From 2 to 6 February 2026, twenty researchers and educators from five EUNICoast partner universities spent a week together in Palma, exploring inclusion, technology, and creative expression in education. We covered what happened during the week. Here is what participants made of it.
AI in the classroom: from theory to practice
If one theme ran through the week, it was artificial intelligence. Several sessions tackled it head-on: the ethics of AI in education, practical strategies for managing its use in real-time classrooms, and a hands-on workshop on building a Socratic tutor. What made these sessions land was not just the content but the setting — a room of people from five different universities, working in different disciplines and national contexts, each bringing a different set of assumptions about what AI means for their students. Several participants returned home with concrete next steps already in mind. One lecturer from the University of Le Havre Normandie had started integrating new AI approaches into her teaching within weeks of the programme. A researcher from Burgas Free University left with plans to introduce new methodologies into their doctoral supervision practice. Others found unexpected resonance between sessions they hadn't anticipated connecting — a researcher from the University of Sassari, for instance, discovered that work being done at the University of the Azores on social research methods mapped directly onto questions in their own doctoral work.
What people came away with
Overall satisfaction averaged 4.67 out of 5, and all participants said they intended to apply what they learned in their daily work. Nearly all could already identify specific actions to take when they returned to their institution. All participants said they intended to apply what they learned in their daily work, and nearly all could already identify specific actions to take when they returned to their institution. One participant from Burgas Free University put it plainly: "I made a lot of connections, which I am sure will be very useful in the future."
For Aaditya Ojha, a doctoral researcher at Université Le Havre Normandie, that shift went deeper than any single session: "Impactful education is not only about access to information, but about how we question, apply and reflect on it."
A community across borders
Perhaps the most durable outcome of the week is harder to measure: the connections that formed between people who had never met before. Researchers from Burgas Free University, the University of Sassari, the University of the Azores, the University of the Balearic Islands and Université Le Havre Normandie found themselves in conversation about the specific pressures and possibilities they face in their own institutions. By the end of the week, several had made plans to stay in touch.
Miran Kang, Associate Professor of Language Education at Université Le Havre Normandie and first-time EUNICoast participant, shares what the experience meant to her (watch her testimony here): "Sharing our knowledge is very interesting for me. I encourage my colleagues — if there is another chance to participate in Winter School, Summer School, or Spring School, it would be very, very, very good."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_51FNVc2bPk
The upshot
A second edition is already planned for 2027. The appetite is clear: the programme achieved a Net Promoter Score of 89. Future editions will make more room for the interactive work and peer exchange because, as this first edition showed, that is where the real learning tends to happen.
