From a Nordic perspective, microcredentials are not yet part of the formal national education systems. However, the mapping provided by Nordic Network for Lifelong Learning shows that different and diverse types of and contexts for learning exist in the Nordic region. These results illustrate that a strong tradition of learning exists across the Nordic region as a whole – a tradition of learning that places emphasis on the learner. Considering the recent proliferation and development of microcredentials, and the interest the concept has gained, it is possible that a framework build around microcredentials could form a more systematic, consistent and targeted application of the diversity of learning forms and learning experiences – mapped and described in this Investigation – that are currently found in the Nordic region. A more systematic framework for MCs could provide a new format for responsive, timely and flexible learning. This would create added value and heighten the benefits for the learner and for all “end-users” involved in learning.

The placement of microcredentials in formal learning landscapes calls for the consideration of how microcredentials, as a complementary way of valuing learning, should be designed and developed to allow individuals to collect and to stack learning experiences in a flexible way, at their own pace, and throughout the course of life. Such considerations, in turn, call for an understanding of formal qualifications and MCs as being complementary – constituting a more dynamic and inclusive landscape of learning, accommodating diverse learning styles and prerequisites.

To reach this dynamic system of qualification and learning options, the use of MCs should be flexible in order to accommodate individual learning pathways with options of stacking learning credentials to full qualifications, while standards for Validation of Prior Learning (VPL) and National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) are developed for these requirements.

Considering formal qualification systems and a flexible system for MCs as parallel, permeable structures, not fully integrated but connected by providing doors that can open in both directions, these two co-existing structures could generate mutual benefits as well as support and nourish the lifelong learning of the individual.