year and country participating in ETER – the list of HEIs to be included in the database and any changes over time. It is based on the criteria described in chapter three and builds on the RISIS-OrgReg register of public research organisations. Alongside the perimeter validation, institutional descriptors and geographical information are updated in OrgReg and copied into ETER.
- The main ETER data collection process involves the collection and validation of data relating to students, degrees, finances, personnel and research activities, i.e. the core of the ETER dataset, from NSAs and national higher education ministries. Data collection is performed on a country-by-country basis in close cooperation between the ETER project team and country correspondents.
- Supplementary data collection involves integrating additional variables derived from existing databases at the European and international level, such as data concerning Erasmus mobility or quality assurance variables. It is performed directly by the ETER team in partnership with the source databases.
- When all data have been integrated into the ETER database and validated, data are made available through the public database interface.
Data Completeness
ETER undertook all efforts to collect as many data as possible. However, coverage is somewhat unequal across countries and variables due to the lack of reliable data sources. More specifically, the situation concerning groups of variables is as follows:
- Descriptors are generally available for all countries, with the exception of a few cases, where information on foundation years was not available.
- Financial data (revenues, expenditures, R&D expenditures) are available for only about half of the countries.
- Staff data are generally available in most countries, the main exceptions being countries, which provided for the time being only the descriptors, but no statistical information. However, the breakdown of academic staff between national and foreigners is available for a much smaller number of countries.
- Students and graduates data are available for most countries, including the breakdown by gender, nationality, and fields of education. The breakdown by mobile students is less widely available.
- The situation is similar for PhD students, except that data are missing for a few countries.
Perimeter and Coverage of ETER
ETER Perimeter
As a database of information on higher education institutions (HEIs) in Europe, defining the criteria according to which HEIs are included is a core task for ETER. In principle, all institutions where students may graduate at tertiary level (levels 5 to 8 of the International Standard Classification of Educational Degrees – ISCED) may be included.
However, the European higher education landscape presents institutions that differ in programme profiles, institutional mission, student and staff profiles and internal organisation, all of which impact on data availability and collection methods. Thus, since ETER does not necessarily cover the whole of tertiary education, an accurate description of the coverage is essential to match data with EUROSTAT national aggregates and ascertain whether individual cases of HEIs are excluded.
The files linked below, include a description of the perimeter adopted for ETER data collection, as compared with the entire tertiary education system in every country and for each sector list the following information:
- A general description of the perimeter.
- Sector description.
- Curricula delivered by the sector (with reference to the ISCED mapping) and their coverage in ETER.
- Important excluded cases of HEIs in ETER.
- A reference, for example, a link to the official list of HEIs in the country.
Information is partially provided by NSAs, partially derived from the UOE ISCED mappings and from other sources like Eurydice.
Figures of coverage in terms of numbers of students are only illustrative, for exact data by year the reader should use the ETER database. The current version of the files refers to the academic year 2019/2020.
| Albania | Andorra | Austria | Belgium (Flanders) | Belgium (Wallonia) | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bulgaria | Croatia |
| Cyprus | Czech Republic | Denmark | Estonia | Finland | France | Germany | Greece |
| Holy See | Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Kosovo | Latvia | Lichtenstein |
| Lithuania | Luxembourg | Malta | Montenegro | Netherlands | North Macedonia | Norway | Poland |
| Portugal | Romania | Serbia | Slovakia | Spain | Sweden | Switzerland | Turkey |
| United Kingdom |
Coverage of ETER
ETER covers all 27 European Union member states, EEA-EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), as well as candidate countries (Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey) and the UK for a total of 37 countries. For the moment, the following countries have not provided data beyond the list of HEIs: Montenegro and Romania. Belgium provided data only for the Flemish speaking region of the country.For the new ETER contract, an extension of ETER is foreseen by collecting also data for Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Holy See and Andorra.
As EUROSTAT, the statistical office of the European Union, also provides data on tertiary level institutions, it is important to ensure comparability between data sets in ETER and
EUROSTAT. Therefore, an additional goal of this document is to provide a description of the ETER coverage in terms of types of institutions included and the number of students compared to the EUROSTAT coverage.
This comparison is based on a systematic analysis of the composition of national tertiary education, completed in Spring 2022 by the ETER consortium in close cooperation with National Statistical Authorities. It builds largely on a comparison between ETER coverage and the ISCED mappings of national education systems.
Some results of the analysis:
- The ETER coverage is very close to EUROSTAT national aggregates at ISCED levels 6, 7 and 8 for most countries, which shows that the perimeter is largely the same.
- The coverage is more extensive than research universities, including also almost all colleges and large numbers of specialised schools like art and music schools (only 40% of the ETER HEIs have the right of awarding PhD degrees).
