Vienna, Prague and Stockholm are the top three safest cities in Europe for international students according to housing platform, HousingAnywhere, which has announced its first top 100 safest cities in Europe for international students index.
The ranking was created to help students make informed decisions for their futures regarding study, internships and work placements as every year more young people are choosing a study or internship program abroad.
“The safety of the city is a key factor in the choice of study destination”
In 2017, some 725,000 students went on exchange through the EU’s Erasmus+ program alone and more students “are choosing an experience abroad every year” said Djordy Seelmann, CEO of HousingAnywhere.
“We hope that this study will help prospective international students make an informed decision about where they want to go next,” added Seelmann.
According to the housing platform, personal safety is among the primary concerns of mobile students.
Earlier in 2018, a report highlighted that international students were increasingly flagging safety concerns as influencing their study abroad decisions.
“When studying abroad, the safety of the city is a key factor in the choice of study destination,” Simone Pouw, HousingAnywhere PR manager told The PIE News.
“Safety comes in third, right after the cost of the experience and if they speak the language of the country,” Pouw added.
One of the main categories for calculating numbers was transportation, accommodations, attitude towards international students and the evaluation of international students towards the city itself.
“This metric was developed with the help of figures on Inclusiveness by Social Progress based on discrimination against minorities and a ranking developed by Travel Bird. The Travel Bird ranking was based on a city’s openness to tourists and general English language proficiency,” said Pouw.
“The combination of the two is a good representation of how locals perceive people ‘not from here’ as international students would be more ‘permanent’ compared to tourists, but less compared to people staying in the country.”
While the capitals of Austria, Sweden, and the Czech Republic took the top three places, two Spanish and German cities made it in to the top 10 list of safest cities in Europe.
Cities in Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and the Netherlands also featured in the top 10. Just three cities in the UK – the European country with the largest international cohort – were placed in the top 20: London, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Three French cities featured in the top 30, while the German cities of Cologne and Bremen were placed 97 and 98 respectively, with Galway in Ireland placed 100th.
Trondheim, Bergen, and Stavanger in Norway and Ljubljana in Slovenia were excluded from the top 100 cities named in the index as a lack of data had a negative impact on their position in the ranking and the platform “felt the outcome wasn’t representative”.
