The AUREA project aims to support automatic recognition for credit mobility students by identifying barriers, analysing existing options, and providing policy recommendations for the future of automatic recognition. By assessing the state of play in recognition for mobile students undergoing credit mobility, creating a shared understanding of (full) automatic credit recognition on a European level, providing higher education institutions with the necessary tools and information to assess their readiness for implementation of automatic credit recognition and fostering evidence-based policy making, AUREA seeks to address challenges and promote unobstructed mobility within the Erasmus+ community, thereby advancing the goal of automatic recognition.
The leading organisation of this project is the European Students’ Union (ESU), and the partner organisations are the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), European University Foundation (EUF), European University Association (EUA), Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem (ELTE), Universiteit Gent (UGENT), Philipps Universität Marburg (UMarburg), and Universiteti Publik Kadri Zeka (UZK).
The goals of AUREA
The main objective of AUREA is to support automatic recognition for credit mobility students by identifying barriers, analysing existing options, and providing policy recommendations for the future of automatic recognition.
Mapping recognition practices
Assess the state of play in recognition for mobile students undergoing credit mobility.
Building a common understanding
Create a shared understanding of (full) automatic credit recognition on a European level.
Empowering implementation
Provide higher education institutions with the necessary tools and information to assess their readiness for implementation of automatic credit recognition and fostering evidence-based policy making.
News
Credit recognition in practice: we’d like to hear from you - Survey
How does credit recognition work in practice at your institution?
18 Sept 2026
Pilot-testing a self-evaluation tool on automatic credit recognition
The European University Association is seeking expressions of interest in pilot-testing an online tool...
12 June 2026
Highlights from the Online Multiplier Event
On 27 October, 2025, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. CET, the AUREA project held an online multiplier event “The long road to automatic recognition in the context of mobility”...
14 Nov 2025
Kick-starting the AUREA project to advance credit recognition in Europe
The AUREA project has officially kicked off in Brussels, uniting partners to shape fair, transparent, and automatic credit recognition across Europe.
14 Apr 2025
Resources
See the latest research outputs of the AUREA project!
Report from Higher Education Social Labs
The report presents a summary of three Higher Education Social Labs, interactive full-day workshops with higher education practitioners on automatic credit recognition, which took place in March 2026.
Enabling Factors Framework for Automatic Credit Recognition
The report maps the enabling factors that support the implementation of the automatic recognition process in credit mobility, building on the insights of higher education practitioners.
Report on the Current State of Automatic Credit Recognition
This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the current state of automatic academic recognition for credit mobility within the European Higher Education Area. The study identifies persistent challenges, such as inconsistent implementation, curricular incompatibilities, and gaps in Learning Agreement processes, and provides evidence-based insights to support progress toward seamless and fully automatic credit recognition across Europe.
Take a look and learn more about the timeline and expected outputs of the AUREA project. The project started in January 2025 and will be finalised in March 2027.
Aug 2025
Report on the current state of automatic credit recognition
The report will analyse the current state of automatic credit recognition, identifying barriers and practices that impact seamless recognition of mobility credits.
Oct 2025
Online Multiplier Event
The Online Multiplier Event will present the report's findings on automatic credit recognition, highlighting challenges and opportunities for improving mobility credit recognition.
Feb 2026
Higher Education Social Labs
The Social Labs will bring together higher education practitioners in 4 countries to validate a framework with enabling factors for automatic credit recognition.
Mar 2026
Comparative report on approaches to automatic recognition in credit mobility
The comparative report will present an in-depth analysis of perceptions on barriers to full automatic credit recognition, highlighting the implications for students and evaluating existing tools and solutions across various countries.
Dec 2026
Capacity building and self-evaluation
Providing resources, a self-evaluation tool, and workshops to help HEIs integrate automatic credit recognition, reducing workload and barriers for student mobility.
Dec 2026
Data Visualisation Scoreboard
An interactive scoreboard that will showcase how Automatic Recognition is comparable across Europe.
Mar 2027
AUREA Roadmap for Automatic Recognition
Providing concrete recommendations to ensure the onboarding of the project results by stakeholders.
Mar 2026
AUREA Policy Conference
The final conference will be an important opportunity to disseminate the results of the project and create a space for stakeholder collaboration and future follow up initiatives.
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Project partners
Credit recognition in practice: we’d like to hear from you - Survey
How does credit recognition work in practice at your institution?
