 Welcome to this virtual seminar series on transnational collaboration and lifelong learning looking back and looking forward. It is the first seminar series to follow on from the launch of our inside paper which we launched earlier this month. And it is looking at a central aspect of the way in which higher education is being transformed. The society is changing as at a rapid pace, the ways in which we need to learn and the technologies that we need to master change during the courses of our lifetimes and this really raises the questions and makes the question very urgent about how we keep up and how we enable our society to keep up with these transformations. It is a particularly important topic as the commission is preparing a proposal for for council recommendations on micro credentials for lifelong learning and employability. And this initiative aims at developing common definition and European stands for quality transparency and cross border comparability. And so this is an extremely not just an extremely urgent topic for the sector but is also an extremely timely discussion to have in a European policy context. As the commission is has launched a consultation, which is open until the 13th of July 2021 and we urge you all to engage with that consultation maybe also reflecting on this seminar. My name is Jan Palmosi. I'm the Secretary General of the Guild of European Research Intensive Universities. I'm delighted to welcome a really wonderful panel. But at the background of this panel is a paper that we produced and that that reflect a year's worth of discussion within the guild. And that was really written by Joe Anguri, the lead author who's here with us today, but also on a Valk vice rector from the University of tattoo, buried I car vice rector of our whose university and Karen, our most from vice rector of the University of to begin. I would rather do. I would like to pass the word hand the word now to Joe Anguri but we've before I do so I would just like to remind you that we have launched a padlet. We have shared the, the web address for the padlet with you before the seminar. So look at that we're also sharing the, the link to the padlet in the Q&A session of the seminar. Please post your questions and comments and observations on the padlet. But, and we will try and respond to them as best we can in the seminar, or post your questions directly in the Q&A section of this of this webinar. So I'm delighted now to hand the word to Joe Anguri to present today's, today's discussion in light of the findings of the inside paper. Joe the word is yours. Joe I think you're sound. Of course. Thank you again. I would like to start by thanking the writing team. The paper is a product of ongoing collaboration and aspires to start a debate on the transformational changes the sector needs and are possible at this moment in time. The paper responds to the current emphasis of education in the current policy context in line with the 2025 European education area and the digital education action plan, and also fundamentally responds to the strong discourse of the need for change that is blowing in the sector, and also responding for a new higher education model in proposing a framework and intervention and research led education, we summarize the key things we address in the paper in six areas which are interrelated and also allow us to tackle them individually. Today the dialogue by turning to the timely and very relevant topic of lifelong learning in the current policy context, and in relation to the potential of transnational collaboration, hence also probing on the value added of international partnerships. The universities are actively encouraged by national and international policymakers to diversify the portfolio of learning opportunities available to students and current dominant models of delivering they higher education pedagogical offering. We begin with a growing discourse of industry 4.0 and its emphasis on the implications of digitalization, future of work, artificial intentions, universities are prompted to turn to lifelong learning and work with different academic and non-academic stakeholders in responding to changing aspects, the changing global workplace as the dynamic societal landscapes around us. And lastly the profile of our students is changing the model student who can spend three to five years on full time education and independent means straight from school can no longer or soon will no longer be considered the norm. Graduates who currently need or desire up or risk killing towards re-employment career change due to personal circumstances need to negotiate and balance family and work responsibilities with physical attendance to courses accessing finance, making study making time to study over the period of degree programs or negotiate a complex landscape of short term courses and different providers. The graphs on the slide illustrate a well known reality, I'm not going to go through them in detail, they just aim to show variety, multiplicity and resilience of barriers that survey participants over the years have been reported in relation to participating in lifelong learning. While various open courses are available, there is often little direction and guidance as to how to engage in building coherence and a cohesive overall learning experience. And of course we know from research on MOOCs that this is not in and by itself the solution to lifelong learning. One of the challenges for higher education then is to attract and encourage non-traditional adult learners, lifelong learners to participate, but importantly how we make opportunity primarily designed for full time traditional degree students available to all learners. Traditional programs are not designed for lifelong learning but are designed having a total university experience while providing holistic education in short form is a considerable but a logical challenge with no easy solutions. These issues have been documented, however, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for rethinking relationships between the sector, the sector and ed tech policy makers and industry in the EU and beyond. The ongoing pressures on the economy and changes in the global landscape are expected to put more pressure on the need for fast up or risk killing. This is not new and lifelong learning, the significance of lifelong learning at times of crisis, lifelong learning models have been debated over at least the last 70 years. So the issue is what needs to change now in order to be able to meet policy brief and the aspiration, establish alternative pathways, provide multiple format benefits for multiple modalities that we now have at our disposal alongside traditional degrees. In this context, universities need to strike the right balance between providing for long and short term societal needs and to respond to regional, national and international priorities. Training for the present is not by definition a future proof model. In the disruptive environment of the 21st century, it is impossible to educate students for the future on the basis of the past. It is possible, however, and this is what research intensive universities do and can do very well to use evidence and prepare for change. Universities need to train for mindset for inspiring creativity, exciting curiosity, challenging learners, allowing time to try, fail, try again, succeed, explore something new. A problem solving a global attitude rather than either trying to predict a future that will constantly change or narrowly focus on the skills for the jobs of today. The need and opportunity for flexibility and creativity and formats and pathways therefore should not come at the expense of future looking research informed coherent learning experience. Current policy frameworks aim to provide tools to meet this challenge, the European University Initiative is a potential tool towards this direction. It is producing promising first results and seem to give the potential to partner institution to become gateways to global connected learning communities. We need to articulate what this means the value it brings in the support it needs. It is an experiment if successful it will need to be properly supported to move from a pilot to implementation from an experiment to the mainstream. And this is particularly relevant to work in piloting and experimenting with alternatives as is the case with microcredits. So, work on microcredential is very important for the, in the context of our conversation today, and again always new and questions such as the ones on the slide go to the core of academic practice. There has been consistent and growing interest in unbundling credit and moving beyond the traditional degree of the past 15 years. The need for a diverse ecology, learning ecology or credentialing ecology is argued documented alternative credentials typically referred to microcredentials but also digital budgets certificates industry let certificates are common. The landscape is highly diverse. There is significant work the European Commission will hear more shortly OSD establishing debating definitions you see one on the slide and quality assurance frameworks. These developments capitalize on a discourse suggesting that new forms of credentialing are necessary for skilling financially affordable education, and they have the gist of lifelong learning giving independence of choice agency to the learner. Questions, however, still remain open and need to be debated. Out of microcredits and back to lifelong learning the position we take is that as universities with a tradition with long studied tradition in research led education, we are significantly involved and can and should lead at least parts of the lifelong learning agenda, particularly by experimenting with innovative pedagogies which allow us to provide less rigidity, but transcend boundaries between roots and pathways that are available to our students. Introduce innovative ways to bundle learning outcomes or provide specific and specialized upskilling and reskilling learning activities for advanced lifelong learners, all based on state of the art research. Research intensive institutions, however, are not the sole providers of courses no should they be our vision is for universities to capitalize on the current disruption to retain all the things we do well and improve what we can do better to serve the needs of all our learners and students and the dynamic societal landscape around us. We have solid expertise to build on and lead on the change that is required and disposable. This however does not mean that all research intensive institutions would or should provide all types of formats or pathways and universities are not homogeneous category anyway, where diverse regional national communities student cohorts and so on. There has been a lot of discussion about the future university the future of learning what could and should look like this is not new from different providers with different agendas and with different voices. In that context, how education and ed tech are positioned on an either or on a binary. And in our paper, we're in our paper we're trying to transcend and challenge binaries and this is one of them. We claim we position ourselves at universities are not in competition with the attack. Why, why would we be, we have different roles and orientation. We need, however, an open and deep dialogue on the best ways to work together in a symbiotic relationship and contribute to the wider ecosystem. At this point, this level of change cannot be delivered without support establishing alternative pathways redesigning curricula we've all experienced that of the past 1460 months now, using and drawing multiple modalities, moving beyond the online binary to the digital university with flexible technology at our disposal is is a way forward, but it is also resource intensive support in the form of resource and recognition as we all know remains what we often we don't talk about, or at least not as much as we should when pedagogy innovation is on the table, and we will all have experienced educational change to rely on the generosity of spirits and time of those who take on large portfolio on top of regular workload. This, however, this model is not commensurate with the vision and the opportunity for deep quality change, which now needs to balance different tensions at an institutional level costs need to be balanced which are associated with digitalization, while at the same time, budgets are decreasing and also we all