“This is an absolutely colossal investment in education, skills and training,” said DfE head of international partnerships Peter Jukes: “Are you ready?”, he asked delegates of UUKi’s
Global Mobility Conference 2026.
“Erasmus+ of 2027/28 is not the same as the Erasmus we left in 2020,” Jukes said. “It is bigger, it is broader, and it is part of a wider message to our European partners that we want to be friends and we want to work together to address shared challenges.”
EU and UK policymakers emphasised that Erasmus+ in 2027/28 encompassed much more than student exchange, highlighting opportunities for joint research programs, faculty-led mobility, and partnerships beyond Europe.
The UK’s national agency – which is yet to be announced – will fund mobility placements, while universities can bid for funding for joint research projects and dual degrees with European partners from a €1 billion pot held by the EU Commission, Jukes explained.
“Success will be measured on to what extent the UK is able to absorb the Erasmus+ budget, and to what extent UK universities become partners of projects established by European institutions,” said Filip Van Depoele, head of the European Commission’s International Cooperation Unit.
To the joy of the sector, it was recently announced the UK would rejoin Erasmus+ from 2027, following the country’s departure from the scheme after Brexit in 2020. Erasmus was replaced by the Turing program and the Taith program in Wales.
Though the future of neither program is guaranteed beyond the next academic year, the UK government gave the green light for Turing funding to continue in 2026/27, and delegates were advised by the British Council to “make the most” of the two schemes running simultaneously.
Success will be measured on to what extent the UK is able to absorb the Erasmus+ budget
Filip Van Depoele, European Commission
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the purposeful and intentional co-existence of Taith and Turing alongside Erasmus+,” said Anna Dukes, director of global engagement at Cardiff Metropolitan University, echoing sector-wide concerns about the last-minute allocation of Turing funds which can be a barrier for students.
Meanwhile, the UK’s reassociation to Erasmus+ has come during the final year of the scheme’s current iteration. A new version of the program will be adopted for the period 2028-34, with the UK’s continued association dependant on future negotiations.
“We are extremely pleased to see the UK joining in 2027 and we hope this will continue,” said Van Depoele. “It is clear there is political will, but nothing is done until it’s done.”
“We need to make sure, it’s a success, otherwise it will be difficult to convince politicians to re-commit,” he said, urging universities to “jump on opportunities” and make the most of the 2027 funding call.
Elsewhere, speakers doubled down on Van Depoele’s message of urgency that “partnerships are not built – or rebuilt – overnight.”
Stephan Geifes, director of the National Agency for Erasmus+ at the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) warmly welcomed the UK’s rejoining of the program, declaring: “We want our British students back”.
While scientific cooperation remains strong, Geifes said student exchange had suffered, with the number of German students seeking a UK degree falling by 50%, and visa barriers preventing them accessing internship opportunities in the UK.
“The program you’re coming back to is not the program you left. Not for you, and not for us.”
“There’s been a paradigm shift. The program has changed from an undergraduate exchange program to a powerful program for the strategic internationalisation of the higher education of countries and institutions,” said Geifes.
He highlighted up to 20% of an institution’s Erasmus+ funding could be spent on partnerships outside of Europe – which is how members previously maintained
their UK ties – and that blended programs and shorter mobility opportunities were boosting inclusion efforts.
To this end, speakers said there were lessons to be learnt from Turing and Taith in widening participation of exchange programs, highlighting the success of faculty-led group mobilities, and the widespread uptake of shorter term, more flexible experiences.
While Turing only funded outbound mobility, Erasmus+ will also bring European student flows into the UK – something Erika Boak, EU education director at the British Council said brought myriad benefits to domestic institutions.
Drawing on the early findings of a British Council report, Boak said the presence of EU students at UK universities stimulated peer learning and intercultural understanding, and that they were more evenly distributed across institution type and field of study than other international student cohorts.
What’s more, the report found EU students help to promote language learning among domestic peers and boost their awareness of the benefits of mobility, said Boak.
Promoting these benefits among students will be vital to ensure the UK takes full advantage of its reassociation to Erasmus+, as several delegates raised concerns that declining rates of language students coming through UK universities could see falling demand for European exchanges.
While acknowledging the challenges of “starting from scratch”, Geifes doubled down on the importance that UK universities used all the available 2027 funding to increase the chances of a budget uplift to €40bn for the next iteration of Erasmus+ the following year.
As such, speakers from Germany and the Netherlands highlighted matchmaking events organised by their national agencies for universities to form new partnerships and deepen existing European ties, urging UK delegates: “We have to move fast.”
