the_project

THE RE<BOOT> PROJECT

Balancing AI Skills with Critical Thinking in the Creative Economy

Overview

RE<BOOT> is an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Higher Education (2025-2027) that addresses one of the most pressing challenges of our time: how to harness the power of generative AI in education while preserving and enhancing the critical thinking skills essential for innovation and ethical decision-making.

The project brings together six partner institutions from Cyprus, Italy, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Greece to train 120 higher education students in the ethical, effective, and pedagogically sound use of generative AI for the creative sector.

The Context

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has generated disruptive technological and socio-economic forces that rapidly outdate skill sets and challenge traditional pathways to employment. Generative AI, in particular, has large-scale implications for education and training, directly affecting essential cognitive practices.

Current challenges include:

  • 44% of EU citizens lack basic digital skills, with 34% of students underachieving in computer and information literacy
  • Cognitive decline: Recent studies, including the Wharton Study (2024), demonstrate that when students use AI tools like GPT-4 as a “crutch” during learning, they perform worse when working independently
  • Skills mismatch: The Cultural and Creative Industries employ 8.7 million people in the EU with 509 billion annual turnover, yet significant vacancies remain unfilled due to the gap between education and market needs
  • Only 9% of the creative sector workforce is employed in high-tech roles, despite growing demand

The RE<BOOT> Response

RE<BOOT> develops a comprehensive training infrastructure that balances digital skills with critical competences through innovative, gamified learning scenarios. The project doesn’t reject AI—it teaches students to use it mindfully, critically, and ethically.

Our approach integrates four interconnected work packages:

WP2: Establishing a Skills Blueprint for Generative AI Through three comprehensive surveys (academic staff, students, and industry), RE<BOOT> creates a Blueprint that identifies effective uses and impacts of generative AI in teaching and learning. The Transnational Hub for Training in Gen-AI delivers 10 training sessions where 120 students learn prompt engineering, result evaluation, and the critical use of mainstream AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Suno AI, and more).

A critical component is the Master Class in Significance Assessment, where students learn to verify information sources, deconstruct AI outputs, and reconstruct narratives based on academic rigor—applying international treaties, conventions, and validated sources rather than accepting AI-generated content uncritically.

WP3: Gamified Learning Scenarios. RE<BOOT> develops an AI-driven Game Platform where students create cultural heritage games, transforming isolated assets into networked game resources. Through the Master Class in Gamification (8 training sessions), students acquire 24 novel skills across AI-assisted game development, interactive storytelling, digital art production, and ethical content creation.

The platform uses AI not as a replacement for human creativity but as an assistant to boost literacy and critical engagement with cultural topics. Students develop 5 game plots and 50 game stories, learning how to balance AI-generated content with human verification, cultural sensitivity, and historical accuracy.

WP4: Ethical Use and Skills Recognition Students develop 5 fully operational AI-assisted cultural games, which undergo rigorous evaluation by experts, peers, and users (minimum 180 game testers). This process leads to the RE<BOOT> Skills Portfolio, documenting competencies across five domains:

  1. AI & Digital Technology Skills
  2. Digital Content Creation & Narrative Design
  3. Cultural Heritage Valuation & Ethical Awareness
  4. Art and Information Source Curation
  5. Business & Market Integration

The project culminates in the Open Digital Badge—a verifiable digital credential containing metadata about the issuer, criteria, evidence, and skills acquired. This badge makes graduates attractive to employers by providing proof of specific, industry-relevant competencies in AI-assisted game development, historical research, ethical AI use, and cultural content creation.

WP5: Branding Innovations and Results Through 4 Info Days, 4 Press Events, an Employer & Industry Actor Event, and the Transnational Game Competition in Leiria, Portugal, RE<BOOT> showcases achievements to stakeholders, employers, academia, and the press. An AI-assisted Branding Campaign, run by the students themselves, reaches an expected 3,000 individuals across the six partner countries and beyond.

Innovation and Impact

What makes RE<BOOT> unique:

  1. A new knowledge acquisition pattern: Rather than filling students’ minds with information, RE<BOOT> teaches them how to seek discovery, verify sources, and think critically about AI outputs.
  2. Integration of Generation Alpha: RE<BOOT> pioneers pedagogical approaches for digitally native youth who are climate-aware and value inclusion, sustainability, and authenticity.
  3. Bridge between academia and industry: The project creates novel services for the creative economy—specifically AI-assisted cultural games—opening new fields of application where higher-skilled talents co-create to learn and learn to co-create.
  4. Ethical AI framework: Following the EU AI Act, the Faro Convention on Cultural Heritage, the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive, and EUROPEANA Intellectual Property Rights, RE<BOOT> formulates guidelines and recommendations for the responsible use of AI in education.
  5. Permanent educational infrastructure: All training materials, platforms, methodologies, and games become Open Educational Resources, inherited by partner institutions and accessible to the European academic community.

Expected Results

Quantitative Impact:

  • 120 HED students trained in critical AI use
  • 240 individuals involved in research activities (academics, students, industry actors)
  • 5 AI-assisted cultural games developed
  • 24 micro-credentials formulated
  • 24 policy recommendations for skills development
  • 50 heritage assets gamified
  • 180+ users evaluating final games
  • 3,000+ people reached through dissemination activities
  • 8 academic publications

Qualitative Impact:

  • A learned ecosystem with advanced skills in ethical AI
  • New professional profile recognized in the creative sector
  • Joint methodologies for AI-assisted education
  • Common position on critical use of Gen-AI
  • Enhanced employability for humanities and arts graduates
  • Strengthened cooperation between European HE institutions

Why It Matters

As Professor Jay Lee, Director of the Industrial AI Center at U-Maryland, states: “AI should be the tool to augment the skills of the workforce, and not just to replace the things we do.”

RE<BOOT> addresses the paradox of our time: technology that promises to enhance human capabilities but, when used uncritically, can undermine the very cognitive skills—critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning—that make us human and drive innovation.

By training students to use AI as an assistant rather than a crutch, to verify rather than accept, to create rather than consume, RE<BOOT> prepares a generation of professionals who can thrive in an AI-driven economy while maintaining the humanistic values and critical competences essential for a democratic, inclusive, and innovative Europe.

The project contributes directly to the European Education Area 2025, the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030, the European Skills Agenda, and the European Pillar of Social Rights—ensuring that the twin green and digital transitions benefit all Europeans, leaving no one behind.

Project Duration: September 2025 – August 2027 (24 months)

Coordinator: Open University of Cyprus

Partners:

  • Università degli Studi di Roma Tor Vergata (Italy)
  • Instituto Politécnico de Leiria (Portugal)
  • CY Cergy Paris Université (France)
  • Stichting for Education on Agility Liberating Structures – SEALS (Netherlands)
  • CultInvest (Greece)

Funded by: European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme