The project began in June 2020 and its main phase was implemented until July 2022. During the project’s implementation, the experts worked with national stakeholders, e.g. Ministries and local authorities, higher education institutions, statistical offices and national higher education organisations and authorities, to develop and implement a capacity building programme.

The aim of the programme was to prepare the ground for the European Graduate Tracking Initiative through a series of capacity building actions, such as workshops, seminars and peer learning activities. The activities brought together stakeholders and facilitated a dialogue on the state of each countries’ graduate tracking capabilities to identify gaps and relevant actors at national level, and to develop an organisational structure and take action where needed.  

The draft final report of the project was submitted to the European Commission in July 2022. It shows that significant progress has been made in the majority of participating countries across most areas identified by the Council Recommendation on tracking graduates. This assessment is based on the countries’ technical capacity to track their graduates, as well as stakeholders’ attitudes towards the European Graduate Tracking Initiative.

Ecorys Europe and the network of national graduate tracking experts are now preparing to deliver follow-on capacity building to support the roll-out of the Eurograduate 2022 survey in the 17 participating countries. At the wider European level (and in collaboration with ICF), national experts will update the mapping of their countries’ graduate tracking capacity against the 2017 Council Recommendation. Options to use administrative data to track graduates, and how it could be used alongside survey data in the framework of the European graduate tracking initiative, will also continue to be explored.