Updates from MIND+

The Lithuanian National Desk Research is complete, and with it all four national reports of the MIND+ research phase are now in. Over the summer, the Lithuanian team gathered data from 12 educators and 10 other education professionals (school psychologists, social pedagogues, special pedagogues and student support specialists) through questionnaires, complemented by four in-depth individual interviews with teachers. The finished report brings together a theoretical framework of ESG in Lithuanian education, a needs analysis grounded in that data, five national good practices and full supporting annexes.

The findings paint a clear picture. Awareness of sustainability, wellbeing and responsible governance is solid among Lithuanian education professionals, and schools are actively bringing environmental and social topics into everyday school life. But a few things stand out:

• Governance is the blind spot. Not a single respondent in either questionnaire group named Governance as the most relevant ESG area, and every interviewed educator named it the area where they feel least confident. Yet participatory structures such as school councils and working groups already exist in their schools. The gap is one of awareness, not of practice.
• The training gap is ESG-specific. Most surveyed educators have already had some training related to artificial intelligence, but hardly any have ever received training on ESG or sustainability in education.
• AI is already everyday practice. All but one of the surveyed educators use generative AI, mostly to create teaching materials and plan lessons. Some are already teaching students to critique AI output rather than copy it.
• The shared concern is critical thinking. Across roles, from psychologists to pedagogues and support specialists, professionals independently pointed to the same risk: students accepting AI-generated answers without questioning them.
• Language matters. Teachers of Lithuanian report that current AI tools still perform poorly in the Lithuanian language, a reminder that AI in European education has to work in every language, not only the big ones.

Educators were equally clear about what would help: practical, subject-specific training, delivered in blended formats that combine online learning with hands-on practice and peer mentoring.

Read alongside the reports from Portugal, Spain and Greece, the Lithuanian findings are part of a strikingly consistent European story. In every partner country the Social dimension of ESG is the one educators relate to most, and Governance the least understood. Formal training on ESG is close to non-existent across the consortium, while demand for practical, applied training is high. Lack of time and overloaded curricula are the universal barrier. And educators everywhere draw the same line on AI: valuable as a mentor and preparation tool, dangerous as a substitute for students' own thinking. Each partner report is presented in its own spotlight below: Portugal, Spain and Greece.

Each country also documented a set of national good practices, from environmental whole-school programmes to bullying prevention, student self-government and teacher leadership initiatives. The Lithuanian examples include the Eco-Schools Programme, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme, the Lithuanian School Students' Union, the Millennium Schools Programme and "Renkuosi mokyti!" (I Choose to Teach). Together they show that much of what MIND+ hopes to strengthen already exists in schools in some form. The task is to connect it, name it and make it easier to use.

The four national reports now feed into the Common Desk Research, which will be translated into all partner languages. This is followed by the national Conversation Cycles: workshops with education professionals in each country to validate the findings and co-create recommendations, planned for autumn 2026. Together, these directly shape the MIND+ toolkit and the teacher training programme to come.

The Portuguese partners, INNOVEDU and Agrupamento de Escolas José Estêvão (AEJE), delivered their National Desk Research in early July. It is a fully referenced report covering a theoretical framework of the three ESG dimensions in Portuguese education, from the national strategies for environmental education and citizenship to the European GreenComp, LifeComp and DigCompEdu frameworks; a needs analysis based on questionnaires with teachers and other professionals working with young people, an in-depth interview and a group discussion with teachers and school psychologists; and six documented national good practices, each with concrete examples that other countries can transfer.

