Integration processes that take place in the world community in all areas of human activity have affected education as well. In this process of Kazakhstan universities, education and science integration into the world education space a very important place is given to student and teacher academic mobility. In the current period the world education space is taking shape, expressed primarily in harmonization of education standards, approaches, curricula and specialities around the world.
In Declaration of first World Conference “Higher Education in the Twenty first Century: Vision and Action” (Paris 1998, UNESCO) it was noted that solution to the most important tasks of new century – to improve quality of higher education – demands higher education of international dimension. This implies knowledge exchange, creation of interactive networks, student and teacher mobility, international research projects (along with and considering national cultural values and conditions). Thereby internationalization began to guide the development of higher education systems in the world. 
Student academic mobility has taken priority after the European Commission has published a Green Paper on “Promoting the learning mobility of young people” on July 8, 2009 and has become one of the most observed and visual forms of higher education internationalization. In many counties international student mobility has become one of the key issues in politics, both from viewpoint of sending specialists abroad, and of attracting scientists into the country or even as potential highly-qualified expats.
In the Ministerial conference (Leuven, Belgium - Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 2009) of Education Ministers of Bologna process member-countries an idea was phrased that In 2020, at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher Education Area should have had a study or training period abroad (ii 18–20 of Communiqué). This mission accomplishment - activation of student academic mobility – demands Universities’ energetic and mass participation. It relates not only to better technical equipment of universities to attract foreign students, but to improving management process organization. This applies to study programmes, which should be brought closer and adapted to study programmes in foreign universities, and to everyday management process, which should become flexible and mobile.
In Europe academic mobility is a much-in-demand social, economic and political process. In this regard it is interesting to look at analysis of student academic mobility trends and level in European countries. The most interesting research results were published in materials of UNESCO Statistics Institute “Study on Mapping mobility in European higher education. Brussels, 2011” and statistical book Academic cooperation Association “The Bologna Process in Higher Education in Europe. Key indicators on the social dimension and mobility. Brussels, 2009”. According to information published in these sources, a number of mobile students has doubled for the last 10 years, but they are still an insignificant part of all foreign students (about 1%). Countries attractive for foreign students are Spain, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Portugal, and Finland, and the opposite, - the smallest number of students study in the UK, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania. During studies the most “mobile” specialties have been identified, among them, humanities and social sciences, business, law, construction and engineering sciences. Balance review shows that entry-exit mobility ratio in Europe is about 10:1 and only Belgium, Austria and Estonia achieve absolute mobility. Sweden and Denmark are leaders in entry mobility; they accept three times more students than they send to other countries. 
All European countries provide substantial support to academic mobility, developing various programmes, while giving more attention to exit mobility. Of particular interest are study results that help to pick out the main reasons that inhibit academic mobility development. Some of them are:
- lack of information about academic mobility programmes;
- lack of motivation among students;
- lack of financial support;
- low level of foreign languages skills;
- mistrust in quality of academic mobility programmes;
- inadequacy of study programmes;
- problems with visas.
At the same time certain factors have been classified, factors that serve academic mobility development, such as individual financial support, designing mechanisms for successful completion of study programmes (e.g. ECTS and DS, creating “windows of mobility”) and programmes awareness. 
Of particular interest is a report called “Students’ views on Bologna process”, prepared by European Students’ Union, which articulates the main problems which still remain unsolved. Here are some of them:
not all countries linked credits to learning outcomes;
teachers’ not students’ opinion is considered during student workload calculation; 
course status, not student workload, is taken into consideration to determine number of credits
contact hours remain the main tool to determine number of credits
during transition to ECTS students’ workload increases due to large number of components in each course
University student and teacher academic mobility can be carried out in three main areas, traditionally differentiated by expert community in modern education. They are: intra-city mobility, intra-country mobility and international mobility.