Keywords

1 Context of the Research

Supporting international education and mobility opportunities, for students, academics, and trainers, is one of the high priorities of the European Commission.

Since its establishment in 1987, the Erasmus Programme (European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) has significantly increased. Until 2020, the Programme reached more than 11.7 million participants (Fig. 23.1a), becoming one of the most important mobility programs in the world.

Fig. 23.1
2 bar graphs. 1. It plots the number of participants in millions from 1987 to 2020. 2020 tops with 11.7 million. 2. It plots the budget in billion versus Erasmus plus program, for 2 periods, 2014 to 2020 and 2021 to 2027. The latter tops with 28.4 billion.

a Erasmus mobility programme period 1987–2020, number of participants. Source Erasmus+ Annual report 2020. b Budget of Erasmus+ programmes. Source European Commission Erasmus+ Call 2021

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Despite the mobility restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020, the Erasmus+ Programme 2014–2020 closed with a positive record of participants. New social behaviors, the growth of digital environments for teaching and learning, and blended mobility opportunities highlighted the importance of digitalization in processes, tools, and services for education and mobility.

The new Erasmus+ Programme 2021–2027 has been extended and enriched in four strategic areas: digital transition, social cohesion, sustainable growth, strengthening European identity, and active citizenship. Its budget has almost doubled to over €28 billion (compared to €14.7 billion for 2014–2020) (Fig. 23.1b) to further support the mobility opportunities according to the strategic priorities of the Inclusion and Diversity Plan, the Digital Education Plan, the Youth Participation Strategy, and the European Green Deal (European Commission 2019, 2021a, b, c, 2022). Another key step in the digitalization of the Programme is a series of important projects supported by the EU, such as the Erasmus Without Paper (EWP)Footnote 1 and the European Student Card.Footnote 2

Moreover, the Erasmus+ App allows students in mobility to identify themselves, access services connected to the Erasmus+ Programme such as the Online Learning Agreement, and manage all administrative steps related to their mobility period.

In the face of this significant effort for the digital transformation of Erasmus mobility and the internationalization of European HEIs, finding reliable and affordable accommodation is one of the main obstacles to student mobility (Kuzmane et al. 2017; Hauschildt et al. 2021). Complying with quality requirements and finding flexible rental conditions for students, particularly in the private market, is tangible challenges for those that decide to spend a period abroad for study or traineeship purposes.

Furthermore, with the Covid-19 pandemic, students’ preferences concerning accommodation changed significantly. The Erasmus Student Network’s 2020 survey with around 22,000 respondents and focusing on the impact of Covid-19 on mobility students shows that student accommodation has been one area with major issues, along with transportation and other basic needs (Gabriels and Benke-Aberg 2020).

In response to this framework, the HOME (Home of Mobile Europeans) project provides a digitalized infrastructure that integrates the search for accommodation with the European student mobility initiatives. Through this interface, mobility students can find more easily an accommodation, assess, and compare it through different groups of quality labels. Therefore, the project connects the different stakeholders that gravitate within the world of student accommodation: students, (HEIs), housing providers, markets intermediaries, governmental (GOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

 The relevance of mobility digital services strongly rose during and after the pandemic. In this framework, the Erasmus+ App is a pivotal step forward. Furthermore, the future integration of the HOME project within the Erasmus+ App, and more in general, to the Erasmus+ Programme could represent a significant contribution at the European and potentially global level.

2 The HOME Project—Home of Mobile Europeans

HOME (Fig. 23.2) facilitates students in finding the most suitable accommodation to their preferences and guides the private and public housing providers in showcasing their online offers, highlighting their accommodation’s features and strengths. The project is carried out by six partners from five EU countries, selected from six groups of relevant stakeholders: Universities (Politecnico di Milano), European Foundations (European University Foundation—EUFFootnote 3), International Students organizations (Erasmus Student Network—ESN),Footnote 4 Accommodation Providers, (Housing AnywhereFootnote 5 and International Union of Property Owners—UIPI),Footnote 6 and an experienced trainer (Confia International).Footnote 7

Fig. 23.2
The Home logo. The text reads, home in capitals, with 4 squares arranged in a square shape for the letter o. The text below reads, quality student accommodation.

HOME project’s logo

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HOME provides an univocal reading of private and public accommodation physical and digital characteristics pursues three main key objectives:

  • a common understanding of student accommodation quality standards in Europe, defining how accessible and qualitative accommodation looks like;

  • an univocal form of data collection, agreeing on how information about quality accommodation is compared and stored;

  • defining how this information is accessed and shared between the various stakeholder, i.e., HEIs, students, market intermediaries, GOs, NGOs, etc.

The project develops:

  • A set of European Student Accommodation Quality Labels (EAQLs) to increase the quality and transparency of information about student accommodation.

  • A Digital Data Standard (DDS) to ensure that information about student accommodation is seamlessly shared at the European level;

  • A public Application Programming Interface (API) that integrates with other EU initiatives for the digitization of HEIs;

  • Seven multiplier events for the validation and dissemination of ESQLs, DDSs, and API.