The findings describe a school system where ESG is lived before it is named. Teachers rate their own knowledge of sustainability, wellbeing and responsible governance as medium to high, yet few had met the ESG label itself, and much of the practice is already there: environmental action through clean-up campaigns and waste reduction, the Social dimension through inclusive education and anti-bullying work, Governance through schools' curricular autonomy. A few things stand out:

• Social leads, Governance stays in the background. Teachers mostly value the Social dimension, or see all three as equally relevant. The Environmental dimension is recognised as urgent but often lacks consistency in practice, and Governance appears only indirectly, meaning digital safety and data protection to some and pedagogical autonomy to others. The report's reading is that Governance matters more than it shows: it is emerging bottom-up in schools faster than research instruments capture it.
• The training gap covers ESG and AI alike. All surveyed teachers said they had never received specific training on ESG, and nearly all had never had formal training on either ESG or AI. Lack of training was cited almost unanimously as a barrier.
• AI use is polarised. Most teachers use generative AI occasionally, mainly to create teaching materials and plan lessons. A few use it daily and deeply, adapting materials for inclusion, drafting tests and grading criteria, even teaching students to write good prompts, while others remain entirely analogue.
• The worry is the mode of use, not the tool. Educators described students who "get home, put it into the AI and it solves it", and worry about over-reliance, hallucinated answers and shrinking attention spans. The report's key nuance: the risk depends on whether AI substitutes for a student's own thinking or is used as a mediated mentor and tutor.
• Time and relationships come first. Class size, curriculum length and administrative overload weigh heavily, and the group discussion kept returning to one line: "without relationship there is no learning". Technology, teachers argued, should free up time for relationships, not automate teaching.

Educators asked for four things: AI applied to education, AI ethics, up-to-date climate-change content that avoids alarmist narratives, and inclusive education for anxiety, hyperactivity and dyslexia, delivered as workshops, peer sharing and exercises built on real classroom scenarios. What they explicitly did not want was training in generic bureaucratic automation.

The report's own conclusion is striking: Portugal does not, in essence, need more decrees, strategies or frameworks; what is missing is capacity-building for the people in schools and the time to use it. That reinforces the pattern across the consortium (the Social dimension dominates, Governance is the least clearly understood, structured ESG training is rare and time is the universal barrier) and adds a Portuguese emphasis of its own: the most urgent change is organisational, not technological.

The six good practices documented, all Portuguese, show what that capacity looks like where it exists: the Gulbenkian Knowledge Academies for social and emotional skills, the "School Without Bullying | School Without Violence" seal, the SeguraNet digital citizenship and online safety programme, Young Reporters for the Environment, Agrupamento de Escolas Leal da Câmara's written principles for the use of AI, and AEJE's own active-citizenship micro-projects in secondary education. Each comes with concrete examples that schools in other countries can pick up.

The Portuguese report now feeds into the Common Desk Research alongside the reports from Spain, Greece and Lithuania, and its transferable examples are a direct input into the MIND+ toolkit and teacher training programme.

The Spanish partners, DSG Consultores and Cooperativa de Enseñanza Carlos V, completed their National Desk Research following the shared methodology in full: a theoretical framework of the three ESG dimensions in Spanish education, from the LOMLOE education law and the national action plan for environmental education to inclusion strategy, child protection and school councils; a needs analysis based on questionnaires with educators and with other professionals working with young people, plus in-depth interviews; and a collection of five good practices. As author of the common research guide used by all four countries, DSG Consultores also anchors the methodological consistency of the whole research phase, and now coordinates the Common Desk Research that brings the four national reports together.

Spanish educators and professionals rate their knowledge of these themes as fairly high and say ESG is already quite integrated in their schools. The interviews add an honest caveat: much of it takes the form of campaigns and tutorial projects, "occasional activities rather than continuous, deep work". A few things stand out:

