The 31 Champions of the European Student Card Initiative 2025-27; kick-off meeting at the EAIE conference

The European Commission announces the 31 "Champions of the European Student Card Initiative (ESCI)" on 02/07/2025, rewarding those higher education institutions and organisations that have made significant progress in adopting the various constituent elements of the ESCI.

Closed on 16/05/2025, the call received 123 applications from 30 countries. DG EAC selected one ESCI Champion for each Erasmus+ National Agency (Belgium has two of them, as the country's communities are responsible for education).

• 24 are rewarded for their implementation of the Erasmus Without Paper (EWP; a digital solution for HEIs to connect their Erasmus+ mobility management systems to manage their mobile students online). 92 applications were submitted, giving a success rate of 26.1%;
• 2 are rewarded for their implementation of the European Student Card (ESC; "a common European identity for higher education students"). 12 applications were submitted, giving a success rate of 16.6%;
• 5 are champions of excellence, meaning that they demonstrated exceptional implementation of both ESC and EWP. 19 applications…