MicroNet

2026-07-22

Micro-credentials offer a powerful new way for higher education institutions to fulfil their academic mission to serve students and society, leveraging their professional and intellectual expertise to serve learners on campus and beyond. Micro-credentials also leverage the Covid-accelerated embrace of online education that boosts access and convenience. There is a great opportunity to build on existing transnational work, for example, the MICROBOL project which is co-funded by the current round of Erasmus+ KA3 Support to Policy reform, “Support to the implementation of EHEA reforms”, due for completion in 2022. The establishment of MicroNet as a European transnational peer support and learning network for university micro-credentials, comprising innovative and change-making higher education consortia, led by the Irish Universities Association (IUA), has major potential and influence to drive the awareness, delivery and acceptance of micro-credentials as a learning tool fit for 21st-century European citizens, aligning with the direction of the European Skills agenda (EC, 2020 – Action 10 on Micro-credentials) and showcasing our common drive to a climate-neutral Europe (European Green Deal, EC, 2019). Our proposed MicroNet will comprise the IUA, the European University Association (EUA), Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI), University College Cork [the European University of Post-Industrial Cities (UNIC)] and Dublin City University [European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU)]. Each of these consortia has strategic directions (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals, super-diversity, institutional changes in the context of micro-credentials mobility and the stacking and portability of micro-credentials, etc.) which we believe strongly align themselves to the development of micro-credentials as transnational mobile learning opportunities for European citizens wishing to upskill or reskill, particularly in the post-Covid landscape.

Ireland

2025-12-15