Adult learning is part of the concept of continuous learning that takes place throughout life (Salleh et al., 2015).

The ongoing changes in education systems require support in order to move from traditional teaching in the local environment to a more international context. One of the initiatives supporting this educational approach is the Erasmus programme.

Personnel mobility is crucial, and it usually precedes student mobility so as to prepare the flow of students between higher education institutions, thereby ensuring the quality, attractiveness and competitiveness of educational programmes (Seidahmetov et al., 2014).

The main objectives of staff mobility are:

• expansion and enrichment of the range and content of the courses offered in the participating institutions;
• formation and strengthening of connections among higher education institutions;
• promote the exchange of pedagogical methods and experience;
• motivate students to participate in mobility schemes;
• enabling students, who do not have the opportunity to go abroad, to benefit from the foreign professors’ international experience of (internationalization at home);
• knowledge transfer infrastructure among higher education institutions and enterprises.

When choosing one of the 2 types of staff mobility (for teaching and for training), the main reasons are: development of skills and competences as part of professional development;·         strengthening the cooperation with partner institutions and creating new networks;·increase the quality of services and teaching offered to students by the respective staff members (Jahnke, 2018).

Even though in recent years the proportion of staff international mobilities has tended to increase compared to student mobilities (Teichler, 2017), staff mobility has been analysed episodically and fragmentarily in the scientific literature (Valeeva & Amirova, 2016), provoking discussions about the measurement of its added value (Palma-Vasquez, Carrasco, & Tapia-Ladino, 2021). In general, the potential offered by the mobility paradigm in the context of higher education is huge and largely unrealized and it can open up new learning and educational opportunities nowadays (Chattara & Vijayaraghvan, 2021),

The future vision of Latvia education in 2027 is characterized by the transformation of the role of educational institutions, during which educational institutions will become as "learning organizations" and offer diverse learning opportunities, environments and approaches for adults; they are organizations with a high level of professional competence of management, teachers and academic staff, strategic vision, responsibility and autonomy; they are also organizations that actively cooperate (About Educational Development Guidelines 2021-2027, 2021), although studies emphasize stronger mobility impact on short-term and personal/professional development compared to long-term or institutional impact (Lam & Ferenc, 2021).

In the context of the research, the understanding of the competence of adult educators as "being able to act in relation to certain known, unknown and unpredictable situations" is relevant, which emphasizes action (Illeris, 2011, 33) and is often the point of convergence of the education of adult educators and the needs of schools (Gümüs , 2022).

Research shows that adult learners have high competence, partly due to the activities they get engaged in, including Erasmus mobilities (Salleh et al., 2015).

Competence includes three important aspects, which are knowledge (cognitive), attitude (affective) and skills (psychomotor), which are combined in order to solve certain tasks (UNIDO, 2002).

In the context of the research, the Iceberg competence model is relevant, which is based on three main aspects, namely knowledge, attitude and skills, adapting and modifying it to 5 areas of competence or competence domains: knowledge, skills, attitude and values, cooperation, as well as achievements (Salleh et al., 2015).

 Research questions:

• What is the evaluation of the competences acquired by university teachers during Erasmus mobility?  
• Are there any and what statistically significant differences exist there depending on the profile of university lecturers (teaching and training)?

In order to answer the research questions, a descriptive cross-sectional research design and a data collection method have been chosen - a questionnaire in the Google docs environment, structured in 2 parts - profile questions and substantive questions. The first part includes a profile question about the type of mobility of university lecturers (teaching or training), the second - about the competences acquired during mobility, where as a result of the theoretical analysis 5 competence criteria of adult educators have been identified with the corresponding indicators: • knowledge (improvement of knowledge in the application of information and communication technology tools); • skills (development and experimentation of new and innovative teaching methods; acquisition of industry-specific and practical skills that correspond to professional development; improvement of foreign language skills); • attitude and values (learning from good practices abroad, improvement of job satisfaction); • cooperation (cooperation with a partner institution, civil cooperation and labour market representatives); • achievements (increase of social, linguistic and cultural competences; strengthening and expansion of one's professional network; improvement of one's career opportunities; development of organizational, management and leadership skills). An online survey has been administered by applying a questionnaire containing a 6-point Likert scale (1=not applicable, 2=strongly disagree, 3=rather disagree, 4=neither agree nor disagree, 5=rather agree, 6= strongly agree), in which substantive issues have been assessed. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the test reliability examination indicates good internal consistency (α=.82). The results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test on the non-compliance of the empirical distribution with the normal one (p=.000) have determined the application of non-parametric methods for the secondary data acquisition. Empirical data processing methods using SPSS software to provide quantitative data processing methods: • Descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode); • Mann-Whitney U Test to detect differences between 2 independent samples. 221 respondents from Latvian higher education institutions took part in the survey: 49 respondents who have used staff mobility for teaching (outbound) and 172 who have used staff mobility for training (outbound).

Overall, respondents have rated the benefits of ERASMUS mobility as achievements, cooperation, skills as well as attitudes and values the highest. Among the achievement indicators, the respondents have rated strengthening and expansion of their professional network the highest. Among the indicators of cooperation, the respondents have highlighted cooperation with the partner institution. Out of the skills, they have rated the acquisition of industry-specific and practical skills that correspond to professional development the highest. Regarding attitudes and values, respondents have emphasized learning from good practices abroad. Depending on the profile of the respondents, there are statistically significant differences in the assessment of cooperation (p<.001) and skills (p<.001) in general and in individual indicators - respondents who have used staff mobility for training rate higher the cooperation with civil cooperation and labour market representatives (p <.001) and acquisition of industry-specific and practical skills corresponding to professional development (p<.001), compared to respondents who have used staff mobility for teaching. This complies with the results of other studies on the impact of mobility on the professional development of lecturers (Zajadacz et al., 2021; Kafarski & Kazak, 2021), which in turn promotes the academic, professional and individual development of participants, at the same time contributing to the expansion of the global labour market (Mizikaci &Uğur Arslan , 2019), as many of the skills analysed here include the European dimension that can only be fully exploited in an international perspective (Gardel Vicente, 2022).

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