The UK’s Erasmus return is a step in the right direction

I spent a fundamental period of my academic career in the UK, at a university – Oxford – that embodies the value of attracting minds from all over the world. I had the honour of being appointed a fellow of the British Academy. And the weather notwithstanding, I was, on the whole, very happy in the UK.

Yet the sense of closing doors and mounting instability caused by Brexit contributed significantly to my decision to return to Italy. Academics, more than workers in most other sectors, feel the impact of political signals and the post-Brexit signalling coming out of the UK government and its supporters in the press was, at best, ambiguous.

But the UK’s decision to rejoin the Erasmus+ exchange programme, reversing its post-Brexit decision to withdraw, sends a much more positive sign that post-Brexit Britain intends to retain and build on its European geography and identity. UK participation in the pan-European programme – which, it was confirmed last week, will be run by the British Council – represents a solid step in the rebuilding of scientific and cultural ties between the UK and the European Union at a time when the continent needs as much unity as it can muster.

Since its inception, Erasmus has been an effective mechanism for creating a common European identity. It has built trust between nations, helping millions develop habits of cooperation, pluralism, tolerance and understanding. And it has launched hundreds of thousands of innovation-producing transnational careers – not to mention transnational couples and families (the EU estimates that more than 1 million children have been born to people who met on the programme). To Erasmus alumni, Europe is a profound experience, not an abstract concept.

But that experience was shaken by the UK’s withdrawal in a way that went far beyond the large declines in the numbers of British exchange students in Europe and vice versa. For those working in universities, the wider negative effects were immediately visible. Despite the launch of the alternative Turing scheme, mobility became fragile, collaborations more expensive, relationships less automatic. The idea that European academic cooperation was stable infrastructure on which to build over the long term was undermined.

Repairing this mega-fracture matters for the EU but it perhaps matters even more for the UK. British universities have for centuries been central to the construction of knowledge on a global scale and we know that higher education and research thrive in open contexts. Yet data on academic mobility after the 2016 referendum shows that I was far from the only European academic to regard the uncertainty generated by Brexit as detrimental to the UK’s attractiveness.

The same was even more dramatically true for EU students. According to data from Oxford’s Migration Observatory, the number of EU students at UK universities dropped almost 60 per cent post-Brexit. Previously, they amounted to a quarter of all enrolled students but by 2023-24 that had fallen to only 7 per cent.

That trend is unlikely to be significantly reversed by the UK’s return to Erasmus given that EU students will continue to be classed as international students in the UK – with the high fees that come with that. But the move is still enormously significant, particularly if it is accompanied by serious reflection on both sides of the English Channel on how British and European universities can derive the greatest possible benefit from renewed cooperation. We must not treat it as a simple restoration of the previous status quo. The context has changed. The stakes are even higher.

In a globalised and chaotic world, competition for students and researchers is fierce. The ability to host transnational experiences within a relatively small and well-connected geography, studded with many excellent universities, is a competitive advantage for Europe. But to fully capitalise on it, international study must be integrated into curricula in a way that creates opportunity for all, not just the lucky few who can afford it. This applies not just to the UK but to all of Europe. Erasmus must be at the heart of this drive – not least to incentivise the best European students to remain in Europe by forging a strong attachment to an interlinked continent.

The UK’s return to Erasmus will not heal the political and economic wounds of Brexit. But it indicates a strong move in a positive direction: a Europe which, even amid differences, chooses to remain a space of open cooperation, especially in the places, the universities, that form the leaders of the future.

In the wake of Viktor Orbán’s crushing election defeat in Hungary, hopes are reviving that Europe can unite around liberal values and provide a significant counterweight to the global forces seeking to undermine them, in both political and economic terms. We need to promote, expand and trumpet projects like Erasmus that contribute to that agenda – for the good of students and citizens across the continent well into the future.

Francesco Billari is rector of Bocconi University, Milan.