Robert Buttery: A Swiss view on Turing
The UK’s departure from the European Union has in most ways been unprecedented, but there has been at least one instance in the past when a country lost the right to participate in the Erasmus+ programme: Switzerland.
Back in 2018, the EAIE published an essay in its annual Conference Conversation Starter publication on this very subject. 'Switzerland’s imperative to face outward' was authored by then-member of the EAIE General Council Robert Buttery. Among other insights, it offered ideas on what might lie ahead for the post-Brexit UK, with the Swiss example particularly in mind. Fast forward three years and we caught up with Robert Buttery to gather his impressions on what the Turing Scheme now offers the UK and where things stand today with international mobility and global engagement in his adopted country of Switzerland.
Born and educated in the UK but living in Basel, Switzerland and the immediate environs for the last twenty years, Robert Buttery is in a unique position to consider the parallels and differences that may exist between the UK and Switzerland’s ‘outsider’ status when it comes to Erasmus+. Our conversation in this episode of the EAIE podcast allows us to explore some of these considerations just as the UK’s new Turing Scheme comes online and as Switzerland considers its place in relation to the 2021–2027 Erasmus+ framework.
About Robert Buttery
Robert Buttery is the Head of International Relations at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) as well as a lecturer in Management and International Studies at the same institution. A former EAIE General Council member, Robert is currently active in a number of different international higher education committees, and is a regular speaker at conferences in the field. Before joining FHNW, Robert was a communications consultant in the pharmaceutical and financial services industries.
Further reading
→ Turing Scheme (official website)
→ Making the most of the UK’s new Turing Scheme (EAIE blog)
→ EAIE Conference Conversation Starter 2018
→ A plea for Switzerland to re-join the Erasmus+ programme (swissuniversities)
→ Movetia (Swiss national agency)
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