Commission launches call for tender ‘Supporting the development of the Digital Education Hub’

Digital Education Hub. Image credit: European Union, 2021. Source: shutterstock.com

On 22 June 2021, the European Commission launched an open call for tender for the creation and development of a Digital Education Hub: a multi-stakeholder partnership community of practice, which will bring together experts on digital education in an inclusive and collaborative environment. The Digital Education Hub is closely linked to the Digital Education Action Plan for the period 2021 to 2027, a high-level EU vision for the future of European education and training systems in the digital age.

The idea for a Digital Education Hub emerged from the 6-month long consultations with stakeholders in the context of the Digital Education Action Plan, which took place in 2020 and involved experts from the public and private sectors, as well as education and training institutions, research organisations, and civil society representatives. The new Digital Education Hub will gather actions aiming to map, draw lessons learnt and analyse European responses to the COVID-19 crisis. It will also identify good practices and successful approaches and offer a forum where EU stakeholders can exchange practice and experience at EU level. Another aim of the Digital Education Hub is to offer support and guidance to public authorities, academia, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and managing a smooth and coherent recovery period.

Aims of the Digital Education Hub

The Digital Education Hub will provide visibility to the outputs of its community of practice, a dedicated space for its information-sharing needs and reinforce synergies with the European Education Area initiative. In addition, it aims to:

Provide support to EU Member States by setting up a network of national advisory services on digital education to facilitate the exchange of good practices between stakeholders in the field of digital education.
Build new links, and reinforce existing connections between national and regional digital education initiatives, and support future partnerships between national authorities, private sector representatives, education and training providers, civil society organisations and trade unions.
Monitor the implementation of the Digital Education Action Plan and track the progress and development of the state-of-play of digital education in Europe, also through analysis of results stemming from other EU-funded projects.
Facilitate an environment for knowledge-sharing and the availability of good practices by contributing to research experimentation and analysis of empirical and peer learning evidence.
Promote collaboration across sectors and the development of new models for seamless exchange of digital learning content whilst simultaneously addressing issues, such as interoperability, quality assurance, environmental sustainability, accessibility and inclusion and EU common standards for digital education
Support the agile development of policy and practice by acting as a ‘think-and-do-tank’ for digital education and engaging stakeholders in user-driven innovation through the Digital Education Hackathon.

Launched call for tender ‘Supporting the development of the Digital Education Hub’

The successful tenderers will support the European Commission with the set up and development of the Digital Education Hub by contributing to the following specific objectives:

support and develop an open, engaged and inclusive multi-stakeholder community of practice (CoP) around digital education.
moderate and nurture exchanges, discourse and co-creation activities with the aim to enable cross-sectoral cooperation.
showcase excellence in digital education.
support the development of innovation in digital education, including at the grass-roots level and facilitate the acceleration of digital solutions.
promote the use of collaboration adopting the agile methodology and innovative co-creation methods among stakeholders including members of the CoP.
ensure an open feedback loop between policy and the practice of digital education at the European Union (EU) level.

More details and eligibility requirements

Tasks related to the implementation of the Call for Tender range from the creation and nurturing of a community of practice, peer learning and mentoring, gathering and curating information, accelerating practices and organising outreach activities. The duration of the project is indicated at 36 months, starting from November 2021.

Participation is open to natural and legal persons falling under the scope of the EU treaties, or natural and legal persons established in a third country, who are in possession of a special procurement agreement with the EU. International organisations and groups, comprising of economic operators are also welcome to apply.

Applications

More information on this open call for tenders and the application procedure, selection criteria and list of documents required for submission is available on the website of the European Commission. Tenders must be submitted electronically, following the guidance available online.