Empowering Education through Digitalization – Advancing Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL)

Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL) is increasingly recognized as a powerful response to the challenges facing higher education. By combining policy perspectives, pedagogical innovation, technological infrastructures, and student engagement, VCL creates new opportunities for inclusive, sustainable, and future-ready learning.

The international online conference “Empowering Education through Digitalization: Advancing Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL)”, organized within the COWEB project, brings together EU and partner universities to explore how VCL can be effectively implemented and scaled across diverse institutional contexts. The programme fosters dialogue, facilitates the exchange of good practices, and co-develops strategies that strengthen institutional capacity and advance the digital transformation of higher education.

The opening session provides a strategic orientation, links the agenda to the EU’s digital priorities, and sets the stage for discussion. Building on this foundation, participants explore pedagogical innovation in collaborative teaching and course design, share case studies and regional perspectives on policies, assessment practices, and institutional challenges, and look ahead to the future of VCL with discussions on artificial intelligence, transversal skills, intercultural pedagogy, and sustainable integration. A student competition highlights learner perspectives and showcases innovative practices, while the closing session consolidates joint recommendations on pedagogy, technology, and policy.

Expected outcomes include the exchange of practices across multiple countries, the development of shared recommendations, the strengthening of university networks, and the dissemination of results through online proceedings.

The event is held online in English.