Overview
The Flows Explorer tool allows you to analyse how students move between countries over time. By combining flexible filters with visual grouping and colouring options, you can identify major corridors, emerging trends, and changes in student mobility patterns across different time periods.
Accessing the Flows Explorer
To find and access the Global Student Flows' Flows Explorer tool, follow these steps:
1) Enter the Global Student Flows dataset
2) Click on the arrow next to "Flows Data & Reports"
3) Change to "Flows Explorer"
(see image below)
After clicking, your screen will load with this Flow Explorer tool:
Filtering the Data
Use the filters at the right of the Flows Explorer to focus your analysis on the most relevant student flows:
Start by choosing the perspective of your analysis:
Source: analyse where students originate and where they go
Destination: analyse where students study and where they come from
Once selected, you can choose any country or region of the world as the focus of your analysis. The visualisation will update automatically based on this selection.
Time period
Use the Time period setting to control the historical range of the data. The following options are available:
Last 3 years till 2030
Last 5 years till 2030
Last 10 years till 2030
Max (2014 till 2030)
Shorter time periods are useful for identifying recent shifts, while longer ranges help reveal structural or long-term trends in student mobility.
Show flows by
The Show flows by option determines the level of geographic detail used in the visualisation:
Region
Sub-region
Country
This allows you to zoom out for a high-level global view or drill down into specific country-to-country flows.
Filter by country percentile
Use Filter by country percentile to focus on the most significant student flows:
Top 20%
Top 30%
Top 40%
Top 50%
All
Filtering by percentile helps reduce visual complexity and highlights the countries that account for the largest share of student movement.
Sort flows by
The Sort flows by option controls how flows are ordered in the visualisation:
Ascending
Descending
Sorting can help surface either smaller, emerging flows or the largest, most established student corridors.
Showing, Grouping, and Colouring Flows
The Flows Explorer provides several options to customise how flows are displayed and interpreted.
You can:
Show flows based on the selected source and destination combinations
Group flows to aggregate data by shared characteristics (for example, by region or selected country groupings)
Colour flows to visually distinguish between different sources, destinations, or groups, making it easier to identify patterns and dominant corridors at a glance
These options help reveal large-volume flows, emerging destinations, and shifts in student preferences over time.
Copying Data
The Copy Data option allows you to copy the underlying data used in the Flows Explorer for use in external tools or further analysis.
Note: The Copy Data button may not always be visible. It will temporarily disappear depending on current rules and decisions regarding data downloads.
Tips for Analysis
Use shorter time periods to identify recent trends or sudden changes
Compare multiple destinations to see how they compete for students from the same source countries
Combine grouping and colouring to highlight regional patterns and emerging markets