The Europass project team met with representatives from the European University Association (EUA) on 30 April to discuss how higher education institutions can be closely involved in the development of the new Europass platform.

EUA underlined the importance of addressing concerns of educational providers in the new Europass. The representative also expressed worries as to the ongoing discussion on fundamental concepts in the Europass AG (e.g. learning outcomes, credentials and qualifications) and how this could impact on the platform. EUA was keen on learning more about ongoing and planned cooperation between Europass and other existing initiatives with the aim to digitalise procedures in the field of education and employment such as Erasmus Without Paper and Open Badges.

The representative of EUA shares the concerns of other stakeholders concerning data protection and in particular in the context of the planned Europass interoperability with other European tools. The Commission clarified that Europass will operate under the principle of full sovereignty of data meaning that the individual owns his/her data and has full control over how they share it. In addition, the Commission plans to carry out a full data protection impact assessment and the result will be presented to the Europass Advisory Group.

EUA felt that they are not the right organisation to support end-user testing of the Europass platform but may be available for more specific testing on the structure of the platform.