The project

eEvery year, refugees or displaced people coming from a non-EU country arrive in Europe whishing to pursue their academic and professional career within a European country. Unfortunately, they lack the relevant documentation which was obtained in their country.

CIMEA, the Italian Information Centre on Academic Mobility and Equivalence, has the role in Italy to support higher education institutions in the recognition of foreign qualifications. Since 2019, it has adopted blockchain solutions for issuing its assessments. Besides this, it has been involved in the European Qualification Passport for Refugees project, a special tool developed by the Council of Europe, to assess refugee’s qualifications for which there is insufficient or missing documentation. Thereby, it is supporting their further studies, employment and integration, as well as a format for describing the assessment.

CIMEA has teamed up with the University of Cagliari, which are currently already enrolling students who are EQPR holders, GovPart GmbH (a German company which drives innovative projects on behalf of its clients that is looking for a graduate in Artificial Intelligence) as well as Infratel Italia (supporting Blockchain projects in Italy and the European Blockchain Partnership Initiative) to further develop the solution using EBSI.

From 2021 onwards the Council of Europe has digitalized the entire workflow of the EQPR process and its issues through Diplome Blockchain platform. The EQPR holders can now share their document in a simple, secure and fast way directly by their wallet with higher education institutions, companies, employees all around Europe thank to the EBSI infrastructure.