21.4.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 167/13
26.
HEIs could be supported with a view to enhancing student-centred and research-based learning, which aims to provide students with up-to-date competences, skills and knowledge as well as to develop their research skills and experience.
Students should also be supported in working across disciplines in challenge-based approaches.
27.
HEIs can play a key role in lifelong learning and in responding to the labour market transformation by opening up to all types of learners and fostering their employability, including by reskilling and upskilling.
To that end, HEIs should be supported in their use of digitalisation to foster innovative learning and teaching methods, and in designing and implementing flexible and tailor-made learning pathways, including, where appropriate, shorter courses or learning experiences that can lead to micro-credentials, while not deviating from the core principle of full degree programmes.
In order to develop learners’ relevant skills, competences, attitudes and entrepreneurial spirit, HEIs should be encouraged to cooperate with their ecosystems, to promote work-based experiences such as internships, apprenticeships and volunteering opportunities and, where appropriate, to further develop entrepreneurship tracks enabling students to carry out entrepreneurial projects during their studies.
28.
HEIs have a key role to play in supporting the green transition and addressing the Sustainable Development Goals as a distinctive quality feature at global level.
In this respect, HEIs across Europe should be supported to introduce sustainability and green approaches using a whole institution approach as part of their missions, infrastructures and operations, where relevant.
29.
In order to address the green transition, HEIs should be encouraged to develop interdisciplinary knowledge, skills and competences, support the acquisition and use of knowledge about sustainability among all learners and communities, and embed sustainability education as part of curricula in all relevant sectors.
They should be encouraged to commission and conduct research that builds on the knowledge base around sustainability.
30.
As evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, digital technologies are a powerful transformation tool for higher education systems in Europe, and HEIs are in turn instrumental to accelerating the digital transition in Europe.
31.
It is necessary to provide HEIs with high connectivity and high-performing digital infrastructures and services, which should to the greatest possible extent be interoperable and shared across Europe, rely on European standards (3) and use trusted technologies in keeping with HEIs’ specific needs, such as secure data.
32.
Accelerating Europe’s digital transition implies providing digital and data literacy to all students, trainers, staff, academics and researchers, and, where relevant, to the wider public.
HEIs have a key role to play to that end in terms of equipping learners with emerging digital competences and their ethical component – such as data stewardship, artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and cybersecurity – and conducting research and innovation.
33.
While fully recognising the value of face-to-face learning, HEIs should make full use of digital means in order to enhance the quality of the learning experience for students, staff, academics and researchers and to address social inequalities.
In order to bridge the digital divide, initiatives providing equal access to individualised learning opportunities for all should be supported, using, for example, virtual or hybrid teaching in remote learning places.
HEIs should be accompanied in their efforts to share platforms and interoperable tools that allow for data exchange while providing high-quality, user-friendly education resources such as online courses.
Deepening the European sense of belonging based on common values
34.
To deepen the European sense of belonging and promote our European way of life, it is key to uphold and protect European democratic values, foster diversity, inclusiveness and gender equality and strengthen the quality and relevance of higher education for future-proof skills.
HEIs are autonomous and academic and scientific freedom is a central principle of their mission and activities.
(3) Carretero Gomez, S., Vuorikari, R. and Punie, Y., DigComp 2.1: The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2017.