know that stuff under under a lot of pressure to cover the daily needs of the profession and therefore, with very little or no capacity for strategic redesign taking on extra work and so on. So we require top level support, which will bring together the policy framework for education for teaching and learning with the vision for reimagining research led education and the appropriate funding models for education innovation. So to close, we have summarized our papers core messages in the video you can find the full version online and on the padlets that we are co creating, but I will now share the part that encapsulates the issues of touched upon and we're debating today. To research led universities should lend their distinctive strength to lifelong learning. Digitalization is among the most powerful forces of societal and economic transformation requiring more and more people to learn new skills throughout their adult lives. Universities need to strengthen their engagement with lifelong learning and the emphasis on flexible designs developing micro credentials that are recognized across the center and beyond could be an important start. But universities must not compromise on their core mission of educating for active citizenship and long term societal growth and well being universities must be enabled to respond to this challenge according to their own strengths notwithstanding the need for harmonization. What does change look like for your institution. How can universities build on their strengths to embrace transformation in new ways. Join us and be part of the conversation. So thank you very much. One second I promise I promise I won't keep the flow. So just to say that the conversation has started. We are here in it together, and we're embarking on the journey through the seminar series that we have now successfully launched. The next seminar is taking place on the 23rd September of September on the very important topic on systems that enables to be creative and do not stifle innovation. We have an exciting lineup and series a full seminar series plan which will also announce very soon. And on that I will close with with and leave you with a seminar. At the start, let us work together to sketch a roadmap to change to change so that transformation is evolution and revolution in education and teaching and learning does not remain an inspiration and a high level vision, but we work together to make it a reality in our institutions. Thanks, Jan. And back to you. Thank you. And we already have first questions coming in from the from the pad let and maybe that could also be something that Roger could could reflect on when when we will discuss these issues with him. For now, I would like to invite coon London from the director general of for employment social affairs and inclusion at the European Commission. And Clara angles per any from the high education unit of DG education of that of the director general education and culture from the European Commission to to join the floor. And you are you are there is we have to Clara's but you are in fact come so that's that's great. But thank you so much for joining us and can I maybe just start with you. It could could you I mean from you from the perspective of the director general for employment. The director general's work on the lifelong learning agenda why is this important to you. And based on the experience of the pandemic what are the next priorities of the commission that the sector should be aware of. Okay, thank you very much. I had some difficulties joining the meeting so I'm joining from my phone but I hope you you can hear and I believe you can also see me. So, I mean, DG employment within the European Commission is the DG that is responsible for skills policy in general, and skills policy in general means skills policies, you know, independent from level or from the type of education training so it's coming from a skills perspective. Now we also have prepared a few slides. And if you go to the next one, you can already see why the EU has been working and the commission I would say at large because, and even if DG employment is responsible for skills, the work on skills is done at the level of the commission because it covers so many different policy aspects as well. And the reason why the commission came up with the skills agenda on the first of July of last year is to really to adapt to the mean transition, the digital transition to go for the skills that are needed for these transitions and then of course, because we were already preparing for the skills agenda, but then COVID-19 game and of course completely changed the context and now the skills agenda needs to be seen also in this broader reform context. Now if we look at the landscape, we have a couple of problems. Yeah, 20% of pupils at schools are underperforming and there are 60 million low qualified adults within the EU. So we have 44% of the population adult population without basic digital skills. So these are some of the problems that through skills policies the commission tries to tackle. And as I said the skills policies are brought in nature, they cover, of course, the whole economy, but they do not focus on a particular type or level of education and training. So related to this and this is on the next slide and there are a number of targets. Yeah, and by 2025 and by 2030 and the idea is that by 2025 50% of adults should take place, should take part in learning 60% in 2030. Now the only question you can have here is does really is really all learning captured also, you know, informal if I do just courses, and I don't notify anybody. Okay, so it's probably a bit more the destructive part of learning than 30% of low qualified adults because there is a real problem. We hope that they should also take part in learning and also 20% of people that recently have been unemployed and then the digital skills, the basic digital skills target is 80% in 2030 and 70 in 2025. So we believe that these objectives are very important. Now, what is important in this context as well is that I said the commission is working as a whole. We are this employment but we work closely together with the education culture but also with other details with DG connect this responsible for digital skills with DG and environment and climate that that relate to to the green skills skills for the green transition but also digital. And on this slide you see the different initiatives that were taken on European level that actually all links together. And of course, there is a skills agenda I already mentioned but also last year was adopted European education area, and to be achieved by 2025 to digital education action plan with focus on digital education also on digital skills, and this year, and the commission adopted the communication on the digital decade with the aim to, you know, achieve the, yeah, excellence but also a big mouse regarding digital skills. European Green Deal. Also I would like to pay attention to the European pillar of social rights that had the first principle on online learning that is that is key and an action plan was adopted earlier. This year and also endorsed by heads of state and and government. If we go to the next one. We see here the building blocks and the actions of the European skills agenda so it has actually for building blocks, namely joining forces so it's really based on different forces, government social partners to join up to join together to work together on improving the skills landscape for for the future. Secondly, a block is related to skilling for a job with different initiatives, including skills to support train transitions and the which also the digital skills are falling. And then there are the tools for live learning. So the commission is working on initiatives regarding an individual learning account micro credentials, your pass. And in our joint presentation we will zoom in on the ones that are in red. And of course there is the unlocking investment building block as well with the recovery and resilience front and all the other funds that were also adopted for the for the seven year period in which we entered and Clara will of course more specifically focus on a micro credentials and I will zoom in to some of the other actions. So first of all, regarding the pack for skills. So the pack for skills and really has the intention of bringing a major players in industrial ecosystems to bring them together also with public authorities great large partnerships of, you know, working together to achieve concrete investments in upskilling opportunities for employees. And also, it's focusing on upskilling and reskilling of all people of working age apprenticeships it's focusing on all types of skills, not just vocational skill I can see this all it considers all skills. And yeah, we hope that this partnership will give some some boost. And there are already large scale military stakeholder ecosystem partnerships that were, and were agreed namely in the automotive sector, and in the micro electronic sector, aerospace sector in aerospace ambition, for example is upskill 6% of the workforce each year. So every year reaching 200,000 people with 1 billion investment over the next 10 years and also, we have to stress the risk commitment by by companies and by stakeholders so so far, close to 400 signatories have joined the pack for skills. This includes big companies like Siemens Nestle Microsoft, but also some universities that provide as public employment services. And yeah, through this, there is commitment to concrete actions just mentioning one example European welding Federation plans to support training for 100,000 workers in additive manufacturing by 2030. Now if you go to the next slide we see a focus on the digital skills. The problem that we have is that one out of four people in the work also have low levels of digital skills. And there is a need for big data analysts 500,000 300,000 cyber security experts. And these are at the moment missing and you see things go very fast and new profiles are emerging there at the same time 64% of companies report that they have difficulties and recruiting. And yeah, the right specialist in a city. If we go to the next one. We see here the targets of the digital decade as already mentioned 80% of the population should have at least basic digital skills, but also there is a need for 20 million ICT specialists including data specialists, and also 75% of European companies should have taken up cloud computing services big data artificial intelligence. And also there is a focus in particular on as I mean, if we go now to the individual learning account. And this is one of the two initiatives together with micro credentials for which currently open public consultation is still there it will soon close but it's still possible to reply to it. Why is the commission coming up with this. This is because there is a growing need to update skills throughout working life, but insufficient participation of other time. And in this particular context we should remind that four out of 10 workers currently have an atypical form of work so they are not covered at say by the traditional collective agreements based training training facilities. And so the initiative is also very much focused on this also workers face an increasing number of labor market transitions around multiple barriers to participation financial non financial. And there is a need to complement what employers do already now so there is of course no intention to replace what employers do already now if you move to the next one. The goals of a building blocks of the initiative a cost sharing additional skills investments. Yeah, target groups guidance and outreach to to low qualified adults validation also will be important here. And because if you have already learned something why do again, a course is better to get your skills validated. And so it tries to address time constraints and tackle these. And of course, one issue that will need careful reflections also the quality and labor market relevance of the training offer because you need to avoid that you have all kinds of parties that offer training that is not so trustworthy. The next one. And this is the Europas initiative I quickly wanted to present it to you and then I will give floor to Clara. Also on the first of July of last year, Europas as the European platform for live and learning and career management was launched by the commission so tomorrow we are celebrating one year of Europas. And Europas exist since 2004 and