Towards a Hybrid, Flexible and Socially Engaged Higher Education

This book contains papers in the fields of educational virtual environments, future of education, project-based learning (PBL), and digital education strategy and engineering pedagogy. The authors currently witnessing a significant transformation in the development of education on all levels and especially in post-secondary education. To face these challenges, higher education must find innovative and effective ways to respond in a proper way. The pandemic period left us with profound changes in the way we teach and learn, including the massive use of new means of communication, such as videoconferencing and other technological tools. Moreover, the current explosion of artificial intelligence tools, mainly used by students, is challenging teaching practices maintained for centuries. Scientifically based statements as well as excellent best practice examples are absolutely necessary.

The 26^th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2023),which took place in Madrid, Spain, between September 26 and 30, 2023, was the perfect place where current trends in higher education were presented and discussed.

Since its beginning in 1998, this conference has been devoted to new approaches in learning with a focus on collaborative learning in higher education. Nowadays, the ICL conferences are a forum of the exchange of relevant trends and research results as well as the presentation of practical experiences in learning and engineering pedagogy. In this way, the authors try to bridge the gap between 'pure' scientific research and the everyday work of educators.

Interested readership includes policy makers, academics, educators, researchers in pedagogy and learning theory, schoolteachers, learning industry, further and continuing education lecturers, etc.