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European University Association (EUA) arranged during 22-23 May an online conference on “How universities are shaping the era of artificial intelligence”. The general conclusion was that universities have had to reflect on “bringing learning disciplines” in line with the use of AI from a variety of perspectives. The conference highlighted the best universities practices in deploying and supporting responsible use of generative AI, as well as the importance of policies and guidelines for training AI competences among students, lecturers and staff.
Introduction
Existing and dominating university-wide education models urgently need rethinking to prepare for a future of digital transition and use of numerous AI solutions. Artificial intelligence has huge potentials and universities are supposed to provide assistance in further integrating digital technologies into a wider society and into education providers’ environment. While AI training and research programs in higher education institutions are increasingly provide a successful tool to shape traditional education, to governed and facilitate the process, there are still huge gaps among different universities in dealing with AI.
More on AI in education in: https://www.integrin.dk/2025/05/13/challenges-in-education-the-digital-perspectives/
Thus, some participants have been pretty sure that in the long run, universities will benefit from different types of AI, including generative AI for some uses; but in the short term, they do not see “high-flying benefits we are being told about”.
Quotation from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250605131253850&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SPNL5018
EUA in the digital transition
The EUA – an association of more than 800 universities as well as rectors’ conferences across Europe – has become acutely aware of challenges faced and the diverging approaches to AI among the university community.
Some individuals and institutions are approaching AI cautiously and others with optimism, and some in the middle ground – cautious optimism.
In response, it established a group of experts to guide the work program on AI.
According to Andrea Renda, director of research at the Brussels policy think tank Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) and adjunct professor of digital policy at the European University Institute, while levels of AI investment and progress have not been as high as in some other parts of the world, there are in Europe nevertheless hubs of excellence located in areas where universities play an important role, i.e. in Paris, Eindhoven, Munich and even in the post-Brexit London, which still remains connected to Europe.
However, using generative AI technologies requires some competences that many academics do not have. But some say that it is vital “making sure that such technologies are used to support some of the classic competencies and is not just seen as a threat to them”.
References to Renda’a article in UWN: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250606130319477&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SPNL5018; as well as Karen MacGregor’s article in the same UWN’s issue.
“Digital twin” as an education provider
Due to a specific place and role of education in the EU-wide integration process, the EU institutions are trying to formulate some common recommendations for all member states. The process is not easy: i.e. optimal solutions within AI models require computer infrastructure, adequate skills, relatively sufficient financial means, as well as powerful and multi-disciplinary universities. However, regarding using digital tools in the European higher education, the regional providers “train more leading AI scientists than the United States” (though not those in China); but very many specialists “end up in other parts of the world, especially America”, A. Renda noted. And added, that “humans’ future is that of generalists with deep knowledge of many fields; where we’re headed as mankind in the age of AI. We need to catch up with developments fast, and we have to think not only about the jobs of the future but also about the “University of the Future” in a different way”.
Thus, it is already possible to use avatars for ‘master classes’ that are able to be taught in multiple languages. The digital twin can be interactive, in the way ChatGPT is, and could become a true teaching assistant, trained on new things that had not been written and/or said in the past. This trend has both enormous opportunities as well as risks, such as impersonation, confabulations, hallucinations, deviations from reality, etc. as is seen in modern GPTs.
“Rethinking” university
As is known, the universities – over the past thousand years – have been constantly confronted by new technologies, from the printed book to the internet; however, the general digital trend in universities is “overestimated in the short term and underestimated in the long term”, noted rector of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. And he added: “This may prove to be true for AI, but in the meantime, universities are responding, and there has been a lot going on at the policy level and in the private sector across Europe”.
Recent EU-wide AI legislation, adopted in 2024, as the world’s first comprehensive AI regulation supplemented by the EU’s Digital Decade strategy, has had a strong emphasis on trust, transparency, safety and human-centered design of AI models; the EU AI law will harmonise by 2027 the AI rules among the EU-27.
Notes: 1. More on AI law and the Digital Decade strategy in: https://www.integrin.dk/2024/08/03/european-ai-regulation-worlds-first-law-in-digital-transition/. As well as in: https://www.integrin.dk/2024/07/05/european-digital-decade-strengthening-the-eu-wide-digital-transformation/
2. There is a specific EU-wide digital network of strong partnerships (called DigitalEurope) with over a hundred corporate members among the worlds largest IT, telecoms and consumer electronics companies, which are heavily investing in Europe. The network has already 41 national trade associations representing 30 European countries; its membership includes more than 45,000 businesses across the full ICT value chain and beyond.
Source: https://www.digitaleurope.org/
But still there is a growing skills gap: many thousands of professionals need to be skilled, re-skilled and up-skilled to work with the AI models; thus over 70% of the DigitalEurope’s member companies of the national trade associations report problems in recruiting AI professionals. Presently, only some EU higher education institutions offer dedicated AI programs that are fully aligned with the modern requirements; besides, it is quite difficult to fit into the mew “market” as it is evolving so fast, notes Dr. Jose Martínez-Usero, director for projects at the DigitalEurope. He also stresses that the EU “will depend not only on AI technology but also on an educational and job market ecosystem; we have to do it together: academia, industry and policymakers”.
For example, Professor Maria Ranieri (University of Florence) is developing more cognitive guidelines to support the human-machine interaction “to protect the quality of the cognitive process”. Thus, she notes, “in terms of course design, every syllabus must identify why a digital tool is used, by, e.g. framing AI as a supplement and not as a substitute”; besides, she states that each syllabus must clearly articulate policies regarding AI uses in order to guide students on that topic. This university The University believes that “providing guidance is a way to make students and teachers more comfortable with using AI: e.g. student guidelines provide clear boundaries while encouraging responsible experimentation with AI by specifying permitted and prohibited uses”. Besides, permitted AI uses include, for example, brainstorming and idea generation, language learning, assistance, and editing and explaining complex concepts.
Ranieri was stressing that the university sees generative AI “not as a threat or a shiny gadget but as a mirror of our education values: when we safeguard agency, integrity, privacy and well-being, we believe that AI becomes a catalyst for a richer learning experience”. She also added the importance of being “aware of inappropriate uses of AI: you don’t just need to provide rules, you need to endorse the adoption of rules through training and explaining why certain rules have been put in place; besides, one has to be “open to revising, changing and improving what one has already learned.”
Reference to: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250605105312356&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SPNL5018
AI as a challenge for universities
First, the international aspect: European universities face legal challenges in the AI-cooperation spheres with other states. E.g. cooperation with the US becomes complicated because of the US sovereign immunity, i.e. the rights for EU research participants are not guaranteed. This legal clause can breach the EU data protection laws and block legal data transfers thus leading to breach the EU general data protection regulation, GDPR.
More on GDPR in: https://www.integrin.dk/2025/01/02/european-ai-legal-standardization-involves-about-700-companies/
Second, the EU requires ethics approval for research concerning AI funding; hence, in case a university does not have an AI ethics review system (and/or an ethics committee), it could have a negative reference in the financial adaptation.
Third, some experts argue that the EU rules treat so-called “pseudonymised” data as personal; though “re-identification risks are growing and are now accelerated by AI”, said Dr. Heidi Beate Bentzen, a lawyer and researcher in the Institute of Health and Society at the University of Oslo in Norway. He notes that studies show that machine learning can re-identify individuals from “anonymised” data, which raises concerns for open science: to protect research participants, “data must be as open as possible, but as closed as necessary”. He adds that “AI should therefore be used by universities with appropriate care, and environmental aspects of the work should be considered”.
Finally, it is vital to develop improved AI competencies among both students and staff: over the past two years generative AI has increasingly been used in teaching and learning in higher education; however, there is still an urgent need to learn from best practices. In some universities, there are already developed guidelines with the AI models to augment rather than replace education providers and academics. At the same time, students have to show their intellectual growth –both preserving and augmented – by using AIs.
Source citations from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20250606130319477&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=SPNL5018
New perspectives in the European general purpose AI (GPAI)
Recent “Enhanced learning strategies for general purpose AI” (so-called advancing GenAI4EU program) is aimed to push the boundaries of current AI technology.
Specifically, the program seeks the development of groundbreaking GPAI models that combine self-supervised learning with complementary learning strategies.
These strategies include the following main directions:
= hybrid learning, which integrates symbolic reasoning and knowledge representation;
= active learning, which allows models to actively seek information to improve their performance;
= reinforcement learning, which enables models to learn through interaction with their environment;
= relational learning, which focuses on learning from relational data structures;
= continual learning, which allows models to continuously adapt and acquire new knowledge without forgetting previous tasks;
= evolutionary learning, which draws inspiration from biological evolution to optimize model architectures and parameters; and
= physics-based learning, which considers physical properties in the models’ architectures.
As is seen in the strategies’ description, the program’s optimal implementation would basically transform the existing system of the work for education providers, as well as well as that of the universities, in general.
Finally, it has to be mentioned that generally, in the EU-wide digital transition, the digital sovereignty has an extremely vital context: i.e. it includes not only national/regional security but political-economy and societal aspects too. The EU is seeking to reduce both its dependence on foreign technology providers (mainly from the US and Asia) and minimize control on its digital infrastructure. However, “transit” to different “cloud systems”, such as NextCloud, LibreOffice and/or Linux (to name a few) could not be easy…