was basically a CG template tool, but it has now been transformed into a tool with an e portfolio where you can of course I mean make your skills profile, and which also offers CV templates and templates for letters but also more I think this will be important in particular in the future it will provide you with skills. Yeah, profiling and also with course suggestions, for example, or you can directly apply to jobs from Europas because it is linked to the ures, ures portal employment services exchange vacancies. Now, apart from this e portfolio with career goals learning goals mobility and opportunities to find jobs and courses. I would like to draw attention to the fact that we are working on setting a standard for digital credentialing, which is called now Europas digital credentials maybe we will rename it into European digital credentials. And thirdly also you can find information on all sorts of things including also qualifications which is good for employers if they want to check qualification of an applicant. This was my part of the story game, most of which was DJ employment led but not everything and now I pass the floor to Clara for the presentation part concerning micro credentials. Thank you very much. We heard from the presentations, both by Joe and both by a coon that there is a big need for training in general for for upskilling and risk killing and higher education institutions are could also play an important role as providers for this training. We had just a few weeks ago, a ministerial debate about this topic, how developments in the different member states of the EU are reflecting on this need and in particular, whether micro credentials, shorter courses than full degrees would have a place in the in the education and training systems of the member states, and we heard from ministers really unanimously that they are all having this discussion at national level. So this is actually a very good opportunity for for guild members to engage into in these discussions at national level, while at the same time at European levels we also need to do things together, because what we heard also from ministers that many of them are waiting for EU level developments in order to see what would be the definition of micro credentials, for example, and before having a joint definition, they wouldn't want to set in stone development in their own country and and this is also very important to have a convergent view on on micro credentials. And last year, the European Commission started in a smaller working group where was the sum of some guild members participated to define what we understand under micro credentials in the European context and you can see this draft definition on the screen. And this is the basis for for all the work we are doing currently on micro credentials. We are still consulting the right public on this definition. And we hope that we will be able to come up with a proposal for a council recommendation by the end of this year, which would also include this, not this, but a definition and and this is our proposal and and you will see just if you could go back a little bit, I would like to highlight just a very few aspects of this definition. This definition is valid for all learning contexts, not only for higher education, but all fields of education and training, including non formal and informal learning. This is why we are using, for example, the expression short learning experience, but micro potential would show the results of the learning outcomes of a of a shorter learning, which has been assessed and this assessment is also very important aspect, which is needed for the trust in in micro credentials. They are less than a full degree and the qualification, but they are still more than the fulfillment of a simple course. So this assessment examination at the end is rather important. And also that the second part of the definition goes more into the technical elements on the next slide you can you can see this a little bit in in more detail. And these are these would be the European standard for for different elements which should be shown on on a micro credential and micro credential would be basically a certificate we expect in most cases a digital one, which would give information about the learner about the provider about the whole learning context and what the learner has acquired during during this learning and and the group, the expert group proposed these elements as as the basis, and we hope that by setting this as a standard, we will, we will also increase the recognition for for micro credentials. What I would like to highlight a very few important aspects in in in this regard, for example, the stack ability, which is, which is very often debated connected to micro credentials. It is useful if this smaller chunks of learning can be can build upon each other and can be combined to bigger credentials. And what we hear from from the stakeholders that this is indeed a very valuable aspect of micro credentials, but combining them into full degrees should not be possible because this is something what higher education institutions are doing on on the basis of very thorough mapping of of competencies and learning outcomes, and this should not be taken over fully by the individual. Another important aspect is the credits in higher education credits help the combination and stack ability of micro credentials so basically it is having credits assigned to micro credentials is useful for the learner is useful for the institution. But the big question is how many credits should be should belong to the category of micro credentials and here we got until now the feedback that it is better to leave flexibility to allow very small micro credentials from one is CTS up to almost a full degree, because institutions need some time to experiment with this new, not really new phenomenon but with micro credentials as a new term, and to see how their provisions would fit best under micro credentials. So here we are we are still thinking whether this very flexible approach would ensure the transparency and clarity, which is needed, or if you should define a certain credit range for micro credentials so your feedback would be really important and welcome for us. And probably the most crucial aspect of micro credentials which comes up really each time is quality quality assurance, how can we include micro credentials into provision which is trusted. And, and here in the case of higher education institutions, I think the response can be rather simple, as long as micro credential the course is leading to micro credentials are included in the internal quality assurance of institutions. They should be regarded as a trusted content, while it gets a little bit more complicated when higher education institutions are not the providers but the providers are from, from outside the UK formal education and training system or private providers. And, and here there is still a big discussion whether, whether we, what kind of system we could set up, which is attractive for private providers and, and helps to broaden micro credentials also for them. At the same time, which doesn't favor them too much, contrary to higher education institutions so a good balance between between ensuring and ensuring the quality and trust, but also giving the possibility of having micro having also non formal providers. In the systems and here probably higher education institutions could play an important mediator role because for for courses and we see it very much in the case of European universities alliances. It is very useful if institutions can work together with other players from their broader ecosystem and offer courses together. And in that case, we would expect that the quality measures of the higher education institution would also include the parts which are which are offered by the non formal provider. And, and, and this partnership between the two seems for us a very interesting experimentation and also a road which pass which we would like to see developing also from from European universities alliances but more widely from higher education institutions in general as well. And let me finish with a few thoughts on on this slide, which shows that yes we have a lot of technical aspects connected to micro credentials, but we also have the technological part which will be covered in the next presentation. But also, we need to think really broadly in policy terms, what do we, what would we like to see to be developed through micro credentials what aspect of of our education and training system should, should improve through micro credentials. Micro credentials are really obvious for upskilling and reskilling. And this is where we see that it's take that take up is expected to be the biggest in higher education. But the element of inclusion should also not be forgotten. And this is probably a little bit more challenging. In general, it is less attractive for for higher education institutions to to engage in in in in courses which would probably connect offer easier transition from that or schools to higher education, or offer a more flexible courses for for current students. Because the upskilling and reskilling of adults is is is much easier to put to be put in place. But we also think that these are areas where we should not be forgotten. And it below it, it is very strongly linked to the question of costing. Who pays for the developments of micro credentials and who pays the fees. We are conducting together with the OECD with the help of the OECD. Currently, some study looking for evidence of what is what is out there what is existing already in the area of micro credentials and there there we see that for the continuous learning spectrum. Life micro credentials courses leading to micro credentials are usually connected to full costings of participants pay the full cost but this could be a barrier for for some learners and and here you would also need to see whether some national out national authorities could also intervene and support learners in need or how could the employers take a bigger role. And here the link to what can mentioned about the individual learning accounts comes in or voucher entitlements could be also seen as possible options to to reach out to a wider range of learners, and to all who cannot afford it. And in the in currently we are in the process of wider consultation and we would like to invite you to, if not done yet contribute to this very ask participants about the definition but also some wider aspects connected to micro credentials. Thank you very much. Wonderful. Thank you very much, Clara and cool and there's clearly a huge amount of money on not just a amount of thinking but also some very practical action to to create more opportunities for adult learners through micro credentials is clear priority. Roger, if I may ask you to come along and you are you are right in the middle of this in education technology you are the chief executive officer for skilled education in your current company but also before you've worked with universities like the LSE, the University of Exeter whole host of other universities so you're right and as you've heard there's clearly a lot of tailwind, not just in the UK but also across Europe. Can I just ask you maybe some reflections on really how education technology and universities come together in this space, maybe also reflecting on some of the comments that you've seen already in the chat. Just also to encourage everybody who's who's participating to keep posting comments in the chat and questions. Jan colleagues good morning thank you so much for the kind introduction and I've kind of torn up my script I think that what Joe and con and Clara just set out there was incredibly helpful in setting out the context for why we're having this conversation for why this evolution in learning is taking place at the moment, and the way that our institutions the way that our funders the way that our regulators the way that employers and individual students need to try and respond and adapt to this changing policy now we're changing and we're evolving because of our learners because of that out because of those outcomes we're seeking to deliver because of the really clear context that I think Conan and Joe and Clara set out. So what I what I think I'll do is to try and just bring some of that together perhaps to then frame the Q&A discussion that will will have following this and to share a couple of additional thoughts about the role that the private sector is