European Education Connectivity Solution Project (EECS) successfully accepted under the FP7-SME-2008-1 call

The European Education Connectivity Solution Project (EECS) will offer a solution to enable academic mobility within Europe by researching and developing a secure, standardised campus card system. The creation of a standardised campus card system will facilitate academic mobility by allowing Higher Education institutions to share information using a common campus card that will act as a student’s “electronic key” and will enable access to a student’s records on secure databases. A standardised campus card will enable more efficient electronic exchange of data amongst H.E. Institutions with the technology of the new millennium. In Europe many Higher Education institutions operate campus card systems in order to facilitate access to services for students, academics and visitors: point of sale, library access, access to classrooms/residences, printing/photocopying, etc. However, these systems operate in isolation on a stand-alone basis, providing no interoperability with other H.E. Institutions card systems due to the lack of system standards.

The main aim of the EECS project is to provide standards, mobility and interoperability throughout the European campuses. The overall project, which will involve several phases of development, will be delivered through a partnership of H.E. Institutions and Campus Card Vendors across Europe.

Last April, ECCA and the EECS consortium involved submitted a funding proposal application for the first phase of the EECS project to the E.U. under the Framework 7 SME Programme. The initial funding application evaluation by the EU has now been accepted. In total 663 proposals, all involving 5,570 entities were received by the EU under the FP7-SME-2008-1 call. Of these 663 applications only 94 were accepted. This equates to 15% of the total proposals received being successful. The EECS proposal was one of only three Irish proposals to be accepted under this call.

The EECS Consortium consists of the following:
SME’s -  OneCard Solutions, Ireland (Project Coordinators), OP Team, Poland, Mecenat, Sweden.
H.E. Institutions - University of Zagreb, Croatia, Technical University of Lodz, Poland, Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland.

The concept of having a standard European Campus Card that would facilitate interoperability and mobility to student and academics across Europe was a key aim of ECCA since it was established. Although, still at the very early stages of the process, the fact that the E.U. are now supporting the project, it’s a reality that this aim will be achieved in the near future. In particular for ECCA, it’s a major achievement for the Association and will provide an appropriate platform for both ECCA and the H.E. Institutions throughout Europe to participate in the development of an interoperable campus card solution.

For further information on the European Campus Card Association, you can visit the ECCA website at www.ecca.eu  or contact:

Sinead Nealon
Secretary General

Email: info@ecca.eu

Ph: + 353 51 302870