The Irish government announced on Thursday that it would grant €2 million of funding for Northern Irish students to access the Erasmus+ study abroad programme post-Brexit.
Established in 1987, the Erasmus programme is the EU's programme to support education, training, youth and sport across Europe. The programme allowed an estimated 649,000 participants to study abroad in 2021 alone.
With an estimated budget of €26.2 billion, the new 2021-2027 programme places a "strong focus on social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people's participation in democratic life," the European Commission stated.
End of an era
When the UK officially parted ways with the EU in February 2020, it also opted not to take part as an associated 'Programme Country' in the new Erasmus+ 2021-2027 programme, thereby reducing opportunities for Erasmus+ cooperation projects and exchange for university students across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
British Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, described the scheme as "too expensive" and announced that the UK would replace Erasmus+ with an alternative domestic programme called the Turing Scheme to fund students' international study.
However, the Irish government announced in December 2020 that it would continue funding Northern Irish students' Erasmus+ grants to allow them to continue participating in Europe's flagship student exchange program, as well as the UK's separate Turing Scheme.
Three years on, Ireland has announced that from September it will be allocating €2 million to fees and living costs for Northern Irish university students to spend part of their studies in another EU or associated country.
"During my many engagements in Northern Ireland, including with the universities' vice-chancellors, the loss of access to Erasmus+ Programme was constantly being raised," the Republic of Ireland's Higher Education Minister Simon Harris said in a statement on Thursday.
"This funding will bolster the financial capacity of the institutions to meet the mobility needs of their students. It is an investment in relationships between institutions north and south. It is an investment in our island's next generation, and I think it is a really practical, sensible way of continuing to cooperate post-Brexit."
In the coming weeks, education officials and Northern Irish institutions will finalise arrangements to ensure support is in place from September.
