Civic engagement badge: university volunteering is now a qualification you can include on your CV

The Civic Engagement Badge, the new digital accreditation promoted by Andisu following a proposal from the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Italia, is set to launch in January. It has been developed with technical support from Cineca and under the auspices of the Ministry of Universities and Research. The badge will certify the time university students have dedicated to volunteering with their respective universities’ associations, as well as the skills they have learnt and acquired.

“Today,” says Emilio Di Marzio, president of Andisu, “a student who devotes time, energy and skills to a university society has no means of formally recognising and certifying this commitment. The Civic Engagement Badge has been created to fill this gap: we want to encourage student participation and volunteering, giving value and visibility to a commitment that all too often goes unnoticed.”

“The badge will make this experience recognisable and useful even outside the university – from CVs to professional platforms such as LinkedIn, right through to entering the world of work.” “But there is,” he points out, “an even more important aspect: involvement in student organisations is also a setting in which students acquire and put to the test the soft skills that are increasingly in demand in the professional world, from the ability to work in a team to project coordination, from problem-solving to relationship management. “With this tool, we aim to recognise not only the time a student dedicates to others and to their university community, but also the wealth of skills they build up through that experience.”

Daniele Maoddi, the Andisu delegate for the project, explains the structure of the scheme: “We have introduced two types of badge, designed for two different pathways. The Leadership badge is intended for those who have carried out coordination roles within a project; the Volunteering badge, on the other hand, recognises voluntary work carried out without any coordination roles. Both will bear the Andisu logo and, hopefully, the logo of the Ministry of Universities, which has been formally requested and which we expect to be approved in the coming weeks.” Matilde Quaglia, president of ESN Italia, commented on the origins of the initiative: “The idea stems from a proposal we put forward, with the aim of finally giving formal recognition to the commitment that students demonstrate every day in our universities. Thanks to Andisu and the Ministry’s involvement, we have worked to develop a simple yet robust system: the ‘volunteer’ student will receive the badge directly in their email inbox and will be able to use it nationwide.”