Abstract:

This paper examines the formation of eBelonging as a situated, relational, and digitally mediated dimension of students’ participation in transnational higher education. Drawing on the context of Erasmus+, CIVIS, and Blended Intensive Programme mobility schemes, it investigates how hybrid forms of academic engagement, combining physical mobility with sustained online collaboration, reshape students’ experiences of belonging within international learning environments. The study focuses on mobile students from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, the University of Bucharest, Aix-Marseille University, and the Autonomous University of Madrid.

Adopting a comparative qualitative methodology, the research is based on participatory workshops and semi-structured focus groups conducted in coordination with partner institutions. The analysis explores the interplay between students’ motivations and expectations, their processes of academic and social integration, and the negotiation of roles, communication practices, and collaborative norms within culturally heterogeneous teams.

The findings suggest that participation in international exchanges constitutes a transformative learning trajectory that fosters reflexivity, intercultural competence, and increased agency in collaborative knowledge production. At the same time, the development of eBelonging remains contingent upon structural and affective conditions, including administrative uncertainty, financial precarity, divergent expectations regarding assessment and group work, and experiences of early-stage social fragmentation.

By situating these insights within current debates on inclusive internationalisation, student engagement, and transnational communities of practice, the paper argues that sustainable forms of eBelonging require an integrated institutional ecology combining pedagogical intentionality, equitable material support, and digitally mediated relational infrastructures. Overall, the study argues that fostering sustainable eBelonging requires not only access to mobility opportunities but also pedagogical care, inclusive digital practices, and institutional responsiveness to the relational dimensions of international learning. It concludes by outlining implications for the design of mobility programmes that seek to move beyond access-based paradigms towards more holistic, inclusive, and emotionally responsive models of international higher education.

Keywords:

eBelonging, International student mobility, Intercultural collaboration, communities of practice, Inclusive internationalisation.