Participants at the TBS Education campus agreed that the session marked a significant step forward towards making student mobility more efficient and more accessible for all.
- On 17th September, the EWP Champions gathered at the TBS Education campus in Toulouse to discuss strategies for advancing Erasmus Without Paper (EWP) and the wider European Student Card Initiative (ESCI). They focused on measures to
- increase adoption of digital learning agreements , which set out the programme of the studies or the traineeship during an exchange abroad
- achieve the once-only data entry principle in the Erasmus+ mobility process – a concept where people only need to provide standard information to administrations or authorities once
Tackling adoption issues
The session began with a welcome from Stéphanie Lavigne, Dean & Director General of TBS Education, and Florence Ramillon, Director of International Relations.
Through a World Café-style discussion, participants switched around different tables to tackle common issues preventing the adoption of digital learning agreements, such as reliance on paper agreements, premature sharing, and multiple requests for different university faculties.
The result was a set of actionable ideas to help EWP Champions promote the goal of reaching 95% of all learning agreements being exchanged digitally by the end of 2025, and address challenges faced by their institutions and their specific national contexts.
Streamlining once-only workflows
The afternoon focused on reviewing how the mobility process can be simplified through the ‘once-only data entry principle’ for the future Erasmus+ programme phase.
Participants discussed topics including
- improving higher education institutions’ profiles
- linking nominations to inter-institutional agreements (IIAs)
- streamlining learning agreements
- enhancing the Erasmus+ App for students
Groups shared recommendations on how to implement these changes and improve institutional processes. These recommendations will be used as the basis for shaping the development of ESCI into the next programme phase.
Conclusion and next steps
The meeting concluded with group presentations, summarising key takeaways and strategies to further promote peer-learning amongst higher education institutions and EWP champions. Participants agreed the session marked a significant step forward in the path towards making student mobility more efficient and more accessible for all.
EWP is instrumental to supporting the Council Recommendation Europe on the Move, which aims to boost learning mobility and make it as inclusive, seamless and as easy as possible for students within the European Education Area.
The European Student Card (ESC) is getting a new digital platform. The revamped ESC Router will make it easier for higher education institutions to issue ESCs and for mobile students to validate their student status and access student services across the European Education Area.
What is the ESC Router?
The ESC Router (ESC-R) is a digital platform that enables higher education institutions across Europe to integrate common European elements into their students’ cards, turning them into European Student Cards (ESCs). This means that students can easily validate their student identity and access relevant services when on exchange abroad in Europe.
With a move to the European Commission’s cloud infrastructure comes the highest security standards, further scalability of the ESC and a streamlined user experience for card issuers and student service providers validating ESCs.
By facilitating the rollout of ESCs, the enhanced ESC-R contributes to achieving the goals of the Council Recommendation “Europe on the Move”, which seeks to boost student mobility so that at least 23% of European graduates in higher education have a learning experience abroad by 2030.
When will the new ESC Router be available?
The new ESC Router will be active on 23 October 2024.
What users need to know
Higher education institutions using the current ESC Router have already been contacted to prepare for the migration to the new platform, which will retain the same web address.
A smooth transition process is underway to ensure their accounts and their ESCs issued will be migrated and continue to function seamlessly in the new platform.
New users
If you are a new user, you can register now.
Register on the new ESC-Router
What does the new ESC Router bring?
The new ESC Router offers several benefits to users, including
- full compliance with EU data protection regulations, safeguarding student information at all stages
- scalability through a data model based on EU standards, allowing for future improvements to and evolution of the ESC
- an improved user interface, offering a smoother, more intuitive experience in line with EU design guidelines
- immediate and more secure ESC issuance, enabling higher education institutions to issue cards instantly
- seamless API access, easily integrating with institutional systems
- enhanced platform reliability, providing secure and instant verification of student status
- no external costs for higher education institutions
- more opportunities to expand the services that are accessible to European Student Cardholders
Related topics
If you have any questions about the European Student Card (ESC) or its governance structure, visit our help and support pages.
Originally published on the ESCI portal.