“Skills for a Burning World: The Role of HEIs in Climate Action Recognition” – 24 September 2025, Brussels

On 24 September 2025, UNICA hosted the final OpenPass4Climate multiplier event at the Fondation Universitaire in Brussels. The event brought together a small but diverse group of representatives from universities, student organisations and educators to discuss how Higher Education Institutions can strengthen the recognition of climate-related engagement and sustainability learning.

The session opened with an introduction to the Erasmus+ project OP4C and its core outputs: the collection of Open Badges and the Climate Passport, designed to recognise sustainability competences across formal, non-formal and informal learning.

The main panel, “Skills for a Burning World,” moderated by Federica Nestola (UNICA), featured contributions from Fatma Fourati-Jamoussi (UniLaSalle) and Simone Lepore (Erasmus Student Network). Discussions focused on the need for universities to formally acknowledge students’ climate engagement, the value of open recognition frameworks, and the importance of aligning teaching, research and community initiatives with Europe’s sustainability objectives .

Participants were also introduced to the project’s policy recommendations for Higher Education, Credentialing Climate Competence in Higher Education, which outline strategic actions for integrating sustainability competences into curricula and recognition systems.

Although attendance was lower than expected—7 participants out of the 35 initially targeted—the exchanges were constructive and allowed meaningful dialogue on the future of climate competence recognition in European higher education. A final co-creation session encouraged participants to share perspectives on making recognition mechanisms more credible, accessible and aligned with labour-market expectations .

This event marked the closing dissemination activity of OP4C under Work Package 5.