As a member of the research team for the project “University Students as Migrants: A New History of Educational Mobility in Western Europe”, I am investigating international student mobility towards France and Germany from the 1960s to the 2000s. Taking into account the changing global geopolitical context (decolonization, Cold War, European integration...), the project embeds educational mobility in the history of migration to and within Europe, and examines the development of this specific, selective migration regime in an inter- and transnational comparison. International students are considered not only as leaders-in-the-making and actors of soft power, but also as objects of migration policy. In a context in which other forms of migration are treated in an increasingly restrictive manner, this research draws on state archives as well as archival collections from international institutions, universities and student non-governmental organizations in order to take a differentiated look at the diverse experiences of international students and to examine their overlaps with other forms of migration.