The UK is set to rejoin the Erasmus scheme, the BBC understands, five years after announcing it would end its participation as part of a deal to leave the European Union.
Through the scheme the EU provides funding for people to study, train or volunteer in other European countries for up to a year.
The UK replaced it with its own Turing scheme in 2021, which funds similar placements worldwide.
The government said it would not comment on ongoing talks. Ministers are expected to make an announcement on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had suggested in May that a youth mobility scheme could be part of a new deal with the EU.
UK students will be able to participate in the Erasmus scheme from January 2027, the BBC understands.
Alex Stanley, from the National Union of Students (NUS), said it was “fantastic that another generation of students will be able to be part of the Erasmus programme”, adding that it would represent a “huge win for the student movement”.
“Students have been campaigning to rejoin Erasmus from the day we left,” he said.
The Erasmus scheme, named after the Dutch Renaissance theologian, was scrapped in the UK in December 2020, when the government announced its post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.
Boris Johnson, the then-prime minister, said it was a “tough decision” but the scheme had become “extremely expensive”.
He said it would be replaced by the Turing scheme – named after British mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing – which has operated since then.
Both schemes are open not just to university students, but also to people doing vocational courses, as well as apprentices and people training at college or school.
In 2020, the last year in which the UK participated in Erasmus, the scheme received €144m (£126m) of EU funding for 55,700 people to take part in Erasmus projects overall.
The UK sent out 9,900 students and trainees to other countries as part of the scheme that year, while 16,100 came the other way.
Glasgow, Bristol and Edinburgh were the three universities to send the most students, with Spain, France and Germany being the most popular destinations for UK students.
In the 2024/25 academic year, the Turing scheme had £105m of funding, which paid for 43,200 placements, with 24,000 of those being in higher education, 12,100 in further education and 7,000 in schools.
The majority (38,000) of students were from England, with 2,900 from Scotland, 1,000 from Wales and 1,200 from Northern Ireland.
Ministers who introduced the Turing scheme in 2021 said it was designed to benefit more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and provide greater support for travel costs than the Erasmus scheme did.
It is not yet clear what will happen to the Turing scheme once Erasmus is reintroduced for UK students.
Welcoming the news that Erasmus was returning, Liberal Democrat universities spokesman Ian Sollom said it was a “moment of real opportunity and a clear step towards repairing the disastrous Conservative Brexit deal”.
