In this episode I am joined again by Daiana Huber (“the Erasmus+ grant writer”) and Samuel Bogdan (“the digital guy”) to unpack one of the most confusing buzzwords in today’s Erasmus+ universe: micro-credentials. We start from the beginning: what a credential actually is (an artifact, a proof, a digital or non-digital object that represents an internal learning process) and why micro-credentials are not a learning activity, a seminar, a participation certificate or a mini-diploma. Daiana walks through the pedagogy behind the concept – competence as the combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes, learning outcomes as the expression of that competence, and microcredentials as containers that only make sense when you can clearly describe what a learner can do, in which context, and with what evidence.

From there we place microcredentials in the EU policy landscape: Year of Skills, Union of Skills, DG EMPL, portability of skills and the European Digital Credentials infrastructure. We look at what this means for grant writing (especially in Erasmus+): when it actually makes sense to include microcredentials in a proposal, which partners and roles you need (pedagogical, technical, quality), why you must avoid mixing them with accreditation/qualification, and how to design work packages so microcredentials are embedded in competence frameworks, curricula, learning experiences and assessment – not bolted on at the end. Finally, Sami shares the implementation journey: months of reading pedagogy and policy, playing in the European Digital Credential Issuer sandbox, defining issuer/assessor/QA roles, and the simple truth that nobody will tell you exactly how to do this – you have to experiment, document and learn as you go.

Time codes:

00:01:33 Introduction