“Course catalogues are the heartbeat of student mobilities.” This bold claim set the tone for DACEM’s in person Conference, held on 17 June 2026 in Brussels where student organisations, higher education professionals, policymakers, and technical experts gathered to confront a shared challenge: why are course catalogues still falling short, and what does it take to fix them?
Sabri Ben Rommane (ESN) presenting the students’ point of view
The day opened with a reality check: for too many students, navigating course catalogues before going on exchange is frustrating, confusing, and sometimes broken. One in three students faces course recognition issues during their mobility, and poor catalogue quality is often at the root of it. For International Relations Officers, the situation isn’t much better: finding the right course information often turns into a “digital scavenger hunt,” eating up time that could be better spent actually supporting students.
A deep-dive into the European course catalogue landscape confirmed that the gap between best and worst practice is wide. While some institutions, like Tallinn University or the University of Granada, set a strong example, common issues such as outdated information, PDF-only formats, fragmentation across departments, and limited English availability remain widespread.
The DACEM academic catalogue platform was presented as a concrete response to these challenges, featuring smart search and filter tools, separate pathways for incoming and outgoing students, and CSV import functionality for course data. Student feedback was encouraging: easy to navigate, everything in one place, and genuinely useful for mobility planning.
Panel discussions rounded out the day, exploring the technical infrastructure needed for interoperability (including OCAPI 2.0), the role of European University Alliances, the evolving ECTS guide, and how to ensure the project’s impact lives on beyond its funding cycle.
Participants engaged in one of the workshops during the DACEM final conference
Dive into the project’s deliverables and explore the platform yourself at http://dacem.eu/. Better course catalogues mean better mobility for everyone.
If you missed the first part of the final event, you can catch up by watching the webinar recording here.
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