2026 is a very special year for the EWP Dashboard, as we celebrate its first decade. The first EWP Dashboard prototype was tested by EUF universities in 2016, before being made publicly available the following year.
It’s fascinating to look back and consider how far we have come in the last 10 years. At the time, the EWP Dashboard was taking its first steps as a companion tool to the Online Learning Agreement. It was launched before the EWP Network, the Erasmus+ App and several other key building blocks of the digitalisation ecosystem as we know it today.
Those were the early days of the programme’s digital transformation: full of promise and inherently experimental. And while many feel in 2026 we should be further along in its digital transition, it’s equally important not to lose sight of what we have achieved, together:
- Today, 99,9% of all ECHE holders are connected to EWP and the vast majority are exchanging data digitally, rather than relying on documents!
- Nearly 1.5 million agreements have been exchanged via EWP.
- The most technically challenging processes – IIA and LAs – have already been digitalised, while the remaining ones either have stable technical solutions (ToRs) and/or are being rolled out (nominations).
After a painful start to the current programme, a robust, state-of-the-art, decentralised and privacy-focused approach to electronic data exchange has put Europe far ahead of all other regions of the world in terms of infrastructure for international cooperation in higher education.
Where would Erasmus be without an EWP Dashboard?
Back in 2016, one of the key concerns of the EWP pioneers was to avoid that the digital transition of the programme would disproportionately benefit institutions with more resources, ambition and capacity. The risk was real: Erasmus could have split into two distinct groups of institutions, gradually drifting apart in terms of digital readiness and cooperation.
Against this backdrop, the idea of providing a powerful tool at no cost to universities was, to put it simply, revolutionary. The EWP Dashboard was entrusted with the herculean task of guaranteeing a truly inclusive Erasmus digital transition, playing a central role in ensuring that no university would be left behind.
The EWP Dashboard has played a key role in enabling us to achieve that very ambitious goal – in the process, it has also empowered many HEIs to punch above their weight. Even today, a quick glance at the EWP Champions list reflects a remarkable diversity of institutional sizes and profiles, a clear testament to its lasting impact. It is therefore no surprise that more EWP Champions are using the EWP Dashboard than all other IT systems combined.
Not just for the little ones!
While for many years the EWP Dashboard was presented as a last-resort solution for small higher education institutions, that has long stopped being the case. Today, it’s evident the EWP Dashboard is used by universities large and small alike. From Oslo to Galway, from the Sorbonne to Sciences Po, from Amsterdam to Leiden, from Napoli to Lisbon to Athens, many of Europe’s largest universities have been successfully relying on the EWP Dashboard for years!
Increasingly, larger universities are getting in touch, recognising the EWP Dashboard for its stability, affordability and gold-standard compliance with EWP. Many have grown frustrated about paying very high fees for products riddled with EWP compatibility issues. Although 2025 was the year in which essential steps were taken to ensure a seamless exchange of data across all network nodes it was arguably one of the most challenging years for users of certain commercial IT services.
An integral part of the fabric of European higher education
The EWP Dashboard’s 10th anniversary is a fitting occasion to reflect on its success and impact. This impact is not measured solely by how many large universities rely on it. In fact, entire countries use the EWP Dashboard, oftentimes with outstanding results! This feat inspired us to design a new EWP Dashboard front page as a celebration of these collective achievements.
Today the EWP Dashboard is used by around 80% of the ECHE holders participating in study mobility. This outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion. For many years, the EUF and the EWP Consortium partners had to bootstrap its operations, drawing deeply on their own resources to ensure this vital cog of the Erasmus digital ecosystem remained available to over 3.000 HEIs across Europe. Pulling the plug, particularly when the digitalisation was taking its first critical steps, would have deprived the vast majority of HEIs of the tool they relied on a daily basis to facilitate the management of mobilities, undermining – and potentially reversing – the digital transition progress that our entire community worked so diligently to advance.
Structured funding for the operation of an open access EWP Dashboard has only been available since 2022, and we are thankful that the European Commission has eventually agreed to take this important step – after all, it’s not the political responsibility of a network of 100 universities like the EUF to fund, on its own, infrastructure used by several thousand institutions. Furthermore, the EUF and the EWP Consortium remain strong advocates of open access to the EWP Dashboard, and it is essential that public funding continues to be available for its operations. A return to a bootstrapped modus operandi is both unsustainable and incompatible with the high standard of service that EWP Dashboard users have come to expect.
A pivotal 2025
At the 2024 Student Mobility Summit, which was dedicated to EWP, many universities using the EWP Dashboard expressed disappointment that its last significant update dated back to 2022 – and they were absolutely right. The usage of digital agreements had increased rapidly, making further improvements not just desirable, but necessary. This is why in 2025 the EWP Consortium went out of its way to make the EWP Dashboard even more robust, introducing the following functionalities:
- Ability to segregate information per faculty / organisational unit (version 5, Spring 2025)
- Support for OLA major/minor changes (version 5, Spring 2025)
- Multilingual user interface (version 5, Spring 2025)
- ASCOLA course evaluation functionality (version 5, Spring 2025)
- State-of-the-art EWP nominations implementation (version 6, Autumn 2025)
- OLA anti-duplicates functionality (version 6, Autumn 2025)
- OLA extended deletion functionality (version 6, Autumn 2025)
- Support for course catalogue data for HEIs lacking API capabilities (version 6, Autumn 2025)
- Extended filtering and viewing options (version 6 Autumn 2025)
- Removal of interdependencies with the Erasmus+ App (version 6, Autumn 2025)
The newly launched versions 5 and 6 have consolidated the EWP Dashboard as one of the most robust, dependable and advanced IT tools currently available to universities.
Yet, little did we know that the thirst for more functionality would be far from quenched after our work in 2025. At the 2025 EWP Convention and at the EAIE, more and more universities approached us with suggestions for more and better digital services, sharing their ideas, enthusiasm and vision for the future of mobility. In doing so, they have thrown us a mighty challenge, and we will rise to it!
A spectacular tenth anniversary
After a decade at the forefront of the digital revolution, the EWP Dashboard is, probably, the unsung hero of the EWP digital revolution. This anniversary, therefore, feels like the right moment to embrace new challenges, confident that even greater achievements lie ahead.
By the time you read this article, we will have launched a large-scale survey to all EWP Dashboard users. Their feedback on the tool’s future evolution will form the blueprint for a much more advanced version of the EWP Dashboard, called Atlas. This will be a very exciting development, and we will be telling you more about it throughout 2026. Additionally, one highlight of the 2026 EWP Convention will be a sneak peek at some of the most anticipated Atlas functionalities.
It’s important to note that Atlas is not meant to replace the EWP Dashboard. In fact, as part of the EWP Dashboard’s 10th anniversary celebrations, we will be making several new Atlas features and functionalities available free of charge to EWP Dashboard users for most – or perhaps even all – of 2026. At some point, the two tools will follow separate paths: the EWP Dashboard will remain an open access tool for as long as public funding allows, while Atlas will become a not-for-profit, community-powered tool with outstanding capabilities that will go well beyond what can realistically and sustainably be made available to universities through the EWP Dashboard. Atlas will take the bullet-proof robustness of the EWP Dashboard and its native EWP compatibility to new heights, while adding groundbreaking functionality, greater flexibility, customisation and integration possibilities with local IT tools.
We think 2026 will be a spectacular year. Together, over many years, we have built a world-class digital infrastructure, but the best is yet to come! Do you want to know more? Click on the banner below.
