About the project

Digital transformation is characterising an intense technological acceleration across society, enabling the modernization of administrative procedures through the adoption digital solutions that are vitally important to enhance productivity and promote the success of institutions. However, human resources and related domains, especially within the public sector, are still relying on manual processes performed using traditional formats that often involve paper-based documentation. This results in activities that are extremely time-consuming and vulnerable to fraud, such as the presentation of false diplomas in recruitment and selection processes of expert and highly qualified workers. 

The Secretariat of Health and Civil Protection (SRS), together with its strategic partner from the Madeira Digital Health and Wellbeing initiative, UNINOVA, has recently finished implementing the project QualiChain - Decentralised Qualifications' Verification and Management for Learner Empowerment, Education Reengineering and Public Sector Transformation. Beginning on January 1st 2019, the project concluded on December 31st 2021, executing a total funding of nearly 4 million euros distributed by 12 partners.

QualiChain developed an experimental platform to store, share and automatically verify the validity professional qualifications. Connecting employers with universities, job seekers or life-long learners, the Qualichain platform provided evidence on the transformative impact of new disruptive technologies such as blockchain, semantics and data analytics in the field of the labor market and public sector administrative procedures. Being a key partner responsible for testing the project's digital solutions in the use-case entitled "Provision of Recruitment & Competency Management Services for the Health sector”, SRS provided requirements and continuous feedback regarding the recruitment, career development and mobility processes inherent to the health domain.

The QualiChain project highlighted possible gaps in current management practices and procedures, allowing to identify recommendations for an increase in productivity and the acquisition of a level of excellence. The results obtained received a very positive feedback from the European Commission and the group of independent experts evaluating the project, that recognised the potential that such platform could have in helping to streamline and simplify the process of credential verification across Europe. The platform’s core services include: awards/qualifications archiving and verification; qualification portfolio management; career counselling and intelligent profiling; competency management; competency evaluation and development; and consulting and decision support. Results are open source and can be provided to the community for further exploitation.