Turing scheme to replace Erasmus+ student mobility programme after Brexit

The government has revealed a new scheme which will fund UK students to undertake study and work placements abroad after UK leaves the Erasmus+ student mobility scheme.

Photography by Simon Harriyott (Flickr)

The new Turing scheme will replace the UK’s membership of the Erasmus+ programme and 35,000 students at UK universities, colleges and schools will receive over £100 million in funding to participate in international student exchanges and placements over the next academic year. Similar to the Erasmus+ scheme, students will receive a grant to help with the costs of their mobility placement.

The programme has been named after the famous English codebreaker Alan Turing, who played a crucial role in cracking the Enigma Code during the Second World War and whose work was largely unknown during his lifetime due to the Official Secrets Act.

As part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pledge to tackle regional inequality and “level up” the country, the Turing programme will focus on students from disadvantaged backgrounds and areas with low participation in the Erasmus+ scheme in order to make “life-changing opportunities accessible to everyone across the country.”

While UK university students have previously been able to undertake study and work placements around the world, only those choosing to study or work in EU countries were eligible for the Erasmus+ grant.

Although the Turing programme will be launched in September 2021, current UK students will still be able to participate in the Erasmus+ scheme in the 2021-22 academic year as long as the funding has been allocated before the end of 2020. However, these placements will be subject to different immigration restrictions on an individual country-by-country basis.

After the end of the Brexit transition period, UK nationals will be able to visit EU countries without a visa for up to 90 days within an 180 day period. Study and work placements will likely last longer than that period and therefore UK students will have to apply for a visa for individual counties.

Only students at Northern Irish institutions will not be affected by the change and will still be able to access the Erasmus+ scheme as the result of an agreement with the Irish government. Although they will not receive a grant under the Turing programme, EU students will still be allowed to study in the UK as part of Erasmus+ for up to six months, after which they will require a visa.

UK institutions, including UCL, will be invited to apply for the programme in early 2021 in anticipation of the 2021-22 academic year.

The prime minister has defended the change in claiming that membership to the Erasmus scheme was costly and that the Turing scheme will “deliver greater value for money to taxpayers.” Johnson stated that:

“The issue really was that the UK is a massive net contributor to the continent’s higher-education economy because over the last decades we had so many EU nationals, which has been a wonderful thing, but our arrangements mean the UK exchequer more or less loses out on the deal.”

Although the UK welcomed 31,727 EU students in 2017 under the programme, which is twice the 16,561 UK students that left to study and work abroad in EU nations, some have argued that the scheme represented a net benefit to the UK.

A report by Universities UK International (UUKI) found that EU students visiting the UK as part of the Erasmus+ scheme generate £243 million per year for the UK economy. According to UUKI, EU students bring in a total of £420 million before Erasmus+ membership fees have been deducted, but this income could be at risk if European students are dissuaded from studying in the UK in future. 

On UCL’s Study Abroad page, the university has confirmed its intention to apply for the new Turing scheme in early 2021, which will work together with existing Erasmus+ exchanges next year until the end of the 2014-2020 Erasmus+ cycle. Current UCL students should still be able to access an Erasmus+ grant in the 2021-22 academic year as long as the funding was awarded before the end of the transition period in December 2020.