Standarising an accreditation system in Europe

The EU Commission has developed tools to help European citizens make their skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood across Europe.

My role
Client	European Marketing Confederation (EMC)
Date	2006-2008
Sector	NGO, professional association
Task	Assisting the Project Leader of a multi-national multi-annual EU Leonardo da Vinci program sponsored by the European Commission
Challenge	Coordinating lots of details by lots of partners on a complex government-like EU environment

One of them is the European Qualifications Framework (EQF), a translation tool that helps understand and compare qualifications awarded in different countries and by different education and training systems. Its eight levels are described in terms of learning outcomes: knowledge, skills and competences.

In 2005, the European Marketing Confederation proposed the EU Commission an adapted version of this scheme to assess and compare marketing qualifications issued in different European countries: the Marketing Sectoral National Qualifications Framework (MSNQF). This was developed as a Leonardo da Vinci Program in a multi-year program in two phases.

It finished in 2009 with the publication of the European Marketing Certification and Qualification (EMCQ) Framework which is currently being used by academic institutions in several European countries.

The aim is for employers of a given country to be able to understand what a certificate/diploma presented by a candidate and which had been issued in a different European country meant in terms of equivalences in knowledge, skills and competences compared to those officially issued in their own country.

I participated in the first phase of the program assisting the Project Leader at the European Marketing Confederation to coordinate the project with the other partners:

• Le FOREM (Public Employment and Vocational Training Service for the Walloon Region),
• AU FIL DE L’EAU (a French-based training organisation specialised in company programs),
• the Commission Nationale de la Certification Professionnelle (CNCP),
• the Ministére de l´Education Nationale et de la Formation Professionnelle (MENFP),
• Netherlands Institute of Marketing (NIMA),
• The Portuguese Marketing Association (APPM),
• the Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body (MSSSB)
• Services SETA (Sector Education and Training Authority) as an associated partner.

I also took charge of managing the communications (website, brochures, social networks…).