• Social first. The Social dimension is the one most often seen as most relevant, with the Environmental second; nobody singled out Governance. Many respondents preferred to treat the three as inseparable and work on them together.
• AI is in daily use. Most surveyed educators use generative AI, and most of those use it frequently: for lesson ideas, reading texts adapted to different levels, exercises, project ideas, rubrics and grading support, and to save time on repetitive tasks. Those who do not use it yet said they would like to.
• A double-edged sword. Everyone rated AI's impact on young people as very high. The concerns are specific: students delegating writing, analysis and critical thinking to AI, accepting outputs uncritically, shorter attention spans and dependency. As one educator put it, "the challenge is not to ban it, since it is part of today's reality, but rather to teach them how to use it responsibly and critically."
• Digital native is not digitally competent. One professional's warning runs through the report: "we confuse 'digital native' with 'digitally competent'". Others pointed to the environmental cost of AI itself, from energy-hungry servers to the water they consume, a reminder that the digital and environmental questions are one question.
• Barriers: ethics and time. Ethical issues and lack of time top the list, and the interviews add curriculum overload, exams, bureaucracy and a "message saturation" from social media that makes sustainability messages harder to hear.

Educators asked for clear guidelines on using AI in the classroom, reliable ways to spot misuse, and training in ESG, sustainability and active methodologies, delivered as practical, classroom-ready proposals and year-round cross-curricular materials rather than one-off awareness days. Several were clear that they want no new laws, just changes inside each subject syllabus.

The Spanish findings match the pattern seen across the consortium: strong prioritisation of the Social dimension, Governance rarely in the foreground, minimal prior training combined with a clear appetite for applied learning, and time pressure as a dominant barrier. Seeing the same picture emerge from a different school system, gathered with the same instruments, is what turns four national studies into a genuinely European evidence base. The report's recommendations point the same way as the others: foster critical capacity, move to active, participatory, competency-based learning, and build real collaboration between schools and health, social and community services.

The five good practices documented range from the international to the very local: the Eco-Schools programme as run in Spain by ADEAC, the Learning Communities model of successful educational actions for inclusion, the GenESG Erasmus+ project on sustainable-finance microlearning with educational generative AI, the "Aulas democráticas" pupil-participation approach of a primary school in Asturias, and ADA, the Andalusian Digital Student Helpers peer programme against cyberbullying.

With the Spanish report in, the team at DSG Consultores leads the compilation of the Common Desk Research, which will be translated into all partner languages and discussed with educators in each country during the Conversation Cycles planned for autumn 2026.

The Greek partners, 1st EPAL of Chanion and Eupaideia, completed their National Desk Research at the end of June, the first national report delivered in the consortium. It combines a theoretical framework of the three ESG dimensions in the Greek educational context, from the national network of sustainability education centres and the Skills Workshops curriculum to school self-evaluation; a needs analysis based on questionnaires with educators and a group discussion; and a collection of five good practices.

The findings show educators who care about these themes and know the theory, working in a system that makes it hard to turn knowledge into everyday practice. Around half of respondents rated their knowledge of ESG as medium to high, and social and emotional education is their clearest priority, but full integration of ESG into school life is rare and environmental initiatives mostly remain standalone activities. A few things stand out:

• Knowing is not doing. Students learn the environmental theory but do not act on it, and schools themselves sometimes do not recycle. One educator summed it up: "We do environmental lessons, but out of the 20 students in the class, only two recycle at home."
• Social first, Governance last. Social and emotional education is the highest priority for its immediate relevance to wellbeing and classroom climate, and the most systematically supported, with psychologists and specialists in place. Governance and democratic participation come last: seen as complex and difficult to implement, with student involvement in decision-making described as minimal and often symbolic.
• AI is common, but uneven. Roughly two thirds of educators use generative AI regularly or occasionally, for lesson planning, teaching materials, adapting content for mixed-ability classes and administrative support. Others have not started, citing lack of training and information, and in some schools unreliable internet.
• Quick answers, less understanding. The main concern is students using AI "for quick answers without understanding, which hampers critical thinking", along with plagiarism and superficial learning. Educators also noted that AI cannot offer real emotional support, while expecting it to become a responsible "co-teacher" if introduced well.
• The system, not the will, is the barrier. Rigid curricula and exam pressure, limited time and infrastructure, and fragmented collaboration with municipalities and local partners hold schools back. Educators were also candid about the wider climate they work in: student indifference, the pull of screens during a 45-minute lesson, and a culture that prizes quick material success.