- France Germany and Switzerland represent specific country cases where ETER coverage at ISCED level 6 is relatively low when compared with EUROSTAT, due to the
existence of a large professional sector delivering degrees at ISCED levels 6 and 7. - ETER coverage at ISCED level 5 is limited to HEIs delivering also degrees at ISCED level 6 and 7. Therefore, coverage at this level (when compared with EUROSTAT) varies strongly by country.
For further detail, please refer to the full report on comparison of the ETER perimeter with EUROSTAT.
Quality Statement
Our aim is to produce statistics that are accurate and reliable, coherent and comparable across country lines. We have developed a systematic data validation and quality control approach described in the methodological handbook and in the project’s documentation. Our latest quality report on the dataset can be consulted here.
Alongside the data, ETER provides extensive metadata by each country, which explain how data were collected, comparability issues and departures of definitions. It is very important that users carefully analyse the provided metadata before starting their analyses.
Further, within the dataset, users will encounter data flags – special codes appended to the data in order to warn the users of specific problems which impair comparability and affect analytical results. Flags are accompanied by a short explanation in the remarks, while full details are provided in the metadata. It is left to the user to decide whether data can nevertheless be used for their specific purpose.
Following flags are currently employed in ETER:
- b: break in time series
- be: break in time series due to demographic events
- d: definition differs
- i: see metadata
- ic: inconsistent
- rd: rounded
- ms: missing subcategory
- c: confidential
- p: provisional
- r: remark, data are methodologically correct, but some special event generates data anomalies, like a very large number of graduations in a single year. The remark field explains the source of anomaly.
For full explanation please refer to the ETER Handbook.
Data and information provided on this Website do not in any way engage the responsibility of the European Commission, nor of the data providers.
Dissemination and Timelines
ETER provides aggregated data at individual Higher Education Institution (HEI) level, made available to the public via web-tables and visualisation outputs. Our web application enables users to download the ETER micro data and country level metadata. Only publicly available data can be accessed from this site. A few additional data (mostly concerning finances) are available only for research purposes. To access to these data, you need to register on this website and to accept a non-disclosure agreement.
Reference Period for Data Collection
In principle, ETER provides a yearly data collection – all data should be collected every year, including those data that generally are not expected to change in almost all cases (name of the HEI, foundation year, etc.). Depending on the nature of the data and the practices of data collection, individual data refer to slightly different periods, as detailed in a table below. Specific national departures from these practices should be detailed in the metadata. Departures from these standard reference periods are noted in the metadata.
[table 9 from the handbook here]
It is important to note that these practices slightly differ from those adopted by EUROSTAT, as in EUROSTAT year ‘2012’ refers to the academic year 2011/2012 for students and graduates, whereas in ETER to the academic year 2012/2013. In both cases, the year ‘2012’ refers to the calendar year for finances, personnel and graduates.
Timelines for Release of Data
Data is returned to ETER in Q4 of the year – with one year delay – and ETER aims to release new data no later than end of Q1 the following year (31 March). Where there is a delay in releasing new data, this will be flagged on our website.
Due to the gap between the contracts, most recent ETER data release included three years of data 2017, 2018 and 2019. This data is now available for download.
One more data collection round is planned under current contract, for 2020 return period. We expect to publish this data by 31 March 2023.
Privacy and Data Protection
Due to national confidentiality requirements, some ETER data are available only for research purposes on the condition that individual data points are not disclosed publicly. This concerns mostly financial data for a small number of countries, as well as data for some private HEIs. These data are coded with “c” on the database available on this platform.
Access to the restricted data is possible by registering on this website and accepting the non-disclosure agreement.
Using ETER Data
The data available on this platform are publicly available and, accordingly, can be used to make analyses of European higher education and for descriptive and policy purposes. This includes both the data and accompanying information like flags and metadata. The ETER consortium, on behalf of the European Commission, has acquired permission from National Statistical Authorities and partner organisations to disseminate these data.
Use is permitted on the following conditions:
Reference to the ETER project has to be made as follows: “Data source: ETER project. Download date XXX”.
In scientific publications and reports, the following acknowledgment should be included: “Data have been provided by the European Tertiary Education Register (ETER), funded by the European Commission under the contracts EAC-2013-0308, EAC-2015-0280, 934533-2017 A08-CH and EAC-2021-0170”.
The user is invited to provide to the ETER consortium a copy of reports and scientific publications issued from these data.
When re-use involves modifications to the data, this must be stated clearly to the end user.
While users can download the entire dataset or parts of it for analytical purposes, they are not allowed to make available the dataset (or parts of it)
The European Commission, the ETER Consortium or the original data providers assume no liability for any interpretation of the data provided, nor for uses which do not take into account any or all of the underlying methodological issues.
