Erasmus+ is back, but who gets left behind?

The UK’s return to Erasmus+ from 2027–28 is being widely welcomed, and understandably so. But it also means the end of the Turing Scheme, which, whatever its flaws, was designed with widening participation at its centre.

Our recent study of a post-1992 university, where fewer than one in a hundred undergraduates took part in mobility, suggests that what gets disadvantaged students abroad is less the name of the scheme than the practicalities around it – early promotion, short group-based options, and enhanced financial support.

Nobody much doubts that Erasmus+ is a good thing. So as institutions plan for 2027–28, the question is what we risk losing in the handover for the students who were least likely to go abroad in the first place.

Built for widening access

The Turing Scheme was launched in 2021 as the UK’s replacement for Erasmus+, and it was built around widening participation. It offered additional funding to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, defined in its early guidance as those from households with incomes below £25,000, those from a care background, and asylum seekers and refugees. It was also a global scheme, so students weren’t limited to Europe or Erasmus+ member countries.

Another defining feature was shorter minimum periods abroad than under the previous Erasmus+ programme. That mattered because, as Waters argues, disadvantaged students are more likely to be drawn to shorter placements, and shorter placements are one way to widen access. The scheme’s own rationale was that mobility shouldn’t be limited to students who already had the money, the confidence, and the family experience to go abroad for study exchange or work experience.

What our students told us

Our study looked at students at a post-1992 university where 45 per cent of the intake comes from widening participation backgrounds, and where fewer than one in a hundred undergraduates took part in any international experience in the year we studied.

All of the students we surveyed had gone abroad under Erasmus+ during its last year of operation in the UK, before Turing arrived post-Brexit. Institutional practice encouraged them to take part, through promotion after enrolment, university-organised group trips, and an additional student support fund that was available at the time.

Three things stood out. First, students didn’t arrive at university thinking about going abroad. It played no part in choosing where to study, and many were the first in their family to attend. They found out after enrolment, through staff presentations in class sessions and at induction, and peers played only a marginal role.

“I didn’t really know what was available until quite late,” as one student put it.

Without that promotion, they said, they wouldn’t have gone abroad during their time as undergraduates. Second, short, organised group visits appealed to students who hadn’t travelled before, and for some they led on to longer individual work-experience placements.

Third, money was the main worry, though not in a straightforward way. Three quarters of survey respondents were concerned about finance, yet focus group participants played it down, and some hadn’t known about the university’s own support fund.

After their period of international mobility, students said they cared more about their careers and were more open to working abroad, and nearly half changed their future study plans. We can’t prove causation – this is a small study at one university, and those who responded may have been the students with the best experiences. But it points to what mattered most for these students – knowing about the opportunity, having a route that felt manageable, and being helped to organise and finance the experience.

Turing’s record

The government’s position is that little need be lost. Ministers say that Erasmus+, like Turing, offers additional funding to help participants with fewer opportunities, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and that they will support the participation of disadvantaged students. That’s welcome, and it may prove true. But Turing’s record shows what’s at stake.

The government’s own evidence on Turing identifies that the proportion of funded students from a disadvantaged background rose from 39 per cent in 2021–22 to 56 per cent in 2024–25. The scheme has also provided additional funding for students with special educational needs and disabilities, additional support needs, or additional learning needs.

In 2025–26 the scheme supported 18,826 higher education placements, and 52 per cent of the university students it funded were from disadvantaged backgrounds. Experts have already warned that its focus on widening access and shorter exchanges will be hard to replicate in Erasmus+.

Where the rules bite

The Erasmus Charter for Higher Education guides universities to give equal and equitable access to mobility to people from all backgrounds – including those with health conditions or disabilities, student parents, working students, and those from fields where few students go abroad.

Blended mobility is highlighted as a more suitable option for some students, and institutions are encouraged to appoint inclusion officers to raise awareness, plan outreach, and make sure students are supported during a placement.

Erasmus+ does support both short and long-term mobility for higher education students. Blended mobility with a physical component of five to 30 days must be combined with a virtual component, which has no minimum duration, while long-term mobility runs from two to 12 months.

But a short visit that worked well under Turing, particularly one outside the Erasmus+ operational area, may need redesigning to qualify for student funding, or may not qualify at all – and redesign takes staff time that would otherwise go on promotion.

Guarding the handover

The risk, then, is less that Erasmus+ will fail disadvantaged students than that the features which reached them under Turing were never guaranteed to carry across – and a handover is often when unguarded things get lost. The real danger is universities dismantling the support that got widening participation students abroad under Turing.

Institutions are deciding now how to prepare for and launch Erasmus+, and by the time participation data show a problem, a cohort of students may have missed out. So the aim must be to protect what worked, and to find out quickly if it doesn’t continue. That points to four practical steps.

Four practical steps

First, keep widening participation an explicit goal. Turing assessed institutions partly on how many disadvantaged students they proposed to support, and Erasmus+ needs the same discipline. Inclusion is one of four Erasmus+ priorities.

DfE should therefore instruct the British Council, as UK national agency, to make disadvantaged participation a required and assessed part of every higher education application, starting with the 2027 call expected to open in November 2026. The agency should require each institution to state its participation targets for disadvantaged students, and institutions should set them before they apply, so that students who would never consider going abroad aren’t lost in the move from Turing.

Second, protect short and group-based options. In our study, for students who hadn’t travelled before, these were a “way in,” and some went on to longer placements. Institutions should keep offering them, and funders should make sure the rules allow it.

The British Council should publish guidance now, before the first call opens, on how short group mobility can be funded under Erasmus+ rules, and DfE should say whether any domestic funding will cover what those rules exclude.

Third, give institutions early, clear guidance on funding, timelines, and eligibility for 2027–28. Promotion happens months before students travel, so uncertainty now means fewer students hearing about opportunities. DfE should confirm the UK’s funding allocation, and the national agency should publish eligibility rules and key dates, by the end of 2026. Institutions should then publish their own timelines to students by the start of the spring term.

Fourth, monitor participation by student background through the transition, and publish it. Our study, like most in this area, can only suggest what matters – only data on who actually goes can show whether the handover is working.

The British Council should collect participation data by student background from every institution and publish it annually, starting with the 2027–28 cohort. DfE should make this a condition of funding, and institutions should track the same breakdown internally and report it on time.

None of this amounts to a case against Erasmus+. What it does make the case for is treating the handover as a test of whether the UK can keep incentives and support for international experience open to students who wouldn’t otherwise go – and for finding out early if it’s failing the groups that managed to take advantage of Turing funding. What’s most at risk in the handover is the support rather than the scheme, and Turing-era scaffolding for widening participation students could simply disappear.