Context/background of the projectThe RU EU? Project was conceived against a background of ongoing change and division across Europe. Issues relating to National and European identity are highly topical and of fundamental importance to our sense of who we are in the world. A better understanding of these issues is urgently required, given the power of perceived differences between groups to lead to conflict. Another influence on the project was the increasing interest in “the use of ICT as a driver for systemic change to increase the quality and relevance of education”. Serious games provide modern digital approaches to learning that emphasise 21st century skills which prioritize what students can do with knowledge, rather than just focusing on knowledge acquisition. Consequently it was thought that a game-based approach to exploring National and European identity might help to provide students with an innovative approach to understanding this complicated topic.ObjectivesThe Erasmus+ funded RU EU? project aimed to develop an innovative digital game, the RU EU? game, to provide an engaging platform for students across Europe to confront some of the complex issues surrounding National and European identity and to help these young Europeans to develop a better understanding of their own and others’ feelings of belonging to or alienation from the EU. The project also developed support materials for teachers to help them use the game most effectively for their students. The game and support materials can be found at the project website: https://rueu-project.eu/Number and type/profile of participantsThe intended audience for the RU EU? game is social science and business students across Europe who need to know something about European identity as part of their degree course. Games design students will also be interested in the game as a case study in game design, looking at how the learning outcomes were specified and how the game mechanics address the learning outcomes. The game will also be of particular interest to Erasmus students and other international students at university in Europe, as well as staff who teach on programmes and modules where European identity is relevant or who support international students in their studies. Description of activities undertakenThe early project activities provided background information to assist in the design of the game: O1: the literature review of European identity summarised varied approaches to understanding European identity and provided a strong theoretical foundation for the game; O2: the resource review identified existing paper and pencil and learning resources (including games) in the areas of politics and national and European identity, and O3: the user requirements analysis provided empirical evidence from potential players of the game about their understanding of European identity, what they would want to and expect to see in such a game, as well as their game preferences. The findings from these activities as well as extended discussions fed into O4: Development of the game content and decision-making scenarios which provided the initial description of the journalist narrative and the proposed game tools: the interview tools, the discussion tool, the Newsflash tools and Final assignment tools as well as the content for the 5 game scenarios (Brexit; Who is European? Different attitudes between nations; The rights of citizens to work in different partner countries; Changes to European identity over time and Immigration and the rights of migrants). O5: Design specification document for the game provided a more detailed and coherent account of how these would fit together to provide the blueprint for the game development. O6: The game and game platform are the key deliverables for the project. The game development implemented the ideas presented in O5 and the final working version of the game can be downloaded from the RU EU? Project website: https://rueu-project.eu. A full description of the final game can also be found here along with O7: The Support materials for the game that describe how the game can best be used in teaching and training activities. 5 best practice case studies and use case scenarios that describe the varied teaching opportunities for using the game can also be found. O8: Piloting and Evaluation: The final project activity was full piloting and evaluation of the game. Results and impact attainedThe project has been very successful in academic dissemination, via journal articles and conference papers to a diverse audience of learning technology experts, games experts, learning and pedagogy experts as well as social scientists, the content experts. The multiplier events extended this dissemination to a diverse audience of educationalists and technology experts.Longer-term benefits.We have a working game and this will be used in classes where an understanding of European identity is relevant, as well as game design classes.

