Faces of Our CommUNAty: “Una Europa micro-credentials make education more flexible, accessible and inclusive for all.”

Amandine: During our pilot project, Una Europa wanted to explore joint micro-credentials – the added value for our alliance, for learners, and for society at large. We wanted to make education more flexible, accessible, and inclusive for all. We brought together experts in educational development and lifelong learning to exchange on our universities’ existing frameworks, our differing perspectives, and the opportunity to develop joint micro-credentials together.

At the same time, academics in the Self-Steering Committees [the alliance’s academic bodies aligned to our six Focus Areas] had already started to identify a need to share knowledge on interdisciplinary topics with a larger audience and had begun working on various Joint Innovative Formats (JIFs) for education.

Today, our most advanced micro-credential programme is the Una Europa Micro-credential in Sustainability, which provides a holistic understanding of global sustainability challenges. It has been created in a flexible way that allows learners to study at their own rhythm and build a learning path adapted to their individual needs.

This was a great learning experience for our alliance. We discovered how to create formats that are relevant and accessible for a broad audience. We explored how to co-create this format with students. It also gave us the opportunity to address broader student administration issues – how to enrol students in a joint programme, how to award ECTS credits, and how to issue certificates.

Lore: The European Council recommendation on micro-credentials has been a stimulus for many higher education institutions to start thinking about micro-credentials. In Una Europa, we want to go further than simply exchanging partner universities’ existing modules. What we really want to do is create joint international micro-credentials together from scratch, collaborating with academics, professional staff and students.

Learners have the opportunity to get involved in an international educational activity, based on the latest research in interdisciplinary topics from Una Europa universities. For the universities, it's an opportunity to participate in an academic collaboration across borders and attract new learners. The programmes can be a bridge between degree programmes among the partner universities, enhancing internationalisation and interdisciplinarity.

For the alliance, it’s an opportunity to pioneer the future of education through JIFs that bring together the expertise, research and interdisciplinarity of Una Europa universities, as well as address barriers to developing a joint international micro-credential.

Because of the European Council recommendation, a lot of universities are moving forward with organising micro-credentials, while discussions are ongoing at a national level about how to approach micro-credentials. We want to experiment with jointly creating a micro-credential programme, while at the same time showcasing to our universities and their member states the value of a truly collaborative micro-credential.

Lore: Micro-credentials are a hot topic, which can lead to confusion about what they actually are. With the Framework for Joint Una Europa Micro-credentials, firstly we want to make it clear for the alliance community what we mean by an Una Europa micro-credential: it is created collaboratively, internationally, and jointly in alignment with Una Europa’s goals and our vision for education.

Secondly, we outlined the steps from an academic’s idea for a micro-credential programme through to delivery. We have made recommendations for every step, based on the experience from the Micro-credential in Sustainability and drawing on the expertise of alliance clusters [professional services staff from across the alliance with expertise in specific areas] to support and enhance new micro-credentials.

Lastly, and very importantly, we also outlined our support structures within the alliance for creating new joint micro-credentials.

Amandine: The creation of the Framework is important for Una Europa because it lays the foundation for common definition and agreed standards for a micro-credential across the alliance, which will ensure the quality of our micro-credentials.

Amandine: Our interdisciplinary Self-Steering Committees are composed of academics who work on one of Una Europa’s six Focus Areas. These academics are responsible for developing and organising Una Europa micro-credentials collaboratively with experts across the alliance. Through the Framework, we want to provide guidance for these academics and empower them to create quality-assured micro-credentials. For example, we want to make sure that they know whom to contact – like the Teaching and Learning and Quality Assurance Clusters – when building a project team.

Lore: The Framework itself was also created in a joint way. We met with academics, professional services staff, experts from the clusters, university management, and also Una Europa students – we met with the Student Board to explore the European context around micro-credentials and held a workshop at the Una Europa Student Congress to brainstorm what future Una Europa micro-credentials could look like.

Amandine: Una Europa is committed to consolidating an educational model based on challenges, research and interdisciplinarity. We want to pool our resources together, facilitate automatic recognition, and create flexible pathways to high-quality higher education. We see micro-credentials as a great opportunity to reach these goals.

Micro-credentials offer a lot of benefits – for higher education, for alliances, for learners, and for society at large. As shorter formats that can reach a broader audience, they contribute to making education more flexible, accessible and inclusive for all. This enables the alliance to create relevant micro-credentials for the societal challenges of the twenty-first century.

This Framework is a huge milestone for our alliance in creating short, flexible, and interdisciplinary teaching and learning opportunities that will be widely recognised and in a clear, transparent way.