Frustration as Scotland waits for detail on Erasmus alternative

Disadvantaged students in Scotland are at risk of missing out on its Erasmus replacement, a vice-chancellor has warned, as the sector continues to wait for details about the scope and scale of the much-anticipated project.

Scotland has long been promised its own post-Brexit student exchange programme after Wales’ Taith scheme launched in February 2021, followed by the UK-wide Turing programme taking flight six months later.

But the Scottish government is still working on a pilot version, which, like Taith, will also cover schools, youth groups and colleges, Scotland’s universities minister Graeme Dey told a Scottish Parliament committee earlier this summer. 

Asked by Times Higher Education, a Scottish government spokesperson said it was still not yet able to confirm the basic details of the pilot, despite it being scheduled to launch in the coming academic year.

Universities Scotland said it is in close talks with officials on the design of the exchange and is lobbying for a two-way programme which should include staff and cover the European Union and beyond, with a budget at least in line with Taith’s £16.5 million per year, adjusted for Scottish universities’ remarkable success in exchanges.

“We are edging closer to a new mobility scheme and we are working with them to maximise its potential,” said the organisation’s deputy director, David Lott, adding that the sector also “requires long-term commitment in terms of funding and ambition”.

Sir Peter Mathieson, principal of the University of Edinburgh, said many had hoped the money Scotland used to subsidise places for EU students before Brexit would remain for such exchanges under a replacement scheme, but that it had instead been used to fund higher domestic enrolments stemming from the teacher-assessed grades given out during the pandemic.

He said the launch of the pilot was “very urgent” if students from disadvantaged backgrounds were going to take part because it can take longer for those with caring responsibilities or disabilities, for example, to make the arrangements needed to study abroad. 

“The longer we leave it, the more difficult it becomes, but if a scheme was suddenly to become available tomorrow we would embrace it and we would make the best of it,” Sir Peter said.

Edinburgh led the UK in the number of students it sent and hosted through Erasmus, but Turing has provided access to less than half the funds the university used to receive, and it has had to supplement this with in-house alternatives, Sir Peter said. The University of Copenhagen, for example, spent its entire non-EU Erasmus budget on exchanges with Edinburgh, a workaround he hoped other continental partners might decide to offer.

“I’m impatient and I’m frustrated and I’m disillusioned by how long the whole thing has taken in general,” he said, referring to both Scottish inaction on Erasmus and the UK-EU horse-trading over participation in Horizon Europe.

Both he and Glasgow’s deputy vice-chancellor for external engagement, Rachel Sandison, said they hoped Scotland’s answer would complement Turing. “Ideally, Scotland’s initiative would replicate elements of Erasmus+, specifically supporting reciprocal exchange and providing shorter-term experiences than Turing currently offers in addition to year- and semester-long mobility,” said Ms Sandison.

Sir Peter said the reasons he thought the scheme had taken so long to develop were “undoubtedly at least partly an issue of money, it’s also partly an issue of disagreement between the ideology of the two governments”, referring to the Westminster and Holyrood administrations, adding that the Scottish government had “a bit of tendency to point the finger when something isn’t going well”.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com