Most educators had no or minimal formal training in ESG or AI. What they asked for: practical, hands-on AI literacy with ethics and curriculum alignment built in, methods for teaching ESG across subjects, and social-emotional learning strategies for diverse classrooms, delivered as a mix of in-person and online learning, in professional learning communities, and through experiential formats such as role-play and pedagogical theatre. As one put it, "experiential laboratories where we first experience activities ourselves are very effective."

The Greek findings align with the consortium-wide pattern: the Social dimension is felt as most relevant, Governance is the least familiar pillar, formal ESG training is largely absent despite clear demand for practical support, and lack of time is the main barrier. The report's recommendations are concrete: redesign curricula to include ESG and digital competencies formally, give teachers paid time for professional development, invest in school infrastructure, encourage genuine student participation, and treat critical thinking as a foundational skill. Above all, it argues, schools need to move from isolated projects to whole-school approaches.

The five good practices documented include, notably, one for the Governance dimension: the Eco-Schools programme as run in Greece by the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Nature, the national network of Education Centres for Sustainability and Environment (KEPEA), the Ministry's Skills Workshops curriculum with its pillar on wellbeing and mental health, the "Live Without Bullying" platform run by The Smile of the Child, and the School Self-Evaluation and Quality Assurance Framework that asks every public school to plan and review its own improvement each year.

The Greek report now feeds into the Common Desk Research alongside the reports from Portugal, Spain and Lithuania, and its good practices join the pool of examples that will inform the MIND+ toolkit.

On 6 July, the consortium met online to review progress across its two most active strands of work, research and dissemination, and to set the course for the months ahead.

On the research side, Portugal (INNOVEDU and AEJE) delivered its National Desk Research in early July: a fully referenced theoretical framework of the three ESG dimensions in Portuguese education, a needs analysis, and a set of documented national good practices with transferable examples. Spain (DSG Consultores and Cooperativa de Enseñanza Carlos V) also completed its national report, based on questionnaires with educators and other professionals, interviews and a collection of good practices. With Greece's report already in, three of the four national reports were confirmed complete at the meeting, and compilation of the Common Desk Research, which synthesises the findings from all four countries, began under the coordination of the Spanish team at DSG Consultores.

Lithuania carried out its national data collection in the second half of July: 12 educators and 10 other professionals working with young people (school psychologists, social and special pedagogues, and student support specialists) completed questionnaires, and four in-depth individual interviews were conducted with educators, extended with questions on professional wellbeing and preferred training formats. By the end of the month, every partner country had its evidence in hand.

On the dissemination side, the MIND+ social media channels continued growing with regular weekly posts, and the project moved to expand its reach through boosted content. Partners agreed on a shared rhythm: every partner organisation will post about the project at least monthly, sharing research findings and ESG concepts with their national school communities in their own language. The meeting also set the plan for the project's first newsletter, to be prepared over the summer and published in early autumn in all five project languages.

Research only helps schools if it reaches them. With the national evidence in hand and a clear plan for how each partner shares it, MIND+ can start talking to teachers about real findings from their own country while the work is fresh, rather than only at the end of the project.

Over the summer, the Common Desk Research takes shape and the Lithuanian team finalises its national report. The consortium reconvenes in September to prepare the next phase: the Conversation Cycles, where national findings will be discussed directly with educators and school communities in each country in autumn 2026.

June marked a decisive month for the MIND+ research phase, the listening work that will ground everything the project builds. In May, the consortium finalised its common methodology: a shared research guide prepared by DSG Consultores (Spain), with harmonised questionnaire and interview templates, so that all four countries collect comparable data on how educators understand ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance), how they use generative AI in their practice, what training they need, and which good practices already exist.

Through June, partner teams in Portugal, Spain, Greece and Lithuania moved into national data collection: questionnaires for educators, questionnaires for other professionals working with young people (school psychologists, social pedagogues, counsellors), and interviews or group discussions, gathering the perspectives of the people who know schools best.

