Erasmus or Turing? Why it’s not an either-or

Join HEPI Director Nick Hillman OBE and SUMS Consulting at 11am tomorrow (22nd January 2026) for a webinar based on the report ‘University Lands: Mapping Risks and Opportunities for the HE Sector’. Sign up for the webinar here. Read the blogs HEPI had published on the report here, here and here.

This blog was kindly authored by Beverley Orr-Ewing, Consultant and Student Mobility Lead, Cormack Consulting Group, and Professor Sally Wheeler, Vice-Chancellor, Birkbeck, University of London.

As the UK edges closer to a return to Erasmus+, attention is turning towards what this might mean for the Turing Scheme. For many universities, particularly those with deep European partnerships and strong Modern Language provision, the prospect of rejoining Erasmus is genuinely welcome. Politically, it is also an attractive signal – a step towards reversing some of the damage caused to relationships by Brexit and restoring a sense of connection with our European partners.

Against that backdrop, our concern is less about a return to Erasmus itself, and more about the assumption that Erasmus can simply take on the role Turing currently plays. The real question, therefore, is not which scheme is better but what we will lose if Turing disappears.

Different schemes, different problems

Erasmus+ and Turing were created to address different policy challenges, at different moments in time and in very different political contexts. Erasmus+ emerged in the late 1980s as part of a broader project of European social integration, designed to support long-term cooperation through reciprocal partnerships between largely publicly funded higher education systems.

By contrast, Turing, was designed in a post-Brexit landscape where the loss of Erasmus made a contraction in outward student mobility all but inevitable unless a new mechanism was put in place. From the outset, it placed greater emphasis on two areas Erasmus historically struggled with: widening participation and global reach. Turing was never intended to be a like-for-like replacement for Erasmus+, and treating it as such risks misunderstanding both its purpose and its value.

What Turing has enabled

A useful starting point is what Turing has enabled, and how it has reshaped and added value to student mobility.

First, a genuinely global approach. The Turing Scheme has supported tens of thousands of UK students each year to undertake study and work placements overseas. In the 2023–24 funding round alone, nearly 23,000 higher-education students were supported, with placements spanning more than 160 countries worldwide. Alongside European destinations, the top host countries also show how non-European mobility has become central to Turing. In 2023–24, six of the ten most common higher-education destination countries were outside the EU (the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea and China), and these non-EU destinations accounted for just over half of learners across the top ten.This reflects a shift away from a primarily Europe-centred model towards mobility that aligns more closely with student interests and the increasingly global outlook of UK higher education.

Second, a more flexible, student-focused funding model. Turing places fewer structural requirements on the form mobility must take, allowing funding to follow the student rather than being shaped by institutional exchange frameworks. This has made it easier to support a wider range of mobility types, including short programmes, work placements and volunteering. While Erasmus also supports work and volunteering, Turing’s design has provided greater flexibility in contexts where traditional exchange models are difficult to sustain or risk excluding particular groups of students.

Third, a clear priority around widening participation. From its inception, Turing was explicitly framed around improving access to mobility for students who have historically been less likely to participate. Funding outcomes for 2023–24 indicate that close to half of higher-education Turing participants were from under-represented or disadvantaged backgrounds, reflecting the scheme’s prioritisation of access. Its support for shorter, more flexible forms of mobility has been particularly important in widening participation, creating opportunities that are more manageable alongside work, family and financial commitments.

This focus reflects purposeful choices shaped by both the diversity of today’s student body and the way UK universities now operate within a competitive global higher education environment.

Equity and access

The question, then, is how well Erasmus can sustain the broader patterns of participation that Turing has helped to establish. While Erasmus offers many strengths, its traditional models work best for students who are already well placed to participate – those who can commit to longer periods abroad, manage higher upfront costs and navigate study in another European language or academic system.

Turing marked a deliberate shift away from that default. It was designed not just to increase the number of students going abroad, but to ensure that students from less financially secure backgrounds could access similar international opportunities to their peers. Removing it risks a return to mobility models that remain open in principle, but are easier to take up for students with greater financial flexibility and fewer competing pressures. If widening participation is to be meaningful, that risk requires careful consideration.

Global breadth and strategic reach

One of Erasmus’s greatest strengths is its stability secured in long term institutional partnerships, but the flexibility of Turing has enabled UK student mobility well beyond Europe at a time when global competition for talent, partnerships and influence is intensifying.

Erasmus does allow some third-country mobility through KA171, but this remains capped and partnership-led, with limited flexibility and scale. If Erasmus were to become the sole mobility mechanism, the geographic frame and shape of UK student mobility would inevitably narrow, at a time when UK universities are being required to think more globally.

A different operating environment

There is also a more fundamental structural issue at play. UK universities increasingly operate within a funding and policy environment that differs markedly from that of many European counterparts. They are less directly publicly funded, more dependent on international engagement, and therefore more globally oriented in both strategy and outlook. For many institutions, this is not a matter of ambition alone but of long-term sustainability.

Erasmus was designed to support publicly funded systems with strong regional integration. For EU member states, it also sits within a policy framework that they are able to shape and influence over time. Turing, by contrast, aligns more closely with the strategic reality of UK institutions, particularly those seeking to build sustainable engagement in growth regions such as India, Africa and Southeast Asia. In practice, universities were only beginning to realise how Turing could be used as a strategic lever alongside wider international priorities – removing it now risks cutting off that line of development just as it was starting to take shape.

Disruption and uncertainty

There is also a practical reality to consider. Over the past five years, universities have rebuilt systems, processes and partnerships around Turing. Removing it would create partnership instability, impose significant transition costs and erode institutional capacity at a point when resources are already under pressure.

Alongside this sits a wider issue of political volatility. If student mobility funding is subject to repeated policy shifts, institutions are forced into short-term planning, designing programmes that may not survive the next change of government. That environment makes sustained investment, partnership-building and long-term student opportunity much harder to achieve.

Design and delivery: what can be improved

None of this is to deny that Turing has significant shortcomings. Late funding announcements, heavy administrative requirements and a lack of certainty of funding from one year to the next have created real challenges for institutions. They have not been able to embed Turing fully into long-term strategy.

There are also limits that stem from Turing’s underlying design. Most notably, it does not provide funded reciprocal mobility unlike Erasmus, which embeds exchange as a core principle. Turing was deliberately constructed as an outward-only scheme. This has made it harder for institutions to sustain balanced international partnerships but reflects a conscious policy choice.

Challenges around timing, administration and predictability are matters of delivery rather than principle. With clearer commitment, earlier confirmation of funding and greater multi-year certainty – drawing on the planning cycles familiar from Erasmus – many of these could be substantially mitigated. The experience of recent years suggests not that Turing lacks purpose, but that it has not yet been given the conditions it needs to thrive.

A question of balance

The most sustainable outcome is not a choice between Erasmus or Turing, but an approach that recognises the distinct value of both. Together, they support different dimensions of student mobility: European depth alongside global reach; long-standing partnerships alongside flexibility; stability alongside responsiveness.

In a relatively short period of time, Turing has begun to reshape who participates in mobility, where students are able to go, and how international experience fits. It has opened doors to experiences previously beyond the reach of many students, supported more inclusive forms of participation and given UK institutions a tool that better reflects the global realities in which they operate. It would be a loss to see that progress curtailed.

Rejoining Erasmus may be both desirable and beneficial. But allowing it to replace Turing entirely would mean stepping back from gains in widening participation and global engagement that align closely with the strategic direction of UK higher education and with the needs of students.