Post-Brexit Student Mobilities: A Book Launch

Speakers: Rachel Brooks (University of Oxford) & Johanna Waters (UCL Geography)

Brexit has had a profound impact on the UK’s higher education sector, particularly in relation to international student mobility. Following the UK’s departure from the Erasmus+ programme, mobility funding and participation fragmented across the UK, with the Turing Scheme replacing Erasmus in England, alongside distinct approaches in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Drawing on a wide range of empirical data, this talk explores changing patterns of inward and outward student mobility - both through short-term schemes and whole-degree study - and how these shifts intersect with government policy and political discourse.

The speakers also develop new conceptual arguments around the temporalities, migration infrastructures and spatial imaginaries shaping post-Brexit student mobilities.

Speaker: Heike Jöns (Loughborough University)

This talk adopts a historical geographical perspective to examine the role international academic mobility has played in European reconstruction, integration and prosperity since 1945.

Building on arguments made by Brooks and Waters (2026), it discusses several adverse impacts of Brexit on student mobility and outlines four key lessons from the twentieth century that underline the importance of funding both outgoing and incoming international student mobility within and beyond Europe.

While acknowledging the complexity and politicisation of public funding decisions, the talk argues that rejoining Erasmus+ in 2027 would represent a significant shift from the consequences of the UK’s 2021 withdrawal.

Speaker: Vassiliki Papatsiba (Cardiff University)

Drawing on Papatsiba and Marginson (2025), this talk examines how Brexit has reshaped student mobility by dismantling European frameworks grounded in shared polity membership.

The removal of EU home fee status and UK participation in Erasmus+ collapsed a three-mode system of domestic, European and global mobility into a binary market-driven model, with consequences for equity, classroom diversity and doctoral and early-career pipelines.

Rejoining Erasmus+ is framed not as a symbolic policy change, but as a strategic intervention that would restore rules-based mobility infrastructure, strengthen talent pathways, and support democratic resilience through cooperation, reciprocity and shared academic exchange.

If you register but are later unable to attend, we would be grateful if you could let us know so that your place can be offered to someone on the waiting list.