EBSI’s success stories

European Qualification Passport for Refugees (EQPR)

A refugee presents an EQPR to a European university to apply for a master and find a job in Europe

The project

Every year, refugees or displaced people coming from a non-EU country arrive in Europe whishing to pursue their academic and professional career within a European country. Unfortunately, they lack the relevant documentation which was obtained in their country.

CIMEA, the Italian Information Centre on Academic Mobility and Equivalence, has the role in Italy to support higher education institutions in the recognition of foreign qualifications. Since 2019, it has adopted blockchain solutions for issuing its assessments. Besides this, it has been involved in the European Qualification Passport for Refugees project, a special tool developed by the Council of Europe, to assess refugee’s qualifications for which there is insufficient or missing documentation. Thereby, it is supporting their further studies, employment and integration, as well as a format for describing the assessment.

CIMEA has teamed up with the University of Cagliari, which are currently already enrolling students who are EQPR holders, GovPart GmbH (a German company which drives innovative projects on behalf of its clients that is looking for a graduate in Artificial Intelligence) as well as Infratel Italia (supporting Blockchain projects in Italy and the European Blockchain Partnership Initiative) to further develop the solution using EBSI.

From 2021 onwards the Council of Europe has digitalized the entire workflow of the EQPR process and its issues through Diplome Blockchain platform. The EQPR holders can now share their document in a simple, secure and fast way directly by their wallet with higher education institutions, companies, employees all around Europe thank to the EBSI infrastructure.

Diploma use case
Participating countries:
National authority (Issuers of VID):
Universities (Issuers of educational credentials):
Wallet provider:
Infrastructure:

The scenario

01

Obtain a Bachelor’s Degree

Ahmed is a Syrian refugee who obtained a Bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from Damascus University, Syria.

02

Application for a Master’s Degree

He arrives in Europe and wants to apply for a Master degree course in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Cagliari. However, he doesn’t have his previous academic documents.

03

European Qualification Pasport for Refugees (EQPR) and issuance of Verifiable Credential

In order to prove his knowledge, he needs an assessment of his qualifications. He joins the European Qualifications Passport for Refugees (EQPR) on EBSI. The Council of Europe is in charge of the EQPR and is the issuer of this Verifiable Credential.

04

Verified Credential goes into the Wallet and is directly shared with the University

After approval, Ahmed obtains his Verified Credential in his personal wallet and can share it directly with the University of Cagliari. This is possible due to the fact that this university is onboarded on EBSI which is why it can immediately verify the credential of the issuer and of the Verifiable Credential.

05

Graduate, receive the Diploma in your Wallet and make a job application

After two years, Ahmed graduates from the University of Cagliari and applies for a job at GovPart GmbH, a German company looking for a new engineer with a Master degree in Artificial Intelligence.

06