playing that new providers are playing and that governments perhaps outside of Europe are playing in this evolution as well. The first thing I'd share colleagues is that we should now think about higher education as being a spectrum of learning. I don't know the days when you know we were simply delivering world class research, we're delivering four degree programs often you know on campus for three years to students who are traveling to engage in those learning experiences. We're now moving to a spectrum, and that spectrum means that we have sometimes short courses that are uncredential that are that are simply certificates or or pure pieces of learning. There will be micro credentials that acquire credit and that gain credit that can be stackable as Clara just mentioning. Sometimes it will be certificates that you know have very clear cache in the employment and other areas. Sometimes it will be diplomas and then sometimes it will be four degree programs and thinking about it as a spectrum, I think is very, very important for two reasons. Number one, all of us are engaged in this every day and a passionate about higher education about learning and teaching. Yes, of course, you know we're engaged in this discussion and we understand it and we can, you know, really get stuck into it. If you imagine this from the perspective of a lifelong learner out there, thinking about how do I get the skills that I need for the next job for the next one on the ladder. That is a huge kind of set of considerations that I might not be used to. And so making sense of all this for the individual learner for the business for the regulator is a really important thing that we have to do. The second is that we also have to ensure that this is a catalyst of increased access, rather than reduced access for learners and I think Clara was touching on this at the end of her remarks. But there is a risk that as we move towards some of these shifts was more lifelong learning towards more shorter credentials that we actually entrench some of the social disparities that we had before, rather than widen access in the way that I think we'd all want to do and achieve. And so ensuring that there's really clear guidance, ensuring that there's really clear frameworks and funding available, ensuring that there's real understanding of what the different options are and what the benefits of those are. That's another responsibility that we've all got to seize in this new future. Alongside that I think we've also got to think about this in the context of COVID and the pandemic and what all of us are still living through. And my overall assessment of this. And we've done a huge amount of research with the range of institutions that we work with is actually COVID when you really take a step back to some extent it's changed nothing. We're already going on in December of 2019, the move towards shorter courses the moves towards lifelong learning the move towards, you know, credit transfer frameworks and those sorts of discussions the move towards employers investing more in the future of their workforces. All of these things were already happening, but COVID is most certainly an accelerant for all of those phenomena. And as we think about the post pandemic world, it's important we think about what's changed what hasn't changed, but what is simply accelerated. And I think there are three useful lenses through which to week through which we can think about this evolution. The first is in the age of our learners. Additionally, we've thought about learning as being something that we do up until our early 20s, you know, we go through an undergraduate experience might go through a postgraduate experience. We might do a bit of additional learning when we come into the workplace when we're when we're being inducted into our employer. And then we might have a professional training course at some point, but that was pretty much it. The reason why that is now shifting is because of the data that comes out half an hour or so ago. We have an enormous skills gap that is a huge issue that all of our economies are facing. And that focuses on two core areas in particular, firstly digital skills and secondly transferable workplace skills. In relation to digital skills, we have never in the last few decades had such a shift in the skills required in our workplaces has never been a time when such a small number of skills are needed in such a large number of jobs in such a large number of industries across every single sector. We've done extensive research on this again with major employment organizations with iPads with the OECD with HESA with a whole range of others. And it's really clear areas like digital marketing, data analytics, AI machine learning, cybersecurity are in huge demand across every single role across every industry across every sector. That means that we need to focus on those sorts of areas and higher education has a distinctive role to play as I'll come on to talk about in just a moment. And then secondly, in terms of transferable skills, you know, we have all heard the message for a long time now that, you know, from employers that we get great graduates that got brilliant academic rigor that got great scholarship all of those sorts of really important skills. What we really need are those workplace skills those employment skills those transferable skills. How do I deal with problems. How do I deal with teamwork. How do I deal with solving problems across borders. How do I deal with the workplace the leadership the communication the teamwork skills that I really need for my organization. And I think that is a really crucial factor that we need to think about so the age of our learners has changed. And secondly, the goal of our learners has changed, and it's moving far more towards some of those areas. Now that doesn't stop the undergraduates and the post graduates coming through and studying for the many of the same reasons I've studied for historically for a long time. But it does mean an evolution of the goals that students are studying for. And then the third shift is a change in mode. And secondly, we have thought about a university experience thought about a further or higher education experience as being an essentially an on campus experience. And that's been the right thing. And by the way, something I should make very clear from the outset is that that will not shift from being the major primary mode of delivery, certainly not for the next 10 years. The next 10 years will still be those great cathedrals of learning that I think will deliver great change and you're right to raise your eyes next 10 years. The next 10 years is absolutely right. The reason I say that is because no one can predict what is going to come. So if we had thought that we'd be having this conversation 10 years ago, you know, I'm not sure, you know, when when the small group of us were launching future learn back in 2012. You know, we did not anticipate the shift that would come over the following nine or so years. And so thinking about those modes as essentially the way we like to think about them online offline and in work. I think is is an important part of that evolution. And that should be an option or series of modes where students have choice students have flexibility to move between different modes of study, but crucially, as I said, where the on campus experience remains sacred, if you like, there is nothing like the face to face experience. I'm sure all of us would much rather be, you know, in Brussels or in, you know, Paris or in London or wherever else we might be for this discussion. There's nothing quite like it, but on campus and online can be part of the same solution and online can help us to extend access in really powerful ways. I think a colleague in in the Padlet or in the chat was mentioning earlier, can we recreate some of those experiences can we recreate some of that magic online. We absolutely can. You know, through really powerful synchronous experiences, you can create powerful small group tutorial sessions that have many of the same benefits as as we as we can create on campus through really powerful international opportunities where you can bring people together from different countries in a way that you simply can't do it as efficiently on campus. That is incredibly powerful. And crucially, also, you can create really meaningful relationships are academics are often surprised when we show and demonstrate how by creating really diverse communities by delivering really effective assessment by online tools by creating really powerful videos and tracking the analytics. You can deliver some really powerful impact. Right now, we could apply some very simple technology to this conversation, and we could get real time analytics on what everyone thinks about what what Roger is saying, right. Is he talking a load of nonsense or is he saying something interesting. And what do I want to learn more about and can I try and understand that, or can I get him to slow down or can I get him to kind of talk more about this in a way that you simply can't do in a lecture theater with 300 people kind of sitting where it's more difficult to get that real time exchange. We've just trained 1400 academics at the University of Cambridge over the last nine months or so. And the feedback from that was incredible. And a massive part of it, one of the biggest bits of feedback that we got was actually no one has taken the time to pause no one has taken the time to slow down and just walk me through some of these changes that are going on and where some of these technologies are going. You know, very often, this conversation is about hyperbole, or it's about, you know, the extremes of where this evolution is going. And actually, you know, a lot of us, certainly in the academic community are anxious, you know, we've been used to a certain model of delivery would be used to a certain way of teaching and learning and indeed our research. And this is, you know, sometimes very worrying. In addition to that our universities are stretched, you know, we're stretched when it comes to expertise we're stretched when it comes to bandwidth we're stretched when it comes to funding and capital. And so we're not often putting in the resources that are required to do this you know is this online thing just job number 19 on top of the 18 I'm already doing right is, is a kind of message sometimes that we get, and where we can actually sit down with institutions and figure out sustainable efficient scalable ways of delivering some of this evolution. That's when you get academic communities on board and get them really engaged and positive about some of the things that you can now do with with the shift in talking about terms of age, goal and mode. Just a couple of quick things on policy and funding, just in relation to what Clara and colleagues are saying. And first is that we need a credit transfer framework that is a true framework. Right now we have different models across different jurisdictions across different countries. You know that ghastly be word makes that more difficult with with with that. But if we could have a truly flexible and portable credit transfer framework that would really help with the shift towards micro credentials and truly stackable courses. The second is tuition reimbursement models. This is pretty well established in France, pretty well established in the United States in Singapore and elsewhere. It's certainly not established in the UK. But where employers can be incentivized through the taxation system and through essentially what we have with the with the levy in a way in the UK to invest in upskilling and re-skilling initiatives. That's very restrictive around the apprenticeship levy. And my lifelong known commission that I chair, you know, has made recommendations on how we can create those individual learning accounts and the tenant take into that forward now. But how we ensure that we can truly incentivize employers to invest in the future of their workforces is absolutely vital. And thinking about that tuition reimbursement model thinking about that individual learning account model will not only help with funding, but it will also help with the cultural change that's required to show people why it's important and how they can get involved in learning beyond their 20s and 30s and and really build up those skills that are required. Third point is our view certainly slightly inconsistent with what what Clara is saying but but let's kind of add a bit