Within the framework of the Initiative for Digital Education, the BMBF has provided additional funding for the so called “objective 1 and 2 projects” shortly after the BIRD project's launch in May 2021. The goal is to explore different avenues for the development of a National Education Platform - a networking infrastructure for education.

Objective 1 projects: Digital educational services for learners
Whether teaching videos, online courses or databases for digital learning materials: The objective 1 projects develop concrete digital educational services for learners from primary school to adult education, which are to be accessible via a digital educational platform. They are not BIRD sub-projects. The aim is to test how digital educational services for learners can be connected to a platform or integrated into a platform such as BIRD. The projects can use BIRD to demonstrate how their connection to the networking infrastructure works and test usage scenarios. In the best case, this will demonstrate the benefits of integrating and networking previously unconnected educational services.

Objective 2 projects: Digital competence for teachers
According to the BMBF, the objective 2 projects are intended to "(further) develop services for teachers and make them accessible [on a digital education platform]". Digital teaching and learning scenarios are intended to create methodological knowledge and digital competence for teachers in all education systems. This could be, for example, qualification opportunities for school headmasters, real-time simulations in chemistry or materials for multilingual teaching, which can be accessed via a national education platform.