The Nordic Network for Adult Learning (NVL) and its validation expert network is the main reference group for the NOVA Nordic project. Therefore, the project team wanted to crash the NVL’s validation network meeting and hear what they think about the developments in the project and how they could help NOVA Nordic moving forward. We spent half a day together discussing the issues NOVA Nordic will address during the project life span.

The main questions the two groups dwelled upon were:

• State of play concerning links between non-formal qualifications and National Qualifications Frameworks (NQF) in the Nordic countries.
• How are NQFs and validation arrangements linked? Is it possible to award a non-formal qualification through validation?
• How are learning outcomes designed and used for qualification development as well as in validation arrangements?

These questions are not only relevant in the Nordic Countries, but in the EU as a whole as the Proposal for a Council Recommendation on micro-credentials was released on the 10.12.2021, in which the above questions are discussed. The issue of linking credit systems to the NQFs was a hot topic, how can the “size” of qualifications be described in a transparent way?

The Nova Nordic team received a lot of important information and - most importantly – a commitment to help out with sources and key-experts in their countries, as well as good practices. Early 2022 the NOVA Nordic project team will send out a structured questionnaire to the NVL validation experts to gain more specific information of the state of the art in their countries.

In other words – it was a good crash.