European Badge Alliance
What is the European Badge Alliance?
Today’s learning opportunities for young people are limitless; individuals learn and acquire
new competencies not only in the traditional setting of a classroom (formal learning) or at
work, but more and more outside of it. Important learning takes place through participation
in civil society, whether individually or with peers.
Increasingly, young people experience European learning mobility to develop key competences through organised, non-formal or informal learning, for example youth exchanges, training courses, volunteering, vocational education and training mobility. Experts agree that such international experiences develop skills, knowledge and wider competencies that often remain invisible, but are essential for employment, advancing careers, further studies and civic participation.
Several partner organisations for the European Badge Alliance (EBA) project have identified that existing recognition tools are not sufficient to address the needs of young people. Key competences acquired through non-formal or informal learning, including learning mobility are often not validated and recognised enough.. Youth workers and educators lack competencies to use innovative recognition and tools. Cooperation among institutions needs to be reinforced at regional, national and European levels. There is a scarce integration of non-formal and informal learning recognition within formal education, VET sector, and labour market.
Therefore, the European Badge Alliance is a project aimed at innovating the recognition,
validation and communication processes of key competences acquired by young people in non-formal and informal learning contexts, with particular reference to learning mobility, in order to increase their personal and professional development, their participation in learning and their employability.
The EBA partnership has set out 4 specific objectives.
- To increase the use of Open Badges as an innovative tool for the recognition of key competences
- To improve the competencies of youth workers pertaining to recognition processes of non-formal or informal learning.
- Raise awareness on the importance of improving recognition of key competences learned through mobility among decision makers
- To increase the integration and interaction among non-formal, informal and formal learning, including vocational educational training.
The project realised five intellectual outputs:
- A study analysis on the identification of the state of the art and potential of digital Open Badges.
- Created multiple sets of Open Badges for all eight key competences, available for download from badge library.
- Tested Open Badges and badge guidelines in European mobility projects (see publication with an overview).
- Developed policy recommendations on the potential of Open Badges as a tool for recognition of competences from non-formal and informal learning, addressed to decision makers
- Advanced badging platform features enable organisations to easily import badge systems and issue Open Badges to young people participating in European learning mobilities and badge earners easier managed badge collection and add them to their CVs.
The main results of the project:
- Introducing, testing and mainstreaming the use of Open Badges as a new tool for the recognition of competences from non-formal and informal learning among young people in Europe, validating the key competences acquired by young people through the use of badges in the Europass CV.
- Increasing the competencies of youth workers in the recognition process, meaning improving the capacity to respond to young people’s needs; mainstreaming the use of Open Badges toward the creation of a badge ecosystem across Europe for the modernisation of organisations working in the youth field.
- Increasing knowledge among decision makers on the role of mobility in the acquisition of key competences: improving the integration of formal, non-formal and informal learning and their collaboration through the use of Open Badges
The impact of the project in the long run contributed to the discussion on the policies for
recognition of competences gained through non-formal and informal learning at the European
level.
EBA provided evidence-based material on the use of Open Badges, which can be transferred to other sectors (i.e. formal education, vet, labour market).
Project partners:
- UNISER SOC. COOP. ONLUS, Italy (lead partner)
- Awero (former Badgecraft), Lithuania (has and uses a technical platform to issue badges through platforms, such as www.awero.org and www.global.cityoflearning.eu).
- European Federation for Intercultural Learning, Belgium
- Youth exchange Umbrella Ass. Juvenil (Youth for Exchange and Understanding),Portugal
- Semper Avanti Stowarzyszenie, Poland
- Lithuanian Association for Non-formal Education
- Associazione Emiliano-Romagnola Centri Autonomi di Formazione Professionale - A.E.C.A., Italy
- Politechnico di Milano, Italy (has and uses a technical platform to issue badges)
Join the Cities of Learning Network
EBA partnership was fundamental to continue working on Open Badge recognition and promotion. Several other European initiatives continued work started by EBA, for example Badges4goog partnership and Cities of Learning cooperation which resulted in creating an informal Cities of Learning Network.
- Do you organise international learning mobility activities such as internships, school or youth exchanges, European Solidarity Corps volunteering or training courses?
- Do you want to use digital Open Badges to motivate and recognise learning and achievements of your participants, mentors and facilitators?
- Do you want to learn how to use Open Badges, an innovative technology, and promote it through your work?
For more information, contact support@awero.org.
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Awero not-for-profit organisation manages this platform and develops it together with leading educational organisations. The European Union's programme Erasmus+ granted co-funding for building the first version of this platform. Contact support@awero.org.
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