This is the first in a series of articles in which the EWP Consortium shares analysis and information on the evolution of digital infrastructure and the opportunities the transition to the next programming period presents.
Starting in 2017, the European University Foundation (EUF) designed and led an award-winning Connecting Europe Facility project called MyAcademicID, which paved the way for the integration of the European Student Identifier (ESI) in Erasmus Without Paper (EWP) from 2020 as well as enabled advancements for single sign-on for students. Five years onwards we are looking back at lessons learnt and what to take with us for the future.
Rational
Bringing the ESI into EWP had two fundamental goals: the first was political and consisted of aligning the building blocks of EWP with those of the European Student Card, for which the ESI was originally developed; the second was technical and meant to ensure ESI as a “red thread” that would link the various student-facing steps of a mobility process.
Results
Five years onwards the balance on the adoption of the ESI is rather mixed.
- The ESI has been fully embedded in the EWP technical specifications yet never truly made mandatory by the European Commission, meaning its usage is uneven across Europe.
- The (frequent) absence of the ESI has not created major technical issues across the almost 1 million digital Learning Agreements that have been created since, showing that the other technical identifiers present in EWP are sufficiently robust on their own.
- The correct technical implementation of the ESI has at times proven challenging, as noted in the EWP Known Issues page. Some universities have also shared concerns about extra costs their third-party provider asked for the integration of ESI, while at the 2025 EWP Convention, it was also remarked that support from the respective NRENs is not always easily available to higher education institutions.
- Key mobility scenarios/services which would have relied to a significant extent on the ESI (e.g. students generating digital European Student Cards directly or students receiving a copy of the Transcript of Records in the Erasmus+ App) have not been implemented and have been deprioritised at the policy level. This significantly reduces the demand and added value of supporting this identifier in EWP.
- It is also noteworthy that the ESI has not further evolved since the completion of the MyAcademicID project, unlike other aspects of the EWP architecture.
Lessons for the future
The body of evidence accumulated over the past years is paving the way for a growing consensus that removing ESI-related requirements across the EWP ecosystem could simplify technical implementation for all parties involved.
The opportunity to reduce technical costs and streamline the implementation of both new IT systems and existing processes would be welcome news, and the matter will be discussed further with the EWP Technical Community with the goal of ensuring a future-proof and pragmatic approach to the evolution of EWP.