EUinAction responds to a challenge facing European higher education: values such as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights are fundamental to the European project, but students may experience them as abstract concepts rather than principles directly connected with their academic, professional and everyday lives.
The project therefore aims to make EU values tangible through student-centred, experiential and collaborative learning. Working with real-world societal challenges, students will participate in simulations and gamified activities, collaborate with peers from other countries and disciplines, and reflect on how European values influence decisions that relate to issues such as social inclusion, democratic participation and contemporary societal challenges.
The project is particularly timely because of the increasingly important capabilities for graduates entering international and diverse workplaces: working effectively in multicultural teams, negotiating different perspectives, exercising ethical judgement, and solving complex problems.
Building on the success of Embed-EU
EUinAction represents a continuation and further development of the Embed-EU project, which ran from 2023 to 2025, also coordinated by RSM.
Embed-EU focused primarily on supporting higher education educators and institutions to integrate European values into teaching. Its results included a competency-based framework, a MOOC for university educators and a digital self-assessment tool to help lecturers evaluate how effectively the European values are incorporated into their teaching.
Erasmus+, the funder, subsequently awarded the project with the “Good Practice” label.
From teaching values to experiencing them
Dr Vlachopoulos said, “Embed-EU helped us explore how universities and educators can systematically embed European values in higher education. With EUinAction, we are moving one important step further: from teaching about values to giving students opportunities to experience, question and apply them.
“This matters particularly in challenging times. Universities need to provide excellent disciplinary knowledge, but they also have a responsibility to prepare graduates who can think critically, work constructively with people from different backgrounds, make ethically informed decisions and participate actively in society. These are democratic competences, but they are also increasingly important professional and employability competences.
“Receiving the Good Practice recognition for Embed-EU gave us strong encouragement to continue this work. EUinAction allows us to build on that foundation while putting students much more clearly at the centre of the learning experience.”
Three connected learning experiences
EUinAction will develop three interrelated educational components.
- The EU Values Digital Learning Academy, which is a digital environment that provides structured learning content, interactive activities, gamification and formative assessment.
- The EU Values Simulation Lab that will place students in situations requiring decision-making, negotiation, ethical reasoning and collective problem-solving.
- A blended learning experience to connect the Digital Learning Academy and Simulation Lab with cross-institutional projects, workshops, peer learning and face-to-face activities.
Five organisations will work together to carry out the project:
- RSM, Netherlands – Coordinator
- Istituto Universitario Carolina Albasio, Italy
- Bursa Uludağ University, Türkiye
- Hellenic Open University, Greece
- Meta-Skills BV, Netherlands
Supporting high-quality and socially relevant higher education
Ultimately, EUinAction seeks to contribute to a broader concept of educational excellence.
High-quality higher education is not only about transmitting disciplinary knowledge. It also involves enabling students to evaluate information critically, engage with different viewpoints, collaborate across cultural boundaries, make responsible decisions and understand their role within society.
By combining academic content with gamification, simulations, blended learning, international collaboration and reflection, EUinAction aims to create a reusable model for other universities that want to connect European values with their students’ lived experiences.