All statistical data, metadata, content of web pages or other dissemination tools, official publications and other documents published on this website can be reused without any payment or written license provided that the source is indicated as ETER and when re-use involves modifications to the data or text, this must be stated clearly to the end user of the information.
Information for Data Providers +
The ETER Handbook is the key information resource for national institutions uploading annual statistical data to ETER. It provides a detailed description of the methodology and process of the data collection in ETER, covering the following main items:
• The basic conceptual principles for ETER data collection (chapter 2).
• The ETER data sources and data collection process (chapter 3).
• The definition of the perimeter of Higher Education Institutions to be included (chapter 4).
• The list of classifications to be used for different types of data, including students, graduates and personnel (chapter 5).
• The definitions of the variables to be collected (chapter 6).
• The definition and procedures for calculating indicators in ETER (chapter 7).
• The procedures for data validation, quality control and production of metadata (chapter8).
• The description of the ETER technical infrastructure (chapter 9).
ETER Handbook
Further details can be obtained from [email address here]
Data for Download and Visualisations +
These pages include access to the ETER database, information about downloading the data and accessing the restricted data from the Register.
Data Definitions
Image and/or blurb
Downloading Data
Image and/or blurb
Accessing Restricted Data
Image and/or blurb
Access the ETER Database
IMAGE
Data Definitions
… variables, indicators
Will the set of variables be extended in the future?
In case of future data collections, the ETER Task Force will carefully consider the possibility of including additional variables, taking into account also practical considerations concerning the resources required for collecting data.
Why are variables concerning research output not included in ETER?
The function of ETER is to provide a statistical dataset with basic data on higher education institutions, which are not available at the international level, like data on students, graduates, staff and finances. Most of data are provided by official statistical sources. Data on research output, like publications and patents, can be retrieved for different sources at the international level and, therefore, the user is left free to select the source which best suits its needs and to combine them with ETER data. HEI-level data on research output, including publications, participations to EU-FP research programs and patents will be made available for research purposes only by the RISIS 2 project (orgreg.joanneum.at).
Downloading Data
Our web application enables users to perform the following activities:
- Downloading the ETER micro data through the ETER Database page. This page opens a search interface where it is possible to search HEIs based on the reference year, their name and/or country. Once the list has been generated, it is possible to export the data in different formats. To export the full dataset, simply perform the search inserting nothing in the search options.
- Downloading information about country level metadata. Metadata provide important information on methodological issues, data sources and departures from definitions and thus are an important complement to the dataset. It is possible to download the metadata for all selected countries and years in a separate MS-Excel file.
A guidance on how to use the ETER interface, including the visualisation options can be downloaded here.
Accessing Restricted Data
Access to the restricted data for the purposes of scientific research is possible by registering on this website and accepting the non-disclosure agreement.
Art. 1. Additionally to the data available on the public ETER website, the ETER consortium delivers restricted data, labelled with ‘c’ in the respective flag columns.
Art. 2. Beyond the provision of art. 3, data labelled as restricted are subject to following additional limitations:
-
- They can be used solely for purposes of scientific research.
- Data have to be published in a way, which makes the identification of the specific HEI considered and the attribution of a cell value to that HEI impossible.
Art. 3. Restricted data cannot be transmitted to a third party without the written consent of the ETER consortium.
Technical Documentation + (JR)
API Documentation
General API Information
Importing Data
How to import ETER data into R
Access the ETER database via API request using R
How to import ETER data into Stata
How to import ETER data into SPSS
Results V
- Analytical Reports
- Country (snapshot) Reports
- Scholarly Publications
- Policy Reports
Scientific publications
- Google scholar – https://scholar.google.at/scholar?q=%22european+tertiary+education+register%22&hl=de&as_sdt=0,5
- Zenodo – http://zenodo.org/communities/eter
- https://eter-project.eu/#/info/references
Reports
- Country snapshot reports (new April 2022)
- Analytical reports https://eter-project.eu/#/analytical-reports
- ETER Briefs https://eter-project.eu/#/analytical-reports (and https://eter-project.eu/#/info/documents )
- Use cases https://eter-project.eu/#/info/use-cases
Learn (AIT) V
Webinars
- Upcoming training courses
- Registration
Video Tutorials (new section)
- Short introductory webcasts (new April 2022)
- Online tutorials on the use of ETER (new April 2022)
Resources https://eter-project.eu/#/info/documents (plus new material)
- Technical documentation (link to section)
News (AIT)
(category)
- Newsletter signup – European Tertiary Education Register (list-manage.com) and Newsletter archive – European Tertiary Education Register (campaign-archive.com) (sticky)
News
- News – https://eter-project.eu/#/news (which old news to be kept?)
Events (new section)
(site)
- Upcoming Events
- RISIS research seminars
- ETER policy‐makers workshops
- Past events
I would have this whole
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