Shaping the future of EdTech in Europe — together.

KIC and 1EdTech have launched 1EdTech Europe, a new independent, international non-profit registered in Belgium. This marks the next step in a partnership built on a simple belief: education should improve people’s lives and help every learner realise their potential.

That takes more than individual institutions, policies, or technology products. Learners need joined-up systems that move with them. An ecosystem that allows them to access opportunities, carry their achievements, and get recognised for learning completed anywhere.

That’s why interoperability sits at the heart of what we do. It determines whether learners can move between institutions, countries, and stages of life without starting from scratch. Interoperability shapes whether education technology expands opportunities or creates new barriers – and whether international learning and research remains genuinely open.

Moving beyond a shared vision

For more than three years, KIC has worked with 1EdTech on initiatives like the European Digital Education Hub and the Higher Education Interoperability Framework. Through this, we found a shared belief: meaningful change happens by putting learners at the centre, bringing communities together, and building practical standards for the real world.

For over 25 years, 1EdTech has connected global institutions and technology providers to develop foundational standards – Learning Tools Interoperability, Open Badges, and OneRoster. More importantly, 1EdTech has built the means to maintain them: technical working groups, testing tools, and certification processes.

Regional governance for European needs

Education is, and must remain, a global space. Global standards preserve openness and stop learners getting trapped in isolated regional silos. Europe has long benefited from this global infrastructure.

But global standards don’t automatically reflect European priorities. They need meaningful regional governance. Frameworks like GDPR or the European Learning Model demand specific technical and policy work – and that’s exactly what 1EdTech Europe is here to do.

European education has spent over 30 years building quality assurance and cross-border recognition processes that are unmatched globally. This complex, regionally harmonised infrastructure – shaped by multilingualism, multiculturalism, and strict privacy requirements – is rarely reflected in current technology standards.

Frameworks such as the EQF, ESCO, or ECTS, demand specific technical and policy work to be properly embedded. These challenges are specific to our diverse European legal and public-sector environments. European-specific governance needs a European home.

Enter 1EdTech Europe

1EdTech Europe provides this missing layer. It operates with European members, European decision-making, and European funding – while staying connected to 1EdTech’s global community. KIC and 1EdTech will hold board seats alongside elected European representatives. Together, we bring expertise in community facilitation, technical architecture, and education policy.

1EdTech Europe isn’t a regional promotional office. It’s an independent European organisation with the mandate to pursue its own priorities – shaping open standards tuned to European rules and needs.

Our initial priorities

• Bridging frameworks: Connecting the European Learning Model (ELM) with Open Badges to combine Europe’s rich recognition infrastructure with a globally portable digital credential standard.
• European profiles: Developing a European profile of Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) and Edu-API to guide how tools connect within European institutional, legal, and privacy frameworks.
• Privacy certification: Creating a practical tool that translates strict European privacy requirements into clear implementation guidance for EdTech providers and institutions.

For KIC, this is the next step in a long-standing commitment to open, connected education. We provide what the EdTech sector has needed: strong, community-led governance of standards that work for European education.