Digital Sovereignty & Trustworthy Systems examines how secure, transparent, and interoperable digital infrastructures can support learner agency and public trust in the digital age. The content on this page focuses on self-sovereign identity, verifiable credentials, trustworthy AI, digital governance, and the ethical deployment of emerging technologies within education, public administration, and cross-border systems.
As digital identity systems, AI infrastructures, and cross-border credentialing frameworks become increasingly central to public life, questions of technical architecture are rapidly becoming questions of citizenship, autonomy, and democratic governance.
This programme cluster focuses on digital sovereignty: the principle that individuals should retain meaningful control over their personal data, digital identities, and educational credentials within increasingly interconnected digital ecosystems. The cluster investigates how technological systems can be designed to remain transparent, interoperable, trustworthy, and centred on learner agency rather than platform dependency.
The work is particularly relevant at a moment when the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW), decentralised identity frameworks, and sovereign AI initiatives are moving from pilot stages toward large-scale implementation across Europe and beyond. Decisions currently being made around technical standards, interoperability protocols, and governance frameworks will shape for decades how citizens prove qualifications, access services, and manage their professional and educational identities.
The cluster positions the Foundation as both a technical validator and strategic knowledge broker within this evolving landscape. Through participation in international Large-Scale Pilots (LSPs), sovereign AI consortia, and cross-border interoperability projects, the Foundation tests and evaluates decentralised identity architectures and verifiable credential systems within controlled environments and real-world use cases.
Central to the cluster is the concept of self-sovereignty: the idea that learners and citizens should own and manage their personal educational and professional data without undue dependency on centralised platforms or opaque commercial systems. The cluster therefore advocates for open international standards such as the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model and decentralised identifiers (DIDs), ensuring long-term interoperability, portability, and privacy protection.
The cluster’s work spans three interconnected areas. First, it investigates the responsible and trustworthy adoption of Generative AI within public administrations, ensuring compliance with frameworks such as the EU AI Act and GDPR while reducing dependency on opaque non-European infrastructures. Second, it monitors and evaluates the rollout of the European Digital Identity Wallet with particular attention to learner agency, digital rights, and cross-border interoperability. Third, it advances research into verifiable microcredentials and modular learning pathways that support lifelong learning and workforce mobility.
A defining feature of the cluster is its use of sandboxes and living laboratories: controlled testing environments where technologies can be evaluated for security, transparency, interoperability, and user impact before wider deployment. These environments allow the Foundation to assess issues such as algorithmic bias, cryptographic security, data portability, and institutional readiness in a rigorous but practical manner.
The cluster’s outputs include technical specifications, interoperability frameworks, policy briefs, strategic primers, stakeholder forums, and comparative international studies designed to support policymakers, regulators, educational institutions, and public administrations.
Ultimately, the cluster aims to help build digital ecosystems that preserve citizen agency rather than erode it: systems in which qualifications remain portable across borders, identities remain under individual control, and technological infrastructures operate as transparent public goods rather than mechanisms of surveillance or dependency.