In Lithuania, the team finalised the national research instruments: two questionnaires, one for educators and one for other education professionals such as school psychologists and social pedagogues, alongside a semi-structured interview guide for in-depth conversations with teachers. All instruments were translated and adapted to the national context while remaining fully comparable across the four partner countries. At the same time, work continued on the Lithuanian National Desk Research report: a theoretical framework mapping how the Environmental, Social and Governance dimensions appear in Lithuanian education policy, and a collection of five national good practices, from the Eco-Schools programme to the Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme, that will inform the MIND+ toolkit.

At the end of June, Greece (1st EPAL of Chanion and Eupaideia) completed its National Desk Research report, combining a national theoretical framework on ESG in Greek education, a needs analysis based on educator questionnaires and a group discussion, and a collection of national good practices. The first of the four national reports is in.

Four countries, one methodology: the evidence base for MIND+ is taking shape. Because every partner is asking comparable questions, the consortium will be able to see what schools across Europe have in common and what is specific to each country. The toolkit and teacher training that follow will be built on what educators actually said, not on assumptions about what they need.

Data collection and national reporting continue over the summer. Once all four national reports are complete, they will be brought together in a Common Desk Research report that synthesises the findings from across the partnership.

The MIND+ project website launches at mindplus.one this month, alongside official social media channels on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. The website brings together what the project is, who is involved, how it will unfold across the next three years, and how schools, educators, families and organisations can follow along or get in touch.

The social channels will share project moments, partner spotlights, milestones, and reflections from the work as it develops. All partner organisations across Portugal, Spain, Greece and Lithuania are connected to the channels and will help amplify the project across their own networks.

A European project like MIND+ only reaches the schools and communities it is designed to serve if its work is visible and accessible. Setting up the website and social presence early in the project's life means the partnership can share its journey, its thinking, and eventually its tools and findings with educators, families and decision-makers across Europe as the project develops, not only at the end.

Regular updates will be shared here on the website and across the social channels. Over the coming months, the focus will be on introducing the seven partner organisations and the associated partner school, explaining the project's three areas of focus, and sharing the work of the listening phase as it begins to generate insights from school communities.

Anyone interested in following MIND+ is welcome to connect with the project on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, or to get in touch directly through the website.

The partnership is finalising how MIND+ will communicate as the project develops. This includes the project's website (which you're reading now), social channels, and how partner organisations will share updates with their own communities across four countries.

A project like MIND+ only matters if what is learned reaches people beyond the partnership. Setting up the channels early means insights and resources can be shared as they develop, not only at the end.

Regular updates will be published here on the website. Partners will also begin sharing project moments through their own channels, with broader awareness campaigns and info days planned for later phases of the project.

The development team has begun shaping the architecture for the MINDupToolkit, the digital platform that will support student wellbeing reflection, daily check-ins and small meaningful actions. Early work is focused on data privacy, the structure of student interactions, and how the toolkit will fit into the rhythm of a school day.

The toolkit will eventually be used by students, teachers and school staff. Getting the foundations right (privacy, simplicity, and respect for the school environment) matters more than moving fast.

Development continues alongside the project's listening phase, so what is built reflects what schools and students actually need, not just what is technically possible. Early prototypes will be discussed with partner schools as they take shape.

All seven MIND+ partner organisations gathered in Granada, Spain on 23 and 24 March 2026 for the project's official kickoff. The two days brought together schools, education organisations and digital innovation partners from Portugal, Spain, Greece and Lithuania to align on priorities, working methods and the first phase of development.

This was the moment the partnership moved from agreement on paper to a working group with shared direction. Establishing trust, common language and clarity on responsibilities at the start gives the project a stronger foundation for the years ahead.

The partnership now turns to the listening phase: gathering insights from school communities about what they need, mapping good practice already happening, and shaping the methodological foundations of the project's tools and approaches.