By Jessica Schwarz (EUNIS), with input from LluÃs Ariño (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), Stefan Jahnke (Knowledge Innovation Centre) and Niels van Dijk (SURF)
The EU and its policies have played a significant role in shaping the policies and landscape of higher education. From cross-border research collaborations, joint degrees, exchange programmes such as Erasmus+, as well as the intergovernmental Bologna Process with 49 EU and non-EU countries that established the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), European cooperation, within and beyond the EU, has enabled these developments in higher education. At the core of all of this functioning is the concept of interoperability. Yet the growing number of frameworks designed to deliver interoperability is creating a problem of its own: standards fatigue.
Interoperability is the capacity of systems, processes, and institutions to work together seamlessly. There are various forms of interoperability, according to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF): technical interoperability refers to data exchange protocols and formats, such as e-transcripts, digital student IDs or Erasmus Without Paper; semantic interoperability refers to shared understanding of concepts like ‘ECTS credits’ or ‘learning outcomes’; organisational interoperability refers to administrative processes that align across institutions and countries, such as joint programmes, credit recognition, and mobility agreements; and legal interoperability refers to when organisations operating under different legal frameworks, policies and strategies are able to work together. At the heart of interoperability lies trust: confidence that credentials and student data are issued and managed through consistent, verifiable processes. Without confidence and trust in the authenticity and integrity of exchanged data, interoperability frameworks cannot work as intended.
In Europe, the opportunities and prospects for international studies have grown, with Eurostat reporting that about 1.76 million students from abroad study in the EU in 2023, making up 8.4% of total tertiary enrolment. Growing mobility increases the need for portable, verifiable credentials and cross-institutional access to digital services.
With higher education becoming increasingly digital and international, universities face the challenge of integrating diverse systems, standards, and approaches, resulting in a greater need for interoperability. As a pan-European community connecting IT and digital leaders from universities and research institutions across Europe, EUNIS plays a key role in fostering cooperation, interoperability and integration so that institutions and frameworks can work seamlessly together. EUNIS’s Special Interest Groups (SIGs), such as those on Enterprise Architecture, Mobility & Digital Credentials, Open Science and Learning Technology work collaboratively to develop shared frameworks, common terminology, and aligned reference models.
As cooperation between higher education institutions increasingly goes beyond national borders, universities must navigate a rapidly evolving landscape of digital credential frameworks, such as European Learning Model (ELM), Europass/European Digital Credentials (EDC), European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), eIDAS 2.0 and the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, Open Badges 3.0 / W3C Verifiable Credentials, as well as parallel mobility initiatives such as the European Student Card Initiative and the proposed Joint European Degree Label. While these developments create new opportunities for student mobility and cross-border collaboration, they also introduce significant organisational and strategic challenges. Institutions must balance local needs with national and European priorities, while aligning the interests of institutional leadership, administrative departments and IT teams. Universities must not only monitor ongoing developments but also assess their practical relevance, sustainability, and potential return on investment. The rapid pace of innovation can create uncertainty around technology choices and implementation strategies, making it difficult to determine when to adopt new approaches and when to wait for greater maturity or consensus.
This growing difficulty for institutions to keep track of, evaluate, and implement the many standards, frameworks, specifications and initiatives being developed at European and international levels is what we might call standards fatigue. The challenge is not the existence of standards themselves, as common standards are essential for interoperability, but the proliferation of overlapping or evolving approaches, sometimes addressing similar use cases from different perspectives, such as the move from the Europass Digital Credentials Infrastructure (EDCI) data model to ELM v3 in Europass. For higher education institutions, deciding which standards to adopt can require significant investment in staff time, technical development, procurement, training and governance, particularly when the long-term uptake or sustainability of a particular approach remains uncertain. This can create a difficult balance between adopting early enough to benefit from emerging interoperability opportunities and waiting until standards and technologies have reached greater maturity and wider adoption. Repeated changes or competing specifications can also lead to fragmented implementations, duplicated investment and reluctance to engage with new initiatives. Over time, this may result in institutions focusing on compliance with individual frameworks rather than developing genuinely interoperable and sustainable systems. Addressing standards fatigue therefore requires greater coordination, transparency and continuity across the European higher education ecosystem.
As such, there is a need for better information sharing among all parties about current projects, examples, and practices related to mobility and digital credentials. It is also important to build a shared understanding of different types of credentials, common education semantics and ontologies, and what they mean for education processes, data flows, and quality assurance. This includes clarifying the relationship between credentials, micro-credentials, and technical standards such as Open Badges 3.0 and its alignment with the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model and ELM, as well as promoting the use of common skills and competence frameworks, such as European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) and Digital Competence Framework (DigComp), to ensure a shared understanding of learning outcomes and competencies across institutions, systems, and borders.
More coordination and compatibility are needed across governance, legal, technical, and practical aspects to ensure that systems can work smoothly together. Continued cooperation and dialogue between universities, projects, and policymakers are key to staying aligned on new developments and common goals, while shaping a shared European approach to quality assurance and collaboration with systems outside Europe.
Rather than offering broad recommendations across every stakeholder group, we highlight three practical steps that follow directly from the challenges discussed in this article. First, institutions need a clear, maintained map of how the overlapping standards, data models and infrastructures relate to each other, so they can make informed implementation choices. Second, those who maintain the frameworks should commit to continuity and backward compatibility, giving institutions confidence that today’s implementations will remain valid as specifications evolve. Finally, implementation evidence needs to be shared: much practical knowledge sits within individual institutions, and networks such as EUNIS are well placed to gather and spread it so institutions can learn from one another rather than solving the same problems in isolation. Together, these steps would support an interoperable, trusted and sustainable digital credentials ecosystem.
Ultimately, interoperability is not only a technical necessity but an enabler for the future of higher education and its integration across Europe and beyond. It supports inclusion, efficiency, and resilience in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. The challenges of interoperability cannot be solved in isolation. Through continued collaboration and knowledge sharing within networks such as EUNIS, the higher education sector can work towards a more connected and trusted digital ecosystem. At the same time, this collaboration must help address the growing risk of standards fatigue: institutions should not be expected to continuously invest in new frameworks and technologies without clarity about their relationship to existing standards, their long-term viability, or their practical value. The goal should therefore not be to adopt more standards, but to build a coherent and sustainable interoperability landscape in which standards complement one another, reduce complexity, and provide lasting value for institutions and their communities.
For those interested in learning more or joining the discussions surrounding interoperability, consider getting in contact with EUNIS’ Mobility & Digital Credentials SIG: https://eunis.org/task-forces/mobility-and-digital-credentials-special-interest-group/
