From Theory to Practice: Making Interoperability Become Reality in European University Alliances

10 pages•Published: November 6, 2025

Bettina Benzinger, Jose Ignacio Castro Zamora, Javier Lapuente and Alexander Knoth

Abstract

In the structure of European University Alliances (EU-As), more than 570 Higher Education institutions (HEIs) across Europe have embarked on a transformative journey to create a more interconnected European HE landscape and overcome current barriers that hinder seamless experiences in digital teaching and learning in HE. Building on the experiences of EU-As, HE experts have collaboratively developed a framework for HE interoperability. The initiative is set under the umbrella of the European Digital Education Hub (EDEH) and incentivised through the European Commission.
The paper start our by setting the scene for interconnected European campuses and describing the approach taken for the here portrayed endeavour. Next, based on insights generated during the engagement and data collection with alliances, the paper describes the current landscape of interoperability at EU-As, including patterns, trends and priorities observed and challenges encountered by alliances with regards to technological, semantical, organisational and legal challenges. The paper then continues with a forward-looking perspective, encouraging action and offering guidance and recommendations for alliances’ interoperability journeys, before closing with a short outlook.

Keyphrases: european university alliances, higher education, interoperability, reference architecture, use cases

In: Laurence Desnos, Raimund Vogl, Lazaros Merakos, Carmen Diaz, Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan (editors). Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast, vol 107, pages 98-107.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/rXFx
	https://doi.org/10.29007/fv2r

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{EUNIS2025:From_Theory_Practice_Making,
  author    = {Bettina Benzinger and Jose Ignacio Castro Zamora and Javier Lapuente and Alexander Knoth},
  title     = {From Theory to Practice: Making Interoperability Become Reality in European University Alliances},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of EUNIS 2025 annual congress in Belfast},
  editor    = {Laurence Desnos and Raimund Vogl and Lazaros Merakos and Carmen Diaz and Janina Mincer-Daszkiewicz and Stuart Mclellan},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Computing},
  volume    = {107},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2398-7340},
  url       = {/publications/paper/rXFx},
  doi       = {10.29007/fv2r},
  pages     = {98-107},
  year      = {2025}}

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