UK universities are about to rejoin Erasmus+. Let's not walk back in facing the wrong way.

By Roger Horan, CCG EU Funding Expert, Written 5th August 2026

After six years out, the UK is re-associating to Erasmus+ from 2027. The agreement is signed, the British Council is set to run it, and the first calls are expected to open this autumn. Cue the celebratory posts.

But here's my worry, and I'll say it plainly: too many UK institutions are going to treat this as Turing with a blue flag. Outward mobility, students sent abroad, box ticked. That would be a waste of the single most valuable thing Erasmus+ gives you that Turing never did — a partnership architecture. And Key Action 1 is where that architecture lives.

KA1 is not "sending students out." It's how you get a seat at the table.

Key Action 1 — Learning Mobility of Individuals — is the part of Erasmus+ most people think they understand and most institutions under-use. Yes, it funds student and staff mobility. But the real prize is that KA1 forces you into structured, reciprocal relationships with peer institutions across Europe: inter-institutional agreements, joint quality standards, shared recognition of credit. Turing gave you money to fly students out. KA1 gives you a network you can build on for a decade. During our absence, plenty of UK universities quietly let those relationships wither. Rebuilding them is the actual task of the next eighteen months — not filling in a mobility spreadsheet.

The window is narrow, and "waiting for certainty" is the losing move.

Association is currently for one year initially — the 2027/28 cycle — with calls expected to be announced in autumn 2026. That is not a lot of runway. The institutions that thrive will be the ones who did the unglamorous preparation before the call opened: renewed their Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE), refreshed or re-signed their inter-institutional agreements, and had at least one concrete activity ready to go. The institutions that "wait to see how it settles" will spend 2027 watching everyone else deliver.

Getting mobility agreements right is easier than the folklore suggests.

Three things, in order:

1.          The ECHE is your entry ticket. It's the accreditation that says you meet Erasmus+ quality, inclusion, transparency and recognition standards. No ECHE, no full participation. Sort this first.

2.          Inter-institutional agreements (IIAs) are the bilateral commitments that actually enable mobility with a given partner. Good news for anyone who kept relationships warm: the Commission has indicated that partners who already hold IIAs with UK institutions — including those used under the 20% global mobility allowance during our absence — may be able to update them for the 2027 call by email addendum rather than starting from scratch. If your European partners were still moving people with you via their global allowance, you have a head start. Use it.

3.          Learning agreements sit underneath, at individual level, and are largely digital now through Erasmus Without Paper. Less bureaucratic than the reputation, if your systems are ready.

And now the part most institutions will overlook: the Blended Intensive Programme.

If I could get every UK international office to do one thing before 2027, it would be to plan a BIP. Here's why it's the smartest possible entry point.

A BIP is a short, intensive course combining a physical mobility abroad (5 to 30 days) with a mandatory virtual component before, during or after. At least three higher education institutions from three different Erasmus+ countries design and deliver it together, and students earn a minimum of 3 ECTS. Funding is refreshingly simple: the coordinating institution receives an organisational lump sum of €400 per participant — roughly €4,000 at the minimum of ten funded mobile learners, up to €8,000 at twenty — while sending institutions fund their own participants' travel and subsistence through short-term mobility grants.

Now look at what that structure does to the usual excuses. Too expensive? It's a fraction of a semester abroad. Too disruptive to the curriculum? It's days, not months, and it carries credit. Students won't commit to a term away? A one-week intensive is a completely different ask. Hard to find partners? You only need two, and a BIP is the ideal low-stakes way to test a new consortium before anything bigger.

Here's the point that ties it back to my opening. Until association, UK institutions could only bolt onto someone else's BIP as self-funded partner-country participants — tag-alongs who don't even count towards the minimum numbers. From 2027, an associated UK university can be a full BIP partner, or the coordinator. That is the difference between being invited into other people's networks and building your own. It is exactly the shift from passive sender to active partner that the whole re-association moment should be about.

So, a challenge.

If you run international strategy at a UK university, ask yourself one question before the autumn calls: when Erasmus+ reopens, will your institution show up as an ambitious partner — coordinating a BIP, convening a consortium, shaping the recognition standards — or as a customer buying flights?

The door is open again. The only real question is which way you're facing when you walk through it.

I work with universities and cross-border organisations on European funding strategy and proposal development. If you're mapping out your Erasmus+ re-entry — ECHE, agreements, or a first BIP — I'm always happy to compare notes.