of, add a bit of difference to the discussion is that actually stackable courses should be able to add up to the full but assessment is a really crucial determinant of what takes us from micro credentials and stackable credentials right up to full degree programs and the assessment piece is the bit that many universities are saying to us, let's make that a little bit different. And then fees and funding, you know, that has to shift it has to become more plural. Very quickly, a couple of other brief points that I'll make, and then let's kind of leave time for a proper discussion. So, so number one is we need to make this more efficient carousel models which many of you will be familiar with are a very good way of enabling us to make learning and teaching more efficient needs models particularly online where you can have different cohorts, essentially starting at different times during the year. And it's really important that we're aware of the fact that you know online students very often will want to study at a time and a place that suits them, making sure that the synchronous elements are more optional more flexible to meet their requirements and crucially, ensuring that we have multiple intakes per year. These students are not prepared to wait until September or January to start their learning. And so ensuring that we've got flexibility and how we deliver and when we deliver is very, very important. And in terms of the private sector, I think the private sector is three core responsibilities. The first is in terms of bandwidth, our universities are already stretched, we're already trying to do a huge number of things. But private sector partners, who essentially become an extension of the institution that reflect and embrace the distinctive magic of its individual institutional partners that really understand the culture and the distinctive role that that university of playing can play a positive role in essentially being an internal catalyst in providing that bandwidth and support. The second is to provide expertise in how to deliver really powerful online experiences or really powerful micro credentials or really powerful, you know, international opportunities for students sometimes it's about marketing or recruitment. Sometimes it's about increasing the reach of these programs for students that wouldn't otherwise get access. Sometimes it's about building really powerful immersive online communities. Another criteria is about funding and capital and bringing those alternative financing models into into play, I think there's another role, but this has to be a win win for public institutions and private organizations. It has to be on the terms of the universities themselves rather than them kind of, you know, embracing something that might not be consistent with what they're trying to do. Crucially it has to be a strategic initiative. You know where things get disjointed is where they don't work, whereas actually if you can find ways to deliver the internal strategy the internal teaching and learning objectives, that's where things become powerful and grow. And crucially also allowing that change for the for the changes that will come allowing that flexibility for the changes that will come is also very, very important. The final point that we always say is that has to be fully resourced for all parties. You know, it has to be properly supported within the institution and crucially then the private sector partner has got to invest and got to make sure that it's delivering its its its areas as well. And where we can do that, you know, we can do really, really powerful things. You know, one of the most exciting things I found in the course of the last year or so is actually universities are pushing us rather than the other way around. You know, I would never have imagined a conversation with Stephen to the bishancer of Cambridge, like the one that we had literally about a year ago where we built the online strategy we're now the institution just announced, you know, these 50 short courses over the next five years, you know, the ability to train those 1400 academics, or institutions again. Like Huey Bristol actually quite an interesting institution, we're actually embedding micro credentials now into their full degree programs for the first time and really exciting changes there or the work with the LSE to design degree on their behalf in fully online and blended ways. So really interesting to see the ways that institutions are saying, actually, you know what we want to have a flexible conversation. And that's certainly I think the role that the private sector has to have which is to be open and embrace that, but crucially to learn from, you know, what's happened in the past and to make sure that this is a true win-win for all parties that are delivering real added benefit for those institutions and crucially that we're part of a shared agenda to try and make sure that the changes that are coming in the evolution that we're all part of extends access increases quality and make sure that our institutions continue to deliver world-class teaching and learning to millions more students around the world. Wonderful. Roger, thank you so much. That's been a phenomenal sort of tour de force and thank you so much also to for responding directly to to to Clara and Kuhn. Because we're running on in time, but really absolutely without any detriment to the quality of what we're doing what could I really encourage all the panelists to engage with a very rich debate that's developing on the Q&A section. It would be great if I could encourage you to kind of respond to the questions. There are a lot of questions, many of them answered. So please add your answer but also some open questions, please add to those as well. And I would like to go straight to the second panel and I hope that we'll have a chance to let the speakers come in and there as well. I want to start with you and because we've heard a lot about the increase in need for flexibility for flexible learning for flexible pathways, how the model is changing. And so I think it makes a lot of sense to go straight into practice you are doing something brand new with. We now have a number of different alliances but you're doing something brand new with utopia. Can you just tell us a little bit about how this flexibility is embedded in utopia teaching model. Yeah, and I'm really sorry to be squeezed between her two engagements today but but but let's make the best of it and I'm so glad with the talk of Rajai and the people from the European Union because we really are trying to use all these incentives and thoughts by developing in developing our model. So let me talk a little bit about utopia and the learning communities that we try to use to support and create a potential potential for flexible life long learning across borders. So we can go to the first slide showing the six partners in utopia that are in fact typically open campuses they organize numerous contacts with the cities and and the activities surrounding them. And it is from this openness that we in fact started developing the educational model. First, next slide perhaps. Yeah, we are in fact breaking down the walls, the traditional divisions that that are so characteristic inside but also inside academia but also between academia and the rest of society, or connected learning communities in fact are organizing teachers, students and actors in society in a connected way through active learning processes we cooperate across disciplines across institutions and we are inspired by real life challenges. Last but not least, this all happens by using existing best practices in teaching research and outreach to society. You are perhaps not surprised that Joe Anguri is also acting as the curriculum developer of our educational model. Let's look at a few outcomes of the pilot experiments that we have been building. And you see here that the pyramid the pyramid says it all, we could we could explain, and that is then for more than 5000 years the case but it also goes for for utopia. But in fact in the in the in the broad basis of our pyramid, we start by selecting and identifying 30 cross campus learning communities, based on existing learning units I'm really emphasizing this. These units they are part of our curriculum components of our bachelor master PhD degrees, just as Rajai also said that we they are integrated in the existing degrees we don't have to organize or introduce something new for doing that. We cover a lot of exciting topics I think in a European context so such as European decision making social change with the lingualism critical data analyst analysis, sustainable geographical systems, etc, etc, etc. We are midterm now of the pilot project and 18 out of 30 learning communities are already operational and engaging in real activities with students and teachers in the past academic year and in the coming two academic years that are still, let's say within the pilot period of 1922. So, what do we do we start at the basis and we strengthen the learning, the learning material of the of the teachers involved in in in the communities by increasing of course the European awareness and the international research potential of academic staff and students and stakeholders to sustainable cross campus networks. Each learning unit reaches out to partners in the other universities, and they come together in the learning community coming together being then in COVID times of course on virtual platforms. Let's not forget that we do not impose new topics or supplementary teaching load on our on our teachers we recognize the innovative pedagogies and good practices that are in place in in in our on our campuses and recognized identified by the highest authorities of the utopia partner universities and this in itself is really a compensation for all the efforts that that are in fact that are in fact organized. Then, this is perhaps the most important part in view of the potential for lifelong learning, each connected community starts then creating recurrent intensive joint activities designed for blended learning and including a variety of students that are already registered in our degree programs. And I'm just giving you one example because we don't have time for more but we invite our students from six from six countries to be the national representatives during a simulation of international negotiations. While preparing the digital digital services act or some other new legislation. This is of course a very interesting way of of reaching out, not only to the model student that comes at university at 18 years old, but also to the professional or the citizen that wants to be that wants to know about utopia for professional or for other reasons. And by the, when we are at the top of the pyramid we reintegrate all these new material these enriched courses in our existing degrees we don't have to create new degrees we don't have to create new diplomas we don't have to harmonize all kinds of legislation and rules. And among across our campuses, they are just integrated in the existing curricula in an automatic way, and there they are in fact a continuous drive for internationalization and innovation of a whole. And let's then look at the potential for for lifelong learning. Yeah, the next slide perhaps. Yeah, this gives you an image of, by the end of the pilot period we will like have 30 utopia communities we will involve 180 teachers at least. We will have 30 teaching assistants working for for the communities and based on a selection of 30 students per community, six times five students picked out in the degrees of on the different campuses will, we will involve directly and directly 900 students in the test that experiments. Now let's look at at the possibilities for lifelong learning because this is your topic today. As we said, these joint learning activities to engaging students, they are reintegrated and opened up to all our degree students that that are related to these topics, but in a more autonomous way, we could start using these these like short term learning efforts and develop a package that can be offered to to lifelong learners in a very flexible way. The blended educational formats that we use and the short term kind of intensive activities, they are especially very suitable for eliminating the better the practical barriers that are related to conventional postgraduate offering, typically going with mobility registration, high registration costs and long fixed periods in the academic year. This