The EUNIS Enterprise Architecture (EA) Special Interest Group (SIG) hosted its annual EA Week in Leipzig (20-24 October 2025), brought together enterprise architects from universities across Europe — with additional participants joining remotely — for a week of hands-on collaboration, learning, and exchange.
This practice-oriented program was designed to deepen capability-driven enterprise architecture, strengthen the use of the Higher Education Reference Model (HERM), and co-develop shared artefacts and frameworks to enhance interoperability across institutions.
The week-long event featured five consecutive days of activities, including introductory sessions, themed workshops, and a final synthesis day. Participants engaged in practical exercises to connect institutional strategy, processes, and technology, using EA as a lens to manage complexity and enable change.
Some of the highlights and achievements of the week include:
Hands-on Collaboration: Co-creating HERM-aligned catalogues and capability mappings earned the highest feedback scores.
Peer Learning: Participants praised the open exchange of tools, governance models, and data-flow patterns.
Sector Relevance: Sessions linking EA with EWP/ESCI, eIDAS/EUDI Wallet, and IEA resonated strongly.
A key outcome of this year’s program was the establishment of the HERM Change Advisory Board (HERM-CAB) — a shared platform for collecting and reviewing improvement suggestions to the HERM model, in close coordination with CAUDIT, which maintains it.
Participants also collaboratively developed a Higher Education Business Service Reference Catalogue — a framework to help universities describe and manage their key services consistently across Europe. They also explored ways to integrate Service Management with HERM, illustrating how a structured approach can deliver tangible value to institutional operations. HORA/HERM alignment was also discussed, bridging two key European reference models to foster a unified understanding of higher education processes, data, and technologies.
Participants also offered the following positive feedback on the week:
“This week is one of my motivation drivers.”
“The activities we had created more engagement than online.”
“Keep on going — these weeks are valuable for me and my work.”
“It’s great to see that others face similar challenges and that we can solve them together.”
EA Week once again highlighted the strength of collaboration, shared learning, and community — values at the heart of EUNIS’s mission.
Warm congratulations go to EA SIG leaders Patrik Maltusch (Aalto University) and Esa Suominen (University of Helsinki) for leading a truly successful and engaging week of knowledge exchange and teamwork.
Building on this year’s momentum, the EA community looks forward to continuing its journey — and to meeting again next year in Croatia, for the next edition of EA 2026 Week.