Trans-European mobility has been at the core of EU education policy since the introduction of mobility programmes in the 1980s when the Erasmus and Youth for Europe programmes were introduced (in 1987 and 1988, respectively). Under the SOCRATES, Lifelong Learning Programme (particularly the Leonardo and Erasmus strands) and the Erasmus+ programmes mobility has become an important tool to provide young people with an experience of studying and working abroad. Significantly, the new Erasmus+ programme for the 2021-27 period will have an estimated budget of EUR 26.2 billion, almost double the amount allocated to the 2014-20 programming period, with 70% of the budget dedicated to mobility.Mobility programmes have demonstrated that they can have an impact on learners’ skills and competences as well as wider skills such as level of autonomy, confidence, independence, and open mindedness. In addition, a mobility period can help learners to define their future career and life choices. The evaluation of the Erasmus+ programme found that participants had a shorter transition time between education and employment.4.The research on the longer-term investment of mobility programmes is in its infancy, for example, with ongoing research (at the time of writing) into the cost-benefit analysis of mobility programmes in Czechia. However, mobility should be considered as a longer-term investment in individuals, particularly those from vulnerable groups as they may endure less periods of unemployment compared to their peers. Historically, existing mobility programmes such as the Leonardo programme and Erasmus+ programmes have tried to target those with fewer opportunities as part of the focus on social inclusion, but they have not been extremely successful. The category of ‘fewer opportunities’ is extremely broad and has tended to cover young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs), unemployed and underemployed, people with disabilities and minorities. The mid-term evaluation of the Erasmus+ 2014-20 programme found that just 11.5% of the total number of participants in Erasmus+ were disadvantaged young people.

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