Three days in the maelstrom of digital transformation of higher education: vice-rector Olena Hlazunova visited the digital Universities Europe 2025 forum

 

The impressive start of the forum in the Wroclaw City Hall and the excellent location to continue at WSB Merito University contributed to open and free communication between the participants and organizers of the forum.

Sessions, workshops, best practices, and case studies covered many aspects of digital transformation. The issues of building an interconnected European educational ecosystem and supporting the digital transformation of universities were the focus of the Times Higher Education (THE) and the European Institute of Innovation and Technology's (EIT) Higher Education Initiative (HEI). Standards for quality assurance and data exchange between different national systems, flexible strategies for adapting to rapid technological changes were discussed.

Another key topic of the forum is the future of education in the world of artificial intelligence. Determining the impact of AI on management, training and research, and building an ethical framework at the European, national, and institutional levels were discussed in the panel discussion. Transforming learning and teaching using AI — what should universities consider to do it right? This is the name of another panel discussion that raised a lot of questions about the benefits and losses, new pedagogy and teaching methods, replacing routine work with AI, and developing students' critical thinking in the AI era. Interesting cases and best practices for using generative AI for teaching and evaluating when learning a foreign language were demonstrated at the AI-enabled teaching case studies workshop. How AI can help make learning interactive and develop authentic models for evaluating students ' work was demonstrated by scientists from the University of London in collaboration with Google's European office.

 

Two cases were presented on the topic of building an internal data management system for students with AI functionality. A number of workshops and sessions were devoted to digital literacy and AI literacy of teachers and students. The practice of developing appropriate skills, effective strategies for managing the introduction of digital technologies and, in particular, AI technologies, and the competence framework were not just interesting, but useful for improving the level of understanding of problems and ways to solve them by all participants.

 

Several sessions gathered opinions on building national information systems for higher education and prioritizing the development of IT departments in European universities, as well as the importance of investments in IT, information and cybersecurity. Immersion technologies and gamification were also trending on the forum. Discussions about the benefits of investing in VR, AR, and XR clearly ended with the adoption of a position on the effectiveness and high potential of Immersion Technologies in education.

 

In between sessions, there was an opportunity to communicate in informal settings and view the exhibition of digital technologies for higher education.

An interesting tour of WSB Merito was conducted by the forum hosts. Educational laboratories, classrooms for practical and theoretical classes are equipped with modern devices, stands, and presentation equipment.

Our university keeps up with innovation and such forums only give us confidence that we are moving on the right path. We continue our digital transformation with new ideas and partners.

 

 and digital transformation