The AUREA consortium is inviting International Offices at higher education institutions to share their experience by completing our survey on credit recognition practices.
We want to better understand the barriers to automatic credit recognition, their impact on mobile students, and the tools and solutions already in use across institutions.
The insights gathered through the survey will help identify common challenges and promising approaches across Europe, providing a basis for AUREA’s recommendations and practical resources to support the wider adoption of automatic credit recognition.
Thank you for contributing your experience and helping us build the evidence for change.
Date: 18 Sept 2026
Call for participation: Pilot-testing a self-evaluation tool on automatic credit recognition
The European University Association is seeking expressions of interest in pilot-testing an online tool that allows staff of higher education institutions to self-evaluate their institution’s readiness to implement automatic credit recognition.
Feedback from the pilot testers will support the Erasmus+ funded Automatic Recognition Assessment (AUREA) project in validating and finalising the tool before its official launch.
The call is open to all staff members in Erasmus+ programme and partner countries that are involved – at any level of their higher education institution – in recognition processes taking place in the context of student mobility.
The deadline to express interest in participating is 10 July.
In case of questions about this call, please send an email to [email protected]
The AUREA project (2025-2027), which is coordinated by the European Students’ Union (ESU), aims to support the automatic recognition of study periods abroad by identifying barriers, analysing existing options to overcome them and providing policy recommendations for the future of automatic recognition. The project seeks to address challenges and promote unobstructed mobility within the Erasmus+ community, thereby advancing the goal of automatic recognition.
On 27 October, 2025, from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. CET, the AUREA project held an online multiplier event entitled “The long road to automatic recognition in the context of mobility”, concluding the activities of WP2. The Zoom event, organised by the European Students’ Union (ESU), in close collaboration with partners, brought together more than 120 participants from across Europe and beyond, including HE stakeholders, practitioners, students, as well as national and European policy makers.
The Online Multiplier Event brought together higher education stakeholders to discuss progress and challenges in implementing automatic recognition of credits in student mobility across Europe. The event introduced the project’s main goals: to map recognition practices, assess the current state of play, and develop tools and frameworks to support higher education institutions (HEIs) in achieving full automatic credit recognition.
The session opened with an overview of the project and a presentation of the project report on the current state of automatic recognition, which identifies existing bottlenecks, barriers, and inconsistencies in recognition procedures across Europe. The report also explores how institutions and students perceive these challenges and proposes steps toward a common European definition and a Framework of Enabling Factors to evaluate current systems and tools.
A panel discussion followed, featuring Johannes Gehringer (DG EAC, European Commission), Harriet Klåvus (CHARM-EU), Lana Par (European Students’ Union), and Helene Peterbauer (European University Association), moderated by Jeanne Cuny (ESU). The speakers shared institutional, policy, and student perspectives on promoting transparency, trust, and comparability in credit recognition, emphasizing how automatic recognition can enhance student mobility and the European Higher Education Area. The audience had also the opportunity to ask questions to the panelists via the event chat.
The event concluded with a presentation of AUREA’s next steps, which include further exploration of stakeholder practices, the development of a self-evaluation tool and a roadmap for universities, and a series of capacity-building workshops planned for 2026.
The project will culminate in a final policy conference in 2027, aimed at ensuring policy uptake and long-term impact.
The organisers thank all speakers, moderators, and partners from the AUREA consortium (ESU, ESN, EUF, EUA, ELTE, UGent, University of Marburg, and UZK) for their contributions and invite participants to share feedback and follow the project’s progress via aurea-project.eu
If you were unable to join us live, we welcome you to watch the replay and check out the presentation to gain a comprehensive understanding of the topics addressed.
Date: 14 Nov 2025
Kick-starting the AUREA project to advance credit recognition in Europe
The Automatic Recognition Assessment (AUREA) project officially launched with its Kick-off Meeting on 12-13 February 2025 in Brussels, hosted by the European Students’ Union. The two-day event brought together partners from across Europe to align on project goals, timelines, and responsibilities.
AUREA aims to assess the state of credit recognition for mobile students, build a shared understanding of automatic recognition, and equip higher education institutions with tools for implementation. The meeting featured presentations of key work packages, discussions on project management, and sessions on communication, inclusion, and quality assurance.
With strong collaboration and a shared vision, AUREA is set to make meaningful progress toward fair and transparent credit recognition across Europe.
