The Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture published on December 23rd, 2021 a note intended to inform all Erasmus+ National Agencies about the latest revision of the timeline of digitalisation of Inter-Institutional Agreements (IIAs) for higher education mobility.
In the official document, the European Commission urges “all higher education institutions (HEIs) to be ready to exchange digitally Inter-Institutional Agreements by using the new template through Erasmus Without Paper as soon as possible for them and their partners during the 2021/2022 academic year.” Indeed, this action is paramount/crucial as it would create the optimal condition for the Erasmus Without Paper Network to fulfil its mission: to enable educational institutions to more easily and securely perform the administrative tasks necessary for managing the mobility of learners and to safely exchange electronic data across borders.
However, acknowledging that the interoperability between the Dashboard and other mobility management systems when it comes to exchanging Inter-Institutional Agreements is not achieved yet, the Commission has decided to further extend the deadline to December 31st, 2022.
“… we confirm that ‘old’ Inter-Institutional Agreements can be further extended by the agreement of both partners to cover mobilities of the 2022/2023 academic year (regardless of the Erasmus+ call year through which they are funded), accompanied by email exchanges. Alternatively, paper agreements can be signed for cases where the extension of old bilateral Inter-Institutional Agreements is not an option. As soon as both partners are ready to exchange the Inter-Institutional Agreements data digitally, and at the latest by 31 December 2022, they transfer all the information from email exchanges and paper agreements onto digital Inter-Institutional Agreements templates on the Erasmus Without Paper system…”
In a nutshell, the extension of the transitional period to the end of 2022 is expected to make it possible for all HEIs to complete the digitalisation process of IIAs.
Please read the full note here.
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