Micro-Credentials in a nutshell

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)are being asked to rise to the twin challenges of 
digitisation and greening the economy, to do it better by improving access and 
personalisation, and to do it cheaper given the economic imperatives of an aging population.  
Conventional study programmes are ill-suited to provide for this unprecedented acceleration 
in demand for specific skill sets and HEI processes the cannot keep up with the increasingly 
nuanced combinations of rapidly changing expectations posed by their students and the 
workplace.  
We believe that these challenges can be addressed by moving from structured degrees and 
courses to stacks of smaller credentials. Micro-credentials will allow students to assemble 
portfolios of learning from across institutions, piecing together a range of different 
competencies and areas of knowledge and skills that make up new forms of qualifications 
and align with employer requirements.. 

MICROBOL

The MICROBOL project (Micro-credentials linked to the Bologna key commitments) supports
ministries and stakeholders in exploring, within the Bologna Process, whether and how the
existing Bologna tools can be used and/or need to be adapted to be applicable to micro-
credentials. In this project an international consortium organised various meetings and
workshops where governments, experts and stakeholders came together to evaluate the
current practices and policies relating to micro-credentials. Based on the findings of these
meetings, a common European framework for micro-credentials has been proposed.

MicroHE

MicroHE aims to provide the most comprehensive policy analysis yet conducted of the impact of modularisation, unbundling and micro-credentialing in European Higher Education by:

  • Gathering the state of the art in micro-credentialing in European Higher Education today
  • Forecasting the impacts of continued modularisation of Higher Education on HE Institutions
  • Examining the adequacy of European recognition instruments for micro-
  • Proposing a ‘credit supplement’
  • Proposing a meta-data standard and developing an online clearinghouse .

MicroCredX

MicroCredX project addresses the needs of the strategic triangle of HEIs, the world of work
and students. The key questions the project addresses are:

  • How can this cooperation be strengthened in order to cater to the skill demand of employers, and at the same time improve the employability rate of university students and raise the profile of HEIs embracing the adoption of study programme unbundling and micro-credential recognition?
  • What are the skills and competences the industry requires the most?
  • How can curricula adapt to current and emerging labour market needs?

News & Articles

MICROBOL framework published

Goodbye from MicroHE

Expected impact of our Micro-Credential projects

In the long-term, our projects will increase the quality and quantity of micro-credentials on
offer within the European Higher Education Area, as well as enable recognition of those
same credentials by different educational organizations and employers.
Strategically, it is believed that in the long-term micro-credentials will become a major pillar
of university service, alongside teaching of degrees and research.​
In quantitative terms, we expect to see a steady linear growth curve in the number of
certified micro-credentials, with a shape similar that to the growth in MOOCs.