UM hosts European workshop on responsible AI in education

The University of Malta hosted the RAISE-UP Co-Creation Workshop on 5 and 6 October 2026 at its Valletta Campus, bringing together European project partners and local stakeholders to shape practical approaches to the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence in education.

RAISE-UP is a two-year Erasmus+ project developing practical guidance for the responsible integration of generative AI within European higher education and vocational education and training. The project brings together seven partner organisations from five countries: Riga Technical University – Riga Business School in Latvia, CYENS Centre of Excellence in Cyprus, Steinbeis Wissens- und Technologietransfer in Germany, the University of Malta, The Hague University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority, and Latvia’s Ministry of Education and Science.

Twenty representatives from the project’s partner institutions participated in the workshop. On the second day, they were joined by approximately 70 stakeholders, including educators, researchers, students and policymakers, who contributed their perspectives and practical experiences to the co-creation process.

Prof. Matthew Montebello, Head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence within the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, welcomed participants on behalf of the University of Malta team. The programme included presentations of the project’s research findings and emerging resources, as well as a panel discussion entitled “Ready or Not, AI Is Here: Building the Rules for Education as We Go.”

A central feature of the workshop was stakeholders' active participation in parallel co-creation sessions. Participants exchanged ideas, identified practical needs and proposed possible directions for four key project outputs: GenAI implementation guidelines, an educational practitioner toolkit, an AI sandbox concept, and ethical principles and frameworks for the use of AI in universities.

Their contributions will inform the continued development of these resources, helping to ensure that the project’s outputs reflect the realities experienced by students, educators, researchers, institutions and policymakers. The workshop therefore marked an important step from broad discussions about generative AI to practical, human-centred, and ethically grounded approaches that educational institutions can apply.

Prof. Vanessa Camilleri and Mr Reno Yuri Camilleri from the Department of Artificial Intelligence, Prof. Matthew Montebello, Head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence, and Prof. Leonard Busuttil from the Faculty of Education organised the workshop locally.

Through its leadership of the project’s piloting phase, the University of Malta will continue contributing to testing and evaluating the RAISE-UP guidelines, toolkit, and AI sandbox in real teaching and learning contexts.