POSITION PAPER to the European Commission’s public consultation on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability

Our consortium of the Erasmus+ funded KA3 capacity building project “Cities of Learning: youth co-design learning, civic and career pathways” supports the European Commission’s efforts and commitment to collect ideas for the development of a common definition for micro-credentials, European Union (EU) standards for their quality and transparency and the next steps to be taken at the institutional, national and EU level.

We contribute with our extensive experience in and expertise of using and promoting digital Open Badges which is a global standard for micro-credentials. Open Badges enable learners and learning providers to record information related to the learning process, achievements or competences. Each badge has important metadata built within: name, description, criteria, the issuing body, evidence, the date of issuing and other additional information. Diverse organisations, businesses, institutions, schools, colleagues and universities use badges to validate and recognise learning and achievements in Europe and beyond. The Open Badges standard may allow connections with ESCO or any other European or national qualification framework, giving transparency to the achievements represented by a badge.


We very much welcome the proposed common European definition, common characteristics and a roadmap of actions aiming to establish a European approach to micro-credentials. Furthermore, we want to draw attention to the following ten key areas to be addressed and included within the European approach to micro-credentials: file.