is not a flexible system. This is not made for including a wide range of lifelong learners that are having all kind of professional and other engagements in their personal life. So we really think that the connected learning communities could recognize the short term learning efforts that and it is also very, very important. They are short they are intensive but nevertheless, they are backed by the quality control of the full flesh degree programs they are integrated in so it is just a question of offering them in an autonomous way and at the next and parallel to the development of the degree programs. The interaction and the research driven and challenge based pedagogical approach is we think very compatible with the experience and the maturity of lifelong learners. And last but not least, of course, all these lifelong learning participants would get access to cross European networks of fellow learners of professional organizations and of experts operating in the ecosystems related to the topics they have chosen. Let me end not by saying utopia solves it all because this would be, I think, a realistic and over optimistic. But let me reflect a little bit and this is my last slide on some existential doubts as I call them. It's, it's, it's the panic that now and then arises when you are an educator dedicated to to academia but when you as as I am also trained as an economist. Utopia claims to offer good chances for lifelong learning by using the connected communities framework for recognizing short term intensive learning activities and building also of course on the concept of the micro credentials. Utopia up till now worked in a very cost intensive way you see a little calculus there and and and by the end we we do all the good work per community per year for let's say an amount of around 11,000 euro per community per year. This is extremely cost effective and and the cost effectiveness is related to the integration of these experiments of course in existing degree programs and the cross observation that goes along with it. Students are administered in the context of their registration in the home campuses. And there is no need for complex bureaucratic systems related to harmonization of national rules or institutional handling. But we will have a different story when this system will meet its limits by reaching out to a diversity of non degree seeking students, needing tailor made information before and during the learning process, needing administrative follow up to access to to for acceptance for assessment for recognition of the liar long learner and this complexity will create supplementary workload for all involved academic staff administrators technicians. The loss of them, and this cannot be compensated solely I think by primary funding, nor by well intended European initiatives for this kind of challenge a coalition will be needed and many of the speakers before me have already illustrated this and we will need a well taught track based kind of of arrangement based on the interests of all parties involved and those that will benefit in the long and in the short run of lifelong learning students academia public authorities and actors in society. I think it is the absence of such a coalition that explains the poor results we must be honest about this of academia up till now in the area of lifelong learning and as illustrated very clearly by some cross national we see these study reports. So let's focus on this coalition and how to make it work and and and how to fill in all the dimensions that are needed for qualitative work that I'm sure academia can contribute to this process. Thank you very much. Yeah, and very sorry to have. Thank you very soon. Thank you so much for that it's been thank you also for picking up Rajesh really point about how resource this you know how it's important that it's it's really win win situation for everyone. I want to move straight on to Kelly. She also has just I think yesterday come out with a statement where I think your university network demands of really really challenges the entire sector really to think of European universities as a model for micro credentials and that should be primarily indeed only. I mean, as I understand correctly about micro credentials so so it's a really important challenge to all of us so it's one it's incredibly timing to have you there. And so you are you are the the director of continuous learning at temporary university. And so I'm delighted to have you here and and and really the floor is yours to really talk a little bit more about your approach about how you want to change the academic model in a sense through micro dentures. Your sound. Can you unmute yourself. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. And thank you for the invitation and thank you for the previous previous speakers for for sitting to see in an excellent way. Let me start by saying that we in Asia University believe that we need a systemic change in higher education, as it is stated in our vision 2030. According to our vision is a university will be a European wide open ecosystem of universities, public and private bodies, learners and citizens. It's not a traditional network of universities. Our aim is to create a chance based playground with entrepreneurship in our DNA. The university is all about co creation and the European community and life and learning is in the core of easy IU also indicated by the choice that we do not go for standard joint decrease as the new European entity. All 12 easy I remember universities are research intensive universities and the goal is to integrate education research and innovations in a novel way. I wanted to respond to the very fast accelerating new needs for skills and competencies in society, we need much more flexibility and agility in higher education. And when I talk about skills and competencies throughout the presentation, please do understand them in a very broad sense. All kinds of knowledge skills competencies, not only knowledge in a specific discipline. The university micro credentials is a core element of a broader systemic change of higher education, and the systemic change might be best described through the core elements that we need to work on towards flexible higher education and life on learning. Next slide please. The first step towards the systemic change is the shift of focus towards skills and competencies currently our focus is very much on degrees. It's on courses, it's on credits. However, in the end, they are all only packaging tools of skills and competence development what has happened is that the tools have become our goals. That's what we measure we measured tools. In the end, it's skills and competencies that should matter, no matter where, when and how they are being developed. And as part of this shift. It's also clear that we need new ways of assessing skills and competencies reliably and transparently. The second element is comprehensive digital transformation, including effective use of data to support skills and competence development use of new technologies such as AI blockchain, etc. We need a thorough high quality digital transformation in higher education for easier university. This is in the very core since our future business model relies heavily on data and digitalization. The next step is to analyze the current skills and competencies of the learner, understand his or her motivations and goals, and data and AI will play a crucial role here as well. And only once we understand the current situation of the learner it's time to start thinking about what are the possibilities of developing the new needed skills and competencies courses or micro modules as we call them are only one opportunity. In order to fully harness the potential of higher education and life and learning, we need employer collaboration in a new level in a more proactive matter. We know that 70% of lifelong learning happens at workplaces, and we should be able to understand it all much better help make learning at work more visible and help make skills and competencies acquired at work transparent together with the employers and employees. Systemic change ultimately means that our position towards the rest of society will move from a transactional mode to relational higher education, particularly in the context of life and learning is not about setting education available. But it's about co creation and developing skills and competencies in collaboration. And it also means that we as universities need to be willing to engage more openly into discussion with different stakeholders of the society. All this means that higher education and lifelong learning need new business models resource wise we know that we need to do more and more in higher education at the same time particularly the public resources are not increasing at the same pace. We need to rethink where, where do the financial resources come from what are the future revenue streams, and how do we use the resources in the smartest ways and again, resource wise digital transformation plays the crucial role here. Next slide please. Let me conclude by explaining how micro credentials relate to all this micro credentials is a tool that enables us to move forward towards the kind of world I just described, where the skills and competencies are in the core of learning for life in higher education through micro credentials movement, we will develop digital competence passport, we will shift higher kid higher education towards flexibility and agility, which leads to a more learner, or if you want a customer oriented approach of higher education, instead of the current more production and delivery oriented through micro credentials we engage ourselves into more intensive collaboration and co creation with the rest of society and help employers and micro credentials as we know it's not a property of higher education, or educational system in general, but we believe that also microcoulders in the ECI university ecosystem should be able to provide micro potentials with proper quality assurance measures, of course, and also micro credentials force us to rethink the business models in higher education in the future, we will not be paid only based on decreased produced. And finally, micro credentials also develop synergies between research and education, they support the knowledge transfer by providing the latest research results quickly as learning opportunities. I would like to finish by saying that new problems require new solutions and for us in ECI university, it's micro credentials for us micro credentials are a part of the systemic change of higher education that we want to try for at the European level and naturally together with the member states. So I think I'll stop here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for this really short and sharp and very much to the point presentation and I really expect that we'll come back to that in at the end. Frederick, can I just quickly turn to you so you are part of the micro ball project which is really trying to bring in this revolution of micro credentials to see to what extent that can be brought into the Bologna process you also very much involved in the role rather as part of the light of the university network you also involved in in developing new approaches to flexible learnings. Can you just tell us a little bit more about about those. Okay, yes, I'll do that with a lot of pleasure young and thank you for the invitation and also thank you to the previous speakers and especially for these sort of provoking ideas that you just brought up. Thank you, I must say in Flanders for the last couple of years, ever since Bologna has infused into a legislation it was made possible for us to deliver on one hand credit certificates for courses. We've also done bachelor master courses for which students are successful so these are a kind of micro credentials. And we also have been able to deliver so called certificates of competencies as the result of successful procedures for the recognition of prior informal and non formal learning, which gets increased attention now because of the micro credentials that have been made going on and I think that's a very positive evolution as well so we have had some experience, and even now we never bought these micro credentials the half they have been around for quite a while. And by participating as you said in a micro book project it became rapidly clear for me that the potential of micro credential goes much beyond that. This was an Erasmus plus key action