Beyond Mobility Flows: A Network Perspective on Academic Exchange and National Innovation Performance

International academic exchange is widely regarded as an important mechanism of knowledge transfer and international collaboration, yet relatively little is known about how countries’ structural positions within academic mobility networks relate to national innovation performance. This study examines the relationship between Erasmus academic mobility and innovation using a multidimensional quantitative framework integrating Social Network Analysis (SNA), econometric modelling, and inferential statistical analysis. Innovation performance is operationalised through the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS), while Erasmus mobility data from 2008–2013 are analysed at both country and institutional levels. The empirical design combines regression analyses of mobility characteristics with two complementary network models: a classical model based on conventional centrality measures and an extended model incorporating weighted, influence-based, and temporal network metrics. The results indicate that overall mobility volume is only weakly associated with innovation performance, whereas mobility directed towards highly innovative countries exhibits substantially stronger associations. Network analyses further demonstrate that countries occupying more influential structural positions within Erasmus mobility networks consistently achieve higher innovation performance across multiple EIS dimensions. The comparison of the two analytical models shows that the extended multidimensional network representation captures complementary aspects of knowledge diffusion that remain only partially visible through conventional centrality measures. The study contributes conceptually by framing academic mobility as a knowledge network and methodologically by integrating econometric and network-based approaches within a unified analytical framework for examining international academic exchange and innovation.