  • A digital toolkit to share the HOME results and services with the industry and HEIs.

To achieve such objectives, HOME fosters four working groups (Fig. 23.3), five intellectual outputs (IOs), seven multiplier events (E), and four key results (Fig. 23.4).

Fig. 23.3
A table with three columns and four rows. Working group, description, and member are the titles of the columns. The rows have four working groups that monitor and manage their respective areas and are members of E S N and C O N F I A.

HOME’s working groups

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Fig. 23.4
A table of 4 columns and 5 rows. The columns with the details of I O, content, result, and leader. for 5 I Os. The entry for I O 2 includes mapping relevant data and digital standards for student accommodation in Europe, develop the home public A P I, and housing anywhere.

HOME’s, IOs, contents, and results

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3 Project Advancement

3.1 The European Student Accommodation Quality Labels (IO1)

The initial phase of the research focused on investigating national standards and practices in the student accommodation sector and the feasibility assessment of the ensuing labeling exercise. By analyzing national legal frameworks, an examination of minimum legal requirements for the private rental sector and, where existing, for student accommodation in the countries involved in the project—Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands—has been conducted. The information was mainly found on governments’ databases, official Ministries’ Web sites, and legal handbooks. In addition, to overcome language barriers in the research on some EU countries' legal requirements, a questionnaire on national legal frameworks for the private rental sector has been designed and distributed within the UIPI network. The questionnaire aimed to built a clearer comparative picture of legal requirements for private accommodation while verifying the research outcome.

Subsequently, the second part of the research examined existing labels or assessment methods for student accommodation in Europe and related best practices, such as “Lokaviz label” in France.Footnote 8 After screening, identifying, and evaluating all services, needs, and features that might be relevant for devising the labels, a set of six EAQLs have been designed to embrace three main factors: (1) be welcoming to an international target market; (2) be accessible to people with disabilities; (3) be univocal in terms of identification of the accommodation features. The EAQLs certify some of the most relevant quality aspects of the student accommodation: (1) international friendliness, (2) wheelchair-accessible, (3) room quality, (4) super-secure, (5) well-equipped, and (6) premium accommodation. Each label is identified through an icon, a criterion, and a list of indicators (Fig. 23.5). Each icon has a different number of indicators conceived to identify the specific needs of the students and associated with the defined criteria. The goal of providing the students with a selected, comprehensive, but not excessively detailed list of choices during their accommodation search guided the identification of this limited group of icons and indicators.

Fig. 23.5
A chart of 3 columns and 6 rows. The columns include details of the label, criterion, and checklist's indicators for 6 labels, including international friendliness, room quality, and premium accommodation.

HOME’s European Accommodation Quality Labels (EAQLs)

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Through a bottom-up process, housing providers were involved in the EAQLs validation actively participating to multiplier events (E1 and E2), focus groups, and surveys.

3.2 Digital Data Standard (DDS) for Student Accommodation (IO2) and Public Application Programming Interface (API) Public (IO3)

A DDS for student housing-related data has been developed to achieve a univocal way of gathering and structuring the accommodation information of all European-wide housing providers and intermediaries. By making housing providers and intermediaries adhere to the created data standard, the HOME application can ensure the correct entitlement of EAQLs to the accommodations and smooth integration to the HOME interface.

A first version of the DDS has been created by mapping all the student housing data of sixteen large student housing providers or intermediaries across Europe. This process allowed identifying the most important and widespread data used within the student housing sector in Europe, which, together with the necessary data elements to identify and entitle the quality labels, formed the first version of this DDS. The student housing data have been delivered univocally according to the DDS. The project set up a structured database containing all the accommodation data from all connected housing providers and intermediaries. On top of this database, an API is created; it will enable applications within the Erasmus environment to pull the data from this database and use it to present the accommodations’ information, including the EAQLs. All the elements within the HOME application are open-sourced, ensuring a wide future dissemination within the Erasmus environment.

Both private and public housing providers validate the DDS and the technical systems. To ensure that the technical system developed under IO2 is consistent with students’ and housing providers’ expectations, as well as the European Commission’s requirements. The partners involved in that IO embarked on an informal validation process which consisted of consulting private housing providers and market intermediaries as well as public housing providers (i.e., universities with student accommodation facilities) on the validity of the DDS and the technical feasibility of the API requirements. HousingAnywhere and EUF have carried out this validation process. The former contacted six of Europeans largest private housing providers, and eight public universities across Europe and one national network of student service providers.

Currently, the vetting process results are being internally discussed, analyzed, and validated. The main purpose of this process focused on: ensure that the system is aligned with the reality of the student accommodation field and gather a qualitative first validation of IO2’s technical results.

3.3 Multiplier Events (E) and Dissemination Activities

In 2020, the Multiplier Event E1 introduced the promotion of the EAQLs  to 25 European stakeholders (Fig. 23.6). HOME was also presented during the Erasmus+ App major conference of March 2022 by EUF with the cooperation of ESN reaching 50 stakeholders in the field of international mobility in Europe. In 2021, the dissemination was scaled up using the first deliverables produced and focusing on the scope of HOME in light of the pandemic to connect with potential end-users and student housing representatives with a specific focus on IO1, while on Spring 2022 communications started focusing on the DDS under IO2.