three project that focuses on the importance, as you said, of the Bologna key commitments for micro credentials so that means first of all, is it yes, and qualifications frameworks by the way, I think that ECTS is a real established and well functioning credit framework so I propose you have a good look at that. Secondly, the Lisbon recognition convention and recognition in general as a key commitment there. And last, but not least as already Clara indicated quality assurance as a search and most probably most important key commitment there. Since the work on the micro ball project coincided with the approval process internally at Gantt University for our new lifelong learning policy. We immediately took the step to include this concept in the creation of or in the implementation of our lifelong learning policy and so started to create new types of micro credentials which are meaningful clusters you could say, of courses already existing in our Bachelor and Master programs, all in themselves of course leading to this credit certificates but bundled together because they, the overall set of the achieved learning outcomes has societal relevance and I also would like to stress like others have done that this goes beyond the utilitarian purely skills focused agenda there so as a university we think we have a responsibility that goes beyond that. And so this kind of offer shoot on one hand cater for different target groups and I think that's very important from an inclusiveness point of view. So, on one hand for instance professionals that already have some work experience and have some specific upskilling and reskilling needs, or 18 year olds with a specific background who would like to get a taste of higher education or refugee students with a lot of prior experience but difficulties in getting access to the labor market and needs. And on the other hand, I think that looking at micro credentials from such a perspective allows these different types of students to work together with our so called regular students. And I think that creates a very powerful learning environment where intergenerational learning happens in an academic research based setting with a strong link to real life real life challenges and workplace experience, which is for me one of the main reasons is the ability in this field to really not leave these behind and in this way my credentials offer as a conceptual entry and a common language as well to allow for better interaction with external stakeholders and to take on as as university our society responsibility, not only from our traditional degree oriented research based approach but also from a lifelong learning perspective. And this means that also in our regular regular post type offer, we are looking at applying the micro credential standards, knowing that this might of course necessitate some major changes for instance more formalized quality assurance which is also in that post type of learn life from learning offer the use of ECTS credits, attaching a qualifications level to these life from learning courses, etc. So these are serious challenges we have to be aware of that and we are aware of that but we are at the same time, sure that this will lead to more attractive, better recognizable and easier transferable courses of a higher quality which is what we need to play a role in learning as universities, and as colleagues from other parts of the world, I must say, for instance in Asia have understood quite some time ago where they are going to this shift in more and more countries have come in universities, which brings me to the question of what we within Europe and for instance as within and light as one of the European universities, how we can take on this micro credentials agenda in our approach to flexible learning and it is clear that one of our core goals and might as a European University initiative is to develop the structural and technical framework for inclusive seamless and green mobility in order to be able to provide the tools for such flexible learning and this means that we will have to create barriers, cultural, psychological administrative linguistic barriers to stimulate students in engaging in an international flexible learning experience. And a key success factor for in light in achieving this will be the creation of an overarching competence framework. So also we take this focus on competencies and skills for so called enlightened that guarantee the quality and the achievement of the envisaged learning outcomes and so this framework will indeed be the basis for this seamless movement within and between our nine universities and as such enhance flexibility to a large extent and my group credentials will we are only one year further be incorporated in this strategy as an extra stimulus for learners and signposts to guide these learners through these flexible learning pathways and so we are currently developing a policy paper on micro credentials within and light, only to feed into the current consultation that's going on but also to stimulate internal discussion so because and and this for me makes the debate on micro credentials so interesting. Many people understand many different things when they hear the concept micro credentials and this debate in itself is very stimulating and contributes to the diversity and flexibility of our higher education landscape. And this has today's initiatives for which I applaud the good very clearly proves. Thank you very much, Alexander before I turn to you can I just bring in Coon and and Clara just just very briefly because I think there's there's a question that's really come up in so behind the number of these issues. This is really raised by Elizabeth blagrove in the in the in the chat here which is really about the the question when we, you know, are we really talking about a customer consumer oriented model, emerging in this in this kind of transformation so. The university is there to to to be in a marketplace effectively along with other providers. Or is there something that emerges out of the disciplines I mean, can you talk a little bit more about the push and pull about how you see the role of universities here. I would say it is more the, I would like to see it more as a learner centered model of of higher education, rather than than than the customer but really looking at what the learner needs in order to acquire the skills and processes which are needed for him or her in the current society, and the adjustments to that. So in that sense I would like to join to Haley's vision of of of the models. You want to hand on this. Yeah, I think it's not specifically on universities but I think what we are doing at at Commission level is indeed to to support also that learner centered work through tools that we are developing and in this context, and I think that we have the ability to develop to develop also let's say the Europe has further because it will provide core suggestions on the basis of a skills profile, you're not very strong currently. So this will be developed because the more people will have an e profile and in in Europe pass and put the skills in Europe passing we are currently close to 2 million people have done this. Europe has much more information available and we will also have another development that is namely to link information on skills trends, and also there is a project going on by the agency in tessaloniki on vocational training that is looking at online vacancies and you know observe the skill trends that you can see in these online vacancies. And this is information of which your purpose is that it is becoming available we are not there. And, yeah, I think this helps the learner center because the learner needs and this is what Frédéric said and also very much like Haley's intervention, the learner needs to be somehow guided and another element that we will build in to Europe pass, because obviously it's it's working progress is also an online tool that will also support some guidance, yeah, for career guidance we'll call it but it will equally be guidance for learning and I must say that very much the red also in EU policies is a focus on skills and competences and that it doesn't matter when and where and how you acquire them and in this context I would like to just, and this is my last short sentence, refer now to the Council recommendation that also exists from 2012 on validation of non-formal and informal learning which we are so in my team really monitoring how that is implemented across Europe. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Clara, I've got to come back to you very briefly with this question from unique share. If we think about these embedding micro credentials European University Alliance is how can we avoid effectively this all being in English, right, I mean, across these alliances. Doesn't that really, and how doesn't that really include masses of lifelong learners across the European Union. Who next share who's the vice vice rector at the University of Tubingen and in service. Yes, we see that European University's alliances, many of them are reflecting on on the need to increase multi-lingualism in within their alliances and it will be certainly not an easy step but one which which is very frustrating and which is linked to developing language competencies of the learners already from the beginning of or from earlier on, so not necessarily in higher education. Yeah, perhaps there will be, there will be possibilities to offer the probably the even the same course but in different tracks or with different languages or in a multi-lingual way where everybody's allowed to choose from some languages which are widely understood in the community so but this is indeed, it is something where we expect a lot of input and suggestions from alliances on the basis of their experimentation. Good one sentence because I've got to move on to Alexander but yes. One short sentence on this is to say that the Europass platform is available in 29 languages it's underpins by the ESCO qualification also on skills and that also exists in, I believe currently 26 languages. So this is supporting learners of all languages. That was an important addition. So, Alexander, you've been extremely, extraordinarily patient, but you are here from the University of Reheka, I hope I've pronounced this broadly okay. You're the UFI Institutional Coordinator the Young University for the Future of Europe Alliances Alliance and you are the student journey work package co-lead. And so Alexander, the floor is yours. We really look forward to your short presentation before we then move to final discussion. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. I see that the arrangement on the slide is a little bit like shuffled but hopefully it will be okay. In the next slide. So thank you for the introduction. And hello everyone. Just to briefly mention the plan for this very, very brief outlook from our side. I will combine here a kind of a personal and organizational perspective, the organization of being UFES of our European University Alliance and my personal since I've been a student representative for quite so many years at all levels from the local here actually at the European level and the European Students Union. And I will therefore also try to speak about this in terms of what we used to advocate for in the student movement when we kind of advocated for flexible learning. But to kick off just very few very broad points on why do we even need this flexible type of learning. Obviously, this is not exhaustive in any case, but just a couple of main points. So, first of all, and this is for me the basis that different learners have different needs. This is what the other speakers have right now actually refer to in this term of learner centeredness. And actually, if we don't have our education in a manufacturing line style, this flexibility maximizes the benefits overall. And that actually leads to the second point, which is that this more individual approach is actually connected with accessibility, because we can actually capture let's say a more diverse group of learners in this way and that also posters inclusion. And finally, the third point is very important to what we have also heard today from the previous speakers about kind of future proofing our competences. And that is that even if theoretically it will not be but theoretically, if you could convey the same competences in a more flexible individualized environment, and in a more traditional learning environment. The first