The project

In Cyprus and around Europe, for many types of studies (e.g., Engineering, medical studies, etc.) it is required that University graduates are in possession of a license or certificate to practice, issued by a competent National professional authority, so that they can legally embark on their professional career of choice. There exists approx. a dozen of major professional associations or chambers, authorized to issue licenses or certificates to practice in Cyprus.

When zooming into the Engineering field, 15% of the total annual graduation requires a License to practice to be issued by ETEK (The Cyprus Technical and Scientific Chamber). At the same time, many Cypriot students are studying abroad which often requires cross-border issuance and verification of credentials. Greece is the second most popular academic destination for Cyprus students, with a share in the region of 30% Cypriot graduates.

The current process to issue a licence to practice is mostly manual. This results in several challenges such as time delays (it takes a minimum of three months to have a licence to practice issued), considerable administrative costs, as well as vulnerability to human errors and fraud. This has a negative impact on its reliability, and an adverse effect on the level of stakeholders' trust to the current process.

GOLDMAN Solutions and Services Ltd has partnered with the Greek Universities network (GUnet), the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy of Cyprus and ETEK to address these challenges and allow the issuance, sharing and verification of education credentials (and more specifically, licence to practice credential) across borders by using EBSI.