Fig. 23.6
A table of 3 columns and 7 rows give details of the country of venue and the event title for 7 events, E 1 to E 7. Entries include Belgium and Spain with event titles, quality labels first validation and home plot session.

HOME’s project multiplier events

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In the HOME web site,Footnote 9 which obtained 7,200 views, news items were produced concerning the project’s key developments, events, and webinars. Moreover, to foster the visibility of the results of IO1 as well as comprehension of the quality labels a total of nine videos have been developed.

Dissemination activities include social media communication saw the launch of the first campaign on IO1’s results, created and managed by ESN, creating one video per quality label, and launching it throughout the duration of a few months. The campaign reached 40,000 people, and recently, a second campaign was launched focusing on the DDS (IO2). Partners have also cooperated to apply to relevant conferences like EAIE on a yearly basis. The next conference will be hosted by the Politecnico di Milano where HOME project final results will be presented to about 60 European entities such as HEIs, students’ representatives and NGOs, and housing providers.

4 Preliminary Results

The project's outreach activities reached around 50,000 stakeholders by webinars, multiplier events, and communication campaigns. As a result, key European stakeholders involved in student accommodation sector provide positive feedback and a high level of interest. HOME's outreach results are to be considered in the context of niche targeting communication to ensure that the involved stakeholders engage more actively with the project during its lifecycle and after it. Moreover, synergies with the Erasmus+ App team are being implemented to further boost the project integration beyond the engagement phase once the technical solutions will be fully functional. During outreach activities, one of the main challenges has been: translating the technical project's contents into accessible information for a broad audience; summarizing the HOME's solutions clearly and accurately; upgrading HOME's solutions to the European student housing has already been achieved successfully.

The achieved preliminary results can be summarized as below: (1) Definition six targeted European Accommodation Quality Labels (EAQLs) to support and simplify the choice of online student accommodation; (2) The setup of the EAQLs; (3) Successful dissemination of the EAQLs; (4) First version of the Digital Data Standard (DDS); (5) Groundwork for the technical architecture needed to gather, store, and export housing data; (6) Validation of the DDS and a public Application Programming Interface (API) requirements by private and public student housing providers across Europe.

The consequent project activities will focus on integrating HOME’s accommodation module interface with the Erasmus+ App, developing the educational materials and the multiplier toolkit for housing providers, universities, and students.

The Covid-19 pandemic strongly impacted the project's development. Due to the several emergency conditions in the countries involved in the project, all activities stopped for six months. Therefore, the HOME project has obtained an extension, and will be completed by the end of 2022.

5 Final Remarks

The HOME project is a preliminary attempt to identify, standardize, and systematize different aspects of European student mobility.

Based on the difficulties and challenges encountered during its development, the research has also allowed focusing on a knowledge overview of some critical aspects of temporary housing for students in Europe concerning accommodation adequacy. Nevertheless, an effective strategy to tackle this phenomenon at the European level still needs to be addressed.

Three factors are particularly evident:

  • First, housing and habitability standards, provided by national building codes or health rules, vary substantially from one country to another. As a result, the housing sector is far from evenly regulated across Europe. Moreover, even fewer European Countries  have specific regulations regarding student accommodation.

  • The need to consider and define the quality of student accommodation in European university cities to help students find appropriate housing from a trustworthy source more systemically way is becoming fundamental. As mentioned in the Research Report from HousEramus+ (Kuzmane et al. 2017), some countries and cities have already created a quality standard to provide students with suitable accommodation. Centralizing a reliable and trustworthy supply on a public body's Web site would facilitate the flow of information. However, it would also require public policies developed by local authorities to monitor the prices and quality of the properties rented.

  • In addition to the difficulties of integration with local languages and rental procedures or regulations in the countries of the Union, finding an understandable rental contract, also in English, might be complicated and untrustworthy for both parties involved, students and landlords. The lack of institutional support in administrative and legal aspects and the provision of a recognized international rent contract for mobile students’ accommodation remains one of the most uncovered topics at the local and European levels. Intercultural awareness is an essential precondition for smooth integration and mutual growth in all the European countries involved in the Erasmus+ Programme.

The HOME project's experimentation and innovation contribution to the digitalization and standardization of advanced accommodation services in support of international mobility is just one of the possible examples of the digital transition to purse the strategic objectives of the Erasmus+ Programme. Once operational, HOME will also contribute to achieving the following macro-strategic project  goals:

  1. 1.

    Supporting dialogue between the HEIs and their users and connecting stakeholders which gravitate toward mobility and education at the European level.

  2. 2.

    Promoting a system of transnational accommodation where students can move easily for short periods and between different European institutions.

  3. 3.

    Fostering transparency and accessibility to quality accommodation by simply connecting the HOME interface within the Erasmus+ App, where all students’ mobility activities are digitally centralized.