EU-CERT European Certificates and Accreditation for European Projects

The ERASMUS+ project EU-CERT - European Certificates and Accreditation for European Projects - focuses on the development, testing and evaluation of European standards for project accreditation and certification in adult education.

It has a duration of 28 months and the project language is English.

The EU-CERT project is located in the field of adult education within the framework of the ERASMUS+ program. In EU-CERT, the consortium is creating an accreditation tool and process for ERASMUS+ projects whose outcomes and outputs such as courses, modules, curricula, training, software, etc. are accredited. EU-CERT develops European standards for project accreditation in adult education.

The main objective of the EU-CERT project is to design and implement a set of European criteria for ERASMUS+ project accreditation and to develop a stable accreditation structure that will continue to function after the EU-CERT project is completed. Project Results (PRs) and high-quality results must be made more visible and recognized. Measures such as the ERASMUS+ label are valuable and attempt to take a first step towards making ERASMUS+ programs more visible, but such approaches cannot guarantee quality.

EU-CERT is based on the existing needs analysis that was conducted prior to the application. The needs assessment provided a general overview of the accreditation and certification structure in adult education with regard to ERASMUS+. Our needs assessment was a formal, systematic process to identify and evaluate the need for such a certification and accreditation process in the field of adult education and was conducted prior to project application. It also showed that a PDCA cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) alone cannot be a sufficient basis for future quality assurance and accreditation in adult education. This means that in order to develop a workable approach within EU-CERT, we need more detailed information about the existing processes. The EU-CERT partners are developing a concept design. The accreditation process will be designed in detail. The EU-CERT accreditation process should be supportive, consistent and objective. Our accreditation process ensures that EU-CERT certification practices are acceptable, transparent, effective and useful. EU-CERT's European accreditation and certification processes will be “tools that enable stakeholders to understand, value and, where appropriate, recognize learning outcomes and this applies to qualifications across the Union” (according to the 2020 ERASMUS+ Programme Guidance (2020 Programme Guide, p. 325)).