EU Student Card Extension and Adoption Erasmus Project

Project Title

EU Student Card Extension and Adoption

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The EU Commission invested considerably in the development of the European Student Card (ESC) as a key means to implement and realise the European Educational Area by 2025. The ESC provides for a consolidated and reliable mechanism for students’ authentication, exchange of students’ data and interoperability among EU Higher Education Institutions (HEI) to guarantee access to students’ services to streamline and facilitate mobility.

Despite progress in the development of the ESC, its adoption across EU HEIs is still lagging due to operational and implementation challenges. The adoption of the ESC is not a mere use of a logo or is not limited to the issuance of a card: adopting the ESC imposes considerable technical, administrative and organisational requirements on HEIs. To Implement the ESC, HEIs have to “adopt the card” and “adapt the students’ services” to ESC modalities. Such “adoption” and “adaption” processes have technology as well as admin and operational aspects that are still limiting the use of the ESC.

Progress on the roll-out of the ESC is a pressing need clearly recognised by the EU, so much so that ESC adoption is a key priority of Erasmus+. While technology and ICT requirements for the ESC are available, what is currently missing in the Member States are clear operational guidelines for HEIs to address the administrative and organisational challenges for ESC adoption.

OBJECTIVE of ESC-tension is to promote the adoption and use of the ESC by establishing a platform that will become a national focal point for the HEIs that want to implement the ESC. The platform will host the multilingual versions of operational tools that will detail the administrative, organisational and operational steps to issue the ESC, harmonise the card systems and adapt the students’ services to make the ESC fully functional in operational environments.

ESC-tension brings together excellence at EU level in the sphere of HEIs, student cards, ESC implementation as well as students’ services. The partnership encompasses complementary capacities and expertise through the involvement of 7 partners from 6 countries.

ACTIVITIES that partners will carry out at implementation include:
1) Establish and maintain the ESC-tension OER and operational platform to make available for free and in full open-access the operational tools and training materials for the implementation of the ESC
2) Develop the ESC-tension Multidimensional Matrix, to capture the various dimensions of the ESC implementation requirements
3) Define the Card Issuance and Adoption Toolbox that equips HEI with tools to customise ESC technology standards as well as comply with organisational and operational requirements
4) Define the ESC-Compliant Students’ Services roadmap to empower HEIs to implement the ESC from a students’ service perspective
5) Validate the ESC-tension operational tools with at least 200 users in diverse operational environments, taking into account needs and preferences of both HEIs and students

The ESC-tension methodology is fully operational and relies on the direct experience and proven track record of some of the partners of the project that built considerable expertise in the ESC having participated in previous projects funded by the EU Commission to develop the framework of the ESC and its architecture.

Results produced by ESC-tension are as follows:
a) The OER and Operational Platform of ESC-Tension, to guarantee access and availability without any restrictions to the products of the project, in multiple language versions
b) ESC-tension Multidimensional Matrix to capture and outline the various requirements for ESC adoption
c) Card Issuance and Adoption Toolbox
d) ESC-Compliant Students’ Services roadmap
e) The Organisational Self-Assessment Tool
f) ESC-Tension Technology Self-Assessment Tools
g) Admin & Tech Compatibility-test for readiness, gaps and steps
h) Guidelines and Training for the adoption of the ESC

IMPACT of ESC-tension is high and immediate. Our project will produce operational tools to advance the adoption and use of the ESC in HEIs that will have available the tools to implement the ESC in “Plug & Play” modality. The impact is going to be tangible not only at HEI level but also at systemic level across EU thanks to the high transferability of the Intellectual Outputs and results of the ESC-tension project.

Long-term benefits are identified in the:
– increased adoption by HEIs of the ESC
– enhances interoperability of the ESC across borders and across HEIs
– improved opportunities for seamless mobility
The long term benefit of ESC-tension is the tangible contribution to the adoption of the ESC and realisation of the European Educational Area by 2020

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 299138 Eur

Project Coordinator

FONDAZIONE ENTE NAZIONALE PER IL DIRITTO ALLO STUDIO E PER I SERVIZI AGLI STUDENTI & Country: IT

Project Partners

• EUROPEAN STUDENTS’UNION
• KATOLICKI UNIWERSYTET LUBELSKI JANA PAWLA II
• UNIVERSIDAD DE MALAGA
• HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITAET ZU BERLIN
• ENTE PER IL DIRITTO ALLO STUDIO UNIVERSITARIO DELL’ UNIVERSITA CATTOLICA-EDUCATT
• European Campus Card Association