Erasmus at 40: Enhancing European Integration’s Global Impact

Obreal’s contribution to the 40th anniversary of Erasmus

The fortieth anniversary of Erasmus comes as the European Union defines its next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and reassesses the means through which its external action can deliver impactful, visible and lasting results. This is an occasion to celebrate a European achievement, but, above all, to draw lessons from it for the Union’s future partnerships and international standing.

Erasmus was not born as just a programme on Higher Education cooperation. As Obreal has emphasized in its HAQAA Policy Briefs, it had a much broader and even more important purpose: bringing Europe closer to the people; being an essential element of “People’s Europe”. Since 1987, it has helped turning cooperation among universities into an enduring feature of European integration: certainly, as shared practices, mutual recognition and stronger HE institutions; but, even more importantly, allowing young people to experience living in an integrated political space and enhancing their sense of European citizenship. Just in 2024, Erasmus+ supported nearly 1.5 million mobility participants and involved more than 85,600 organisations in over 34,400 projects.

The more consequential measure of Erasmus’ success is what remains after the funding period for these specific projects ends: not only skills, institutional capacity and trusted networks but the strengthening of a sense of community with common values and common interests, in particular among young people. This is how and where higher education can meet, transversally, all the European Union’s present priorities, as will finally be defined in the next MFF.

From specific projects to global policy impact

When presenting the new MFF, the European Commission emphasizes, in its section on Building partnerships for a stronger Europe in the world, “(the need to) maximise impact on the ground and improve visibility of EU external action in partner countries“. This is a policy objective of utmost importance. In the past, Erasmus has certainly developed an “external window” in third countries not members of the European Union. But this external window has concentrated on projects limited in scope and duration that risk having too limited impact and not offering sufficient visibility to the EU, which funds them.

The commemoration of Erasmus’ 40th anniversary is the perfect framework to address this shortcoming.

For more than twenty years, Obreal has pursued precisely this connection between European cooperation, continental and regional integration in other parts of the world and economic development, resiliency and agency in international economic relations. From the initial project it managed for the European Commission (2004-2007), through all individual projects in HE cooperation in which it has participated, to its work leading SPHERE and HAQAA, including the promotion of different instruments and approaches to facilitate student mobility in Africa, Obreal  has been able to forge a sustainable alliance of governments, continental and regional integration organizations, university associations, multilateral organisations and economic actors. It has sought to relate European policy objectives to regional integration, skills and the institutional priorities of partners while defending the multilateral system.

Obreal’s Interregional Dialogue on Education and Development intends to consolidate this approach in political practice, convening institutions with the authority to link university cooperation to regional agendas. Interregionalism can in this way help the European Union make better use of existing investment, extend its policy reach and strengthen the credibility and visibility of its partnerships.

Activities in 2027

Obreal’s Erasmus anniversary programme of activities will be embedded in established conferences and policy processes, with European-level discussions feeding into interregional exchanges and, ultimately, the Fifth Interregional Dialogue. With the support of the Catalan Government (Government of the Generalitat of Catalonia), events are envisaged:

  • In December 2026 in Addis-Ababa in the framework of the Fourth Interregional Dialogue
  • In February 2027 in Argentina and Uruguay
  • In April 2027 online in collaboration with the European University Association (TBC)
  • In May 2027 in Brussels and in Mexico
  • In June 2027 in Barcelona, with the U. Barcelona, and in Uruguay in the Pre-CRES framework
  • In July 2027 in Kenya, in the framework of the AAU’s COREVIP
  • In September 2027, in Central America, jointly with CSUCA
  • In November 2027, in the Dominican Republic in the framework of the Fifth Interregional Dialogue

A contribution to the next phase of European cooperation, meant to join other contributions

The initiative will emphasize the existence of positive externalities and spill-overs in European expenditure in education, which can even have greater political and economic value than the specific outputs and direct outcomes of specific projects and their effects on individual institutions.

Obreal will collaborate with all initiatives to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Erasmus, in particular those promoted by the Erasmus + Coalition. But it considers its own responsibility to launch this initiative that emphasizes an aspect usually left aside: the international relevance of Erasmus from a global perspective.

Obreal invites any interested institution or organization to join the initiative by just sending an email to erasmus40th@obreal.org