Fondazione ENDISU was a core partner of the EDSSI – European Digital Student Service Infrastructure project, started in September 2020 and ended in August 2022.
The partnership was coordinated by ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS – AUTh (Greece) and further composed by the following partners: European University Foundation (Luxembourg), Centre National des Oeuvres Universitaires et Scolaires and Groupement d’intérêt public pour le réseau national de telecommunications pour la technologie, l’enseignement et la recherche – Renater (France), Erasmus Student Network (Belgium), Géant Vereniging (Netherlands), Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin (Germany), Unit – direktoratet for ikt og fellestjenester i hoyere utdanning og forskning (Norway), Universidad de Málaga, and Universitat Jaume i de Castelló (Spain), Universidade do Porto (Portugal), Universiteit Gent (Belgium), Uniwersytet Warszawski (Polonia), Vetenskapsradet (Sweden).
With the aim of creating a core infrastructure to provide students with a seamless mobility experience, EDSSI started building bridges between the different tools for Erasmus+ mobility administration which were often the result of the pro-bono work of a few enthusiastic International Relations Officers and developers from a few universities in Europe.
The infrastructure leverages the Once Only Principle concept which gives the university population – students and staff – the opportunity to authenticate and access all services related to mobility and information available through a single login, wherever they are. Therefore, the project strengthens inclusiveness and significantly contributes to the creation of the European Education Area.
EDSSI has developed the EU Student eCard service platform, thanks to the consolidation and integration of a series of already existing initiatives, allowing the creation of an integrated authentication and authorization infrastructure that combines citizen identification (eID/eIDAS ) and identification by university institutions (eduGAIN), in order to create an infrastructure that functions as a gateway to European/national/local nodes for the exchange of data relating to academic careers and access to services and thus promoting mobility within the European Union.
The new system is fully aligned with the objectives set for the European Education Area, such as the initiatives relating to the European Universities and the European Student Card. At the same time, it contributes to and is based on a vast range of initiatives for the digitalisation of the university world, including including the MyAcademicID, Erasmus Without Paper, European Student Card project, EMREX and Erasmus+ App projects.