Design2Freedom is a European project funded by the Erasmus+ programme (KA220-HED), running from December 2023 to May 2026. Its main goal is to promote inclusive higher education environments through the application of person-centred design and the use of participatory and inclusive methodologies in university education related to disability. The project consortium includes three universities —Universidade da Coruña (Spain), Vilniaus Kolegija (Lithuania) and the Technical University of Košice (Slovakia)— along with COCEMFE, a leading Spanish disability organisation, