Country providing the good practice

The Institute For the Future (IFF) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Nicosia (UNIC) in Cyprus, which aims to improve the development, deployment and uptake of emerging technologies, and contribute to their successful application in industry, education, and government. The research centre also dedicates resources to researching and evaluating emerging technologies’ impact on employment, wealth inequality, and work and social life. The mission of the IFF is to educate the leaders of tomorrow, develop knowledge and encourage knowledge-sharing, and help society prepare better and respond to future challenges.

About this initiative

The IFF initiative was born out of an ambition to explore the extent to which emerging, new technologies will spark a rapidly-accelerating societal change. Technologies like AI and blockchain may bring about a range of disruptions – but as they begin to reach maturity and new synergies are being developed every minute – they are expected to incur compounding effects on economic sectors, social and legal systems, income distribution, government, education and healthcare. All of this raises fundamental questions on how future society should be organised: and the IFF initiative attempts to address them.

IFF has educated over 145,000 students in academic and professional training courses, while “hosting the world’s largest team of faculty and staff focused on crypto-assets and blockchains”. It serves as the academic lead for the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum (EUBOF), a European Commission initiative aiming to accelerate the development of blockchain within Europe. The EUBOF project finished in June 2024, providing a range of resources targeting those new to blockchain technology, and offering basic knowledge and insight into blockchain’s various applications. The recently inaugurated Open Metaverse Initiative (OMI) further showcases UNIC’s commitment, focusing on academic, research, and policy dimensions of the metaverse, emphasizing open public systems.

Why is this a good practice?

The Institute for the Future achieved considerable impact since its kick-off back in 2013, in part, due to the international outlook of the University of Nicosia (educational programmes are predominantly offered in English; and the university is the largest institution in Southern Europe when it comes to the provision of formal education programmes in English). The university is the leading formal education institution on blockchain and has been the first one to publish blockchain certificates and accepting bitcoin as payment for tuition fees. A large portion of the courses are available online and in English, incorporating a variety of different formats: a testament to the initiative’s scalability. The MOOCs developed by the centre have had a wide outreach, with more than 35,000 students from 95 countries enrolled. In addition, the master’s programme Blockchain and Digital Currencies of the university has succeeded in educating more than 650 students since 2014.

Today, IFF is home to the largest blockchain and metaverse student community in the world and partners with more than 100 research organisations from all over Europe and the world. IFF has supported the distribution of over €8 million in competitive European Commission research grants since 2017. 

Digital Theme Week is an initiative launched by the Hungarian Ministry of Human Resources in 2016, which promotes the responsible use of technology in education and fosters the development of digital skills for students and teachers. The initiative also aims to develop and disseminate innovative approaches in digital pedagogy within the public education system, and extend digital skills and literacy activities in subjects beyond information technology (IT).

About this initiative

Targeting schools, teachers, students, educators and stakeholders in the Hungarian public education system, Digital Theme Week brings together more than 5,000 teachers and up to 130,000 students for one week, carrying out around 2,000 digital pedagogy projects each year. 

The 2024/2025 edition of the Digital Theme Week is planned for 24-28 March 2025. This year’s edition focuses on several topics: digital citizenship, algorithmic thinking and programming as tools for creation, responsible use of AI in education, and digital security. Teachers and schools that choose to participate have a world of resources and pedagogical aids on Digital Theme Week’s website. They also have a repository of online lectures, webinars, and a free handbook available to support learning and teaching.

The initiative essentially offers an opportunity for educators and students to develop and improve their digital skills by participating in a variety of diverse and creative projects on different topics related to the use of digital technology in education. Some pedagogy projects produced over the course of the initiative include: developing activities for students with special needs, initiatives encouraging teacher-to-teacher cooperation through collaborative projects, or knowledge-sharing on issues such as digital security and online safety for children, amongst others.

Why is this a good practice?

Since its launch, Digital Theme Week has succeeded in stimulating the development of a wider knowledge base on a national level and improving the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning. As of 2019, more than 3,000 projects have been implemented, reaching nearly 8,000 teachers and 135,000 students. Having reached 10% of students so far, Digital Theme Week offers room for scalability and replicability. The initiative is sustainable through secured public funding and today represents the biggest digital pedagogy event in Hungary.

Over 800 schools participated in the 2024 edition of the Digital Theme Week in Hungary. Background information and project results are documented extensively in a knowledge base to serve as inspiration and source of ideas for digital skills activities in an educational context. Activities can also be replicated directly, depending on their target group or context.

An accessible and fully sustainable initiative

The Digital Theme Week (which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2025!) provides a wide range of digital education resources to support teachers and students, with a special focus on facilitating remote education and learning outside of the classroom. Within the resource database of the project, teachers can access multiple tools, instruction and guidance for online distance teaching (tips on classroom organisation, or activities stimulating online collaboration and use of platforms and digital tools).
Pedagogical assistance in the form of sample project packages, learning curricula and good practices in fostering digital skills from an early age is also available via the project’s knowledge database. The database also contains hundreds of resources targeting students and learners, such as handbooks, learning material, webinars, and video tutorials to act as complementary to digital education.

The e-Schools program is a Croatian initiative by CARNET, the Croatian Academic and Research Network, which ran from 2015 (in its very starting pilot phase of 2015 to 2019) until 2023. The program (the full name of which is ‘e-Schools: Comprehensive Computerisation of School Business Processes and Teaching Processes for the Purpose of Creating Digitally Mature Schools for the 21st Century’) actively strengthened the quality of the Croatian elementary and middle school education system. As one of the largest digital programs targeting primary and secondary education in Europe, the e-Schools program brought a total of 212 million euros to transform and help digitalise the education sector.

About this initiative

The program fostered the development of more digitally mature schools (i.e. schools that have integrated the use of digital technologies in teaching and learning to a large extent) and boosted capacity-building within schools, whilst preparing students for a digitalised job market.

A pilot project (2015-2019) tested the organisational, technological, and educational aspects of introducing information and communication technology (ICT) in the classroom. The experience of the pilot served as the basis to develop the strategy for a system of digitally mature schools in both primary and secondary educational facilities from the Republic of Croatia, implemented between 2019-2022. The initiative supports long-term sustainability and investments in digital skills through the Strategic Framework for the Digital Maturation of Schools and the School System in the Republic of Croatia (2030).

The program provided a platform for teachers and learners. Teachers are equipped with documents supporting the application of digital content and tools in teaching, an e-diary, instructions for using equipment, online distance learning platform and network portals (e.g., e-laboratory on digital tools). A Technical Support Specialist (STP) assists school staff in using the equipment and network from the project, updates operating systems on the equipment as needed, and reports faults to CARNET.

Why is this a good practice?

The e-School programme has contributed to capacity-building through a wide outreach and engagement by its target audience.

Pilot stage achievements

The initiative succeeded in distributing personal ICT equipment (tablets, computers) to many students and teachers in Croatia: 26.350 computers were delivered in the project’s pilot phase, and another 26.755 went out to students in need during 2021. 

More than 150 schools took part in the pilot project from 2015 to 2019, and mobile support teams visited more than 700 school locations with the aim of supporting the digital transformation of education processes by 2022. In 2020, the e-Schools project won 1^st place in the category ‘Inclusive growth – skills and education for Digital Europe’, part of the RegioStars Awards – an EU-level contest that awards the best projects in digital education throughout Europe. In 2021, the program was presented as an example of a good practice in digital skills and jobs at a conference on the topic of cohesion policy and investments in digital education, organised by the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds, with the support of the European Commission. In 2022, the citizens of Europe chose the e-School program the second best project in the field of regional development funded by the European Union in the past 15 years.

Achievements overall

According to the EU Court of Auditors, the e-Schools project resulted in a 10% boost of the level of digital maturity in primary and secondary schools across Croatia. As part of the celebration of the completion of the e-Schools program, one of the largest projects for the digitalisation of the primary and secondary education system, 10 Regional Education Centres (ROCs) were officially opened.

The project succeeded in reaching almost all primary and secondary schools in Croatia: school network design activities took place at over 2.400 locations of home and branch schools. Active network equipment was also installed, together with a functional wireless network. In total, the project helped to deliver 85.000 laptops for school employees so they can use them in the classroom. Almost 70.000 participants took part in more than 70 workshops, webinars and online courses. Within the same framework, the project produced 98 digital educational contents, 1440 teaching scenarios for teaching subjects, and 350 teaching scenarios for cross-curricular topics with 119 associated interactive content.