Student mobility in the (dis-)United Kingdom: Policy developments in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit era

• Brexit contributed to a further divide of higher education policy across the UK nations England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. • The UK government’s withdrawal from Erasmus prompted calls for national self-determination on the part of the devolved nations. • Reactive student mobility policies by Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were shaped by each nation’s specific political and historical circumstances. • Wales demonstrated agility in policy development by creating Taith. The 2016 Brexit vote greatly unsettled longstanding student mobility policies involving the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union, leading to the UK’s exit from the Erasmus programme. This paper explores how student mobility policies evolved across the UK's constituent countries in the post-Brexit and post-Erasmus era. It uses sociological institutionalism to investigate how Brexit affected policies, norms, and cultural-cognitive ideas (Scott, 2008) surrounding student mobility in the higher education (HE) space of the UK. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, the study finds that Brexit contributed to a further divide of higher education policy across the UK nations England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Normatively, Brexit intensified tensions between the UK government’s predominantly competitively oriented internationalisation approach, and preferences for more collaborative student mobility policies on the part of the English HE sector and the governments and HE sectors of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. In the cultural-cognitive realm, Brexit represents a continuation of the UK’s perennially competing logics of British exceptionalism vs European integration, with quarrels over higher education policy contributing to national self-determination claims on the part of the devolved UK nations.