Following the Lisbon European Council summit in 2000 – also known as the ‘dotcom summit’ – the European Commission produced the EU’s ‘eLearning initiative’. The goal was to accelerate the use of the internet and promote multimedia technologies in European education. Ministers agreed to an Action Plan to mobilise the education sector to make the changes necessary to speed up Europe’s move to a knowledge-based society. The first eLearning summit was held in Brussels in 2001, while the Commission launched its eLearning portal in 2003.

Early in 2004, building on the progress already made by the initiative and action plan, the EU adopted the ‘eLearning Programme’. The programme aims to use technology to support lifelong learning, and to foster the modernisation necessary to achieve this. The four action lines are:

• To promote digital literacy
• To develop European virtual campuses
• To encourage e-twinning of schools
• To promote e-learning in Europe

In 2004 a Bologna Process Seminar on eLearning in Ghent called for it to be recognised as an integral part of mainstream higher education. A further conclusion was that it should be fully included in the ‘Bologna tools’ such as the Diploma Supplement and the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

The Minerva action in the Socrates programme was specifically assigned to the promotion of information and communication technology in higher education. After 2006, information and communication technology (ICT) was included in the new ‘Transversal Programme’, part of the EU’s new integrated lifelong learning programme.

Further details on eLearning initiatives can be found on the European Commission’s website.