The “Blurred Lives Project – a cross-national, co-participatory exploration of cyberbullying, young people and socio-economic disadvantage” brought together five European partners (from Northern Ireland, London, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands) with specific expertise and experience in tackling cyberbullying. The four central SMART objectives of the project were as follows: 1. To empower young people aged 14-16 to better understand, prevent and combat cyberbullying. 2. To develop the most useful support materials for teachers, parents/carers and young people (aged 14-16) for signalling, preventing and combating cyberbullying, and to make recommendations to social networking providers. 3. To determine how the young people understand, experience and respond to the present conditions of cyberbullying. 4. To determine the relationship between socio-economic disadvantage and young people's understanding and experiences of cyberbullying and their responses/coping strategies.The title of the project is a reflection of the shift in recent years from the “wired” to the “wireless” child and the consequent blurring of online and offline identities, realities and experiences for many young people whose social interactions are increasingly dominated by mobile technologies (Slee, Campbell & Spears, 2012; Spears & Kofoed, 2013; Ofcom, 2018).The project was innovative in its focus on cyberbullying among young people in five different regions of the European Union, but also in terms of its co-participatory methodology, involving, training and empowering young people as co-researchers. In seeking to work with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, the study also uniquely explored across 5 EU countries how these young people are affected by cyberbullying. The project involved young people in Sequential Focus Groups and Quality Circles through which they were empowered to co-create a range of accessible, up-to-date resources aimed at teachers, fellow pupils, parents/carers, and social networking providers.The project had two principal phases. In phase 1 young people in each partner region (aged 14-16) were invited to respond to a survey of their experiences of cyberbullying and other negative online behaviours. This survey was completed by 2687 young people (400-700 pupils in 5+ schools in each country) making it one of the most extensive European surveys of young people's online behaviours and experiences. Pupils were first invited to provide background demographic information and to detail the nature and extent of their regular online activity. They were then asked to describe a nasty or unpleasant online experience that had happened to them personally over the past couple of months, to indicate who they had reported it to (if anyone) and what happened as a result. They were also asked to describe a nasty online experience that had happened to someone else they know well, and to describe anything nasty or unpleasant that they had done themselves to someone online over the past couple of months. Finally, the survey invited the young people to provide suggestions as to how teachers, parents/carers and friends could help more. In phase 2 the project was unique in its use of the Quality Circle approach combined with Sequential Focus Groups for the first time with a total of 237 pupils aged 14-16 from lower socio-economic backgrounds in 10 schools in five European partner countries, where previously Cowie and Sharp (1994) and Paul et al. (2010, 2012) had implemented the Quality Circle approach (with no SFGs) with much smaller numbers of primary school children and younger secondary school pupils in England alone.The project produced 4 Intellectual Outputs targeted at an audience of teachers (IO1: Lessons and Guide for Teachers); young people (IO2: Comic Book for Pupils); families (IO3: Guide for Parents/Carers) and internet providers (IO4: Summary Recommendations). Outputs 1-3 are available in English, Dutch, German and Italian. Output 4 is available in English. For outputs 1-3 a further extended version was created (in English) for those who wanted further guidance and information and further examples of pupil work.As such this is a project which was innovative in focus and design, but which has also increased understanding and confidence of hundreds of young people across all 5 partner countries, as well as leading to a range of attractive, innovative resources for teachers, pupils and parents which are available in 4 languages for use in schools across Europe. It is hoped that these resources will be widely used in schools and families leading to greater understanding of online dangers but also promoting greater support for young people including those from disadvantaged social backgrounds.

The main goal of BlueGreen Governance is to develop innovative land-sea governance schemes based on scientific evidence and societal choices. The current management of oceans, seas and coasts is fragmented across multiple institutional layers and policy areas and based on past experience. BlueGreen Governance pursues an innovative approach to the governance of the seas and coastal areas that: promotes integration between institutional layers and across policy sectors with a clear impact on the use of the land and the sea; involves and engages citizens in decision-making processes, while at the same time including scientific evidence; responds predictively to changing physical conditions as indicated by scientific evidence as well as indigenous and local knowledge and citizen science; and uses e-governance tools in support of the previous three points. With this focus and approach, the project responds to the need for better-informed decision-making processes, social engagement and digital innovation while promoting more harmonious and effective science-policy-society interfaces. The promotion of better science-policy, science-society and society-policy interactions will be embedded in the digital transformation and application of e-governance tools for co-design and service delivery. BlueGreen Governance will implement and assess these innovative governance schemes in 8 cases across several European regions and sea basins and will draw lessons on how to trigger and facilitate effective institutional change via capacity building. The cases are: Comunidad Valenciana; North Adriatic; the Solent; Western Scheldt; Oslofjord; Canary Islands and Reunion. With this geographical scope, the project will investigate five marine basins (Western Mediterranean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean), including one transnational marine basin (i.e. the North Adriatic case) and one transnational river basin (i.e. the Western Scheldt case).