will still be preferable because the learners along their learning journey acquire these meta competences of autonomy, confidence and responsibility for their own learning, which prepares them for a world which is uncertain, which constantly changes and we need to equip them to learn continuously throughout their life. So these are just the benefits that we are expecting. And in the in this next part, I'll just briefly go to what from my personal experience, as I said, I have kind of any in communication with my colleagues when they used to be a student representative, what what we advocated for and what we saw that the students want in terms of flexible learning and I'll reflect here on just a couple of very practical, practical things on the, let's say ground level of education in everyday student life. And the first thing is that I would mention is recognition of informal and informal learning and often we talk about it in terms of enabling access in terms of recognizing for entry qualifications. But what I want to emphasize here is that this also needs to be complementary to the more formal educational program. And here I think is a significant connection to the issue of micro credentials, even if it's in the same institution. The same institution if it's a higher education institution obviously offers more structured formal study programs can also offer micro credentials, let's say as part of the life of learning program. But I see no reason not to try to integrate those two. This would be a recognition maybe for non formal learning, but that also to acknowledge learning by doing and allow students to replace a certain number of their ETS points by their informal learning. Flexible and diverse learning methods like here we refer more to the to the pedagogical side of it, I think you are very well aware of that. And, but what I think is very important is to add to this flexible assessment methods now we only know that obviously the learning, learning methods and tools need to be aligned with the assessment methods, but still in this in this drive towards higher education. I think that we are much more reluctant to flexibilize on the side of assessment methods and this may be natural because we don't want to renounce control over what is essentially verification of competences, but still, still we need to achieve flexibility in that regard as well. Now, flexibility program design for students. Obviously, what we need is enough. Let's say that the elective parts of the program need to be strong enough or strongly represented enough, because in this way, not only do we allow students to better fulfill their own interests, but we also create more diverse and more refined even sets of graduates. We do not have completely equal competency profiles, but we actually allow the graduates to distinguish themselves, which is also good in terms of the labor market inclusion because we also allow the students to explore certain niches. And obviously the recognition of credits from abroad, which even after all these years and even decades, we are still obviously being faced sometimes with obstacles to proper student mobility. So this is what I think are the valuable practical goals. And now finally, I'll just try to present to you how you try to make this flexible learning environment a reality for students. Now, the first and most obvious point, and certainly we have been strongly nudged into this direction by the current pandemic circumstances, is the, not only the taking of online and physical courses, once we kind of restart physical mobility, hopefully in the next semester already, but also to combine them. So meaning that even in the same semester, we will allow students to engage in physical mobility at another institution, but also to take some virtual courses at perhaps third or fourth or fifth institution, creating what is in essence a multilateral mobility experience. Combining academic and non-academic aspects of learning. So what we try to kind of, how we try to guide our students, our first round students already, is that they are not in higher education only for what is here in the upper left corner, the academic courses, or maybe also the language courses, but that there's a whole set of what we at least called non-academic aspects, which is more practical experience and which is closer to what I mentioned earlier in like setting the goals as informal learning. We want the students to be learning through practical experiences. Now that can be intracurricular, which is desirable, and that is what I wanted to emphasize by the example of recognition of informal learning. So an example would be if a student does a certain activity in an NGO, we kind of recognize the learning outcomes achieved there, and we allow a student to replace certain part of their program. However, even when that is not possible for any reason, the student should be able to kind of give like an informed agreement, the informed consent to actually engage in these experiences beyond their regular course, workload and beyond their regular ACTS. Again, this allows the students to maximally fulfill their interest in their higher education. And finally, this is the last slide, but something that I think is the most important to share today, and that is the individualized outcomes or reward system. And here you can see the scheme. So basically, and this is something that we will test out from the beginning of next semester. So basically, the approach that we want to take here is to offer certain elements. So the first thing that we do is kind of differentiate or dissect the learning offer into what we call atomic requirements or the lowest unit of learning. And this is represented here on the slide by these different shapes, the star, triangle, circle, etc. And then we offer this to students as a basically as a menu, maybe that can be used as a metaphor. It's a menu. And the students then choose from the menu, which units they want to engage with, depending on the combinations that they take, at least the different outcomes. So here at the top, you can see, for example, if they just take a single activity, maybe they just take a course or two. So let's say that's a star. That would be one type of outcome. But maybe they just want to get engaged with some extra curricular activities, like maybe some internships, volunteering, things like that. Let's say that this is a triangle. That would be the second outcome. But then you can see how what happens if they combine these things, how these things fit together and that leads them to different outcomes. And importantly, this is I think the crucial thing that we are trying to achieve is that these are not predefined at the beginning. So in the moment that a student joins the program, they don't have to choose what the outcome will be. They join the program, everything is offered to them. And then we will see, depending on the choices that the students make, what the outcome will be. Now we don't call these units of learning micro-credentials, although there are a lot of similarities and we are planning something much more similar to micro-credential system in the future, but I thought it would be too early to talk about that because these are really long-term plans. But this scheme in essence is what is the basic demonstration of what we are intending to do with this individualized outcome system. So that would be it from me very briefly. So thank you. That's wonderful, Alexander. Thank you so much for this really enlightening presentation to end this series of presentations on the high note. Just to everybody's watching this, catching up with this event on YouTube, there has been a live debate in the question and answer session, in the question and answers here. And you can catch up with this discussion in our padlet that we have for this event and for future events. So please check there as well to keep informed about what the issues are. And we will continue with this debate in a longer format in due course. This has clearly been an incredibly important taster, but there's clearly huge demand to continue the discussion. And Joe Anguri tells me, Joe, maybe if you can come in, you tell me that you've been active on LinkedIn and other social media forum as the session has continued. Do you just have some final reflections, Joe, for 90 seconds? Okay, 90 seconds. So first of all, thank you very much. And thank you, Rita, for grasping it and communicating the need for continuing this. I've received quite a lot during the seminar about the need to actually have a longer debate, so we will follow up. I think to me just in 90 seconds, what we've demonstrated is both the complexity, but also the opportunity to really use experience. We don't want to throw the baby with a bathwater. We have, we do a lot of things very well. I have a lot of experience, a number of colleagues are saying how many successful and less successful projects we've learned from over the years we need to translate this to policy and policy recommendation and we need to really connect it to the fundamental issue of what it means for the funding models for education for resource for the whole way of organizing our academic practice. I cannot think of a time where, at least that that is definitely what I can say from all my life, which is all in academia. And I cannot think of a time where there has been so much discussion, emphasis from international and national policymakers on the transformative of the transformative potential education. I agree very much with the sort of the accelerating effects that COVID was an accelerant has been is an accelerant, and that gives us an opportunity really to reflect on what is important and what we do well, both in terms of the digital non digital process to face what we value how we learn, but also the really the opportunity to improve what we know we can do better off by drawing on on the experience the evidence and the skills we have. And what I've also had I was making notes, sort of for a possible discussion which we don't have time today but we'll follow on maybe I think there's definitely space for really around table on this as to how we actually see how we see this ecosystem this learning ecosystem and in particular the lifelong learning the different providers back to the higher education ed tech, academic and other societal actors coming together and this sort of coalition this partnership and co creation what this would actually look like. And what are these the implications and implications is that we also need to balance discipline training with interdisciplinary and also not lose sight of other things we do well in degree programs because degree programs also embed active learning and also provide a very important part of what we need for educating for the future so I think coming I think we really raise the issue and part of the time paper was the first part was to raise the issue and start moving towards a roadmap of change with solutions. And I think that's definitely what we need as our next step. They sort of a longer event where we're really going to take all the debate which has been absolutely fascinating quality and spot on on the public and really turn this to round tables where we can put on the table how exactly what are the specific and tangible solutions or paths or steps that we would want to see in our institutions and what this would look like because of course we are in a very diverse ecosystem ourselves. That was probably more than 90 minutes but I can see Jan is really taking the floor so I'm going to stop that. Thank you. Thank you Joe but but in those two times 90 seconds you already you already did my summary for me which is wonderful so thank you very much all that I have therefore to do is is the honor of thanking the panel thanking all the very rich thanking you for the very rich contributions that you've made I want to thank all of our all of our contributors in the Q&A and on the paddlet please keep the discussions on the paddlet going over not just over the next few hours but really over the next half year and beyond. We will be back first of all we will be back on the 23rd of September at Aarhus and so please join us for that in this continuing debate and it's really all these are key aspects not just for for universities but really of the European education area and of the European education areas so thank you very much for joining us. I wish you a fantastic summer and we really look forward to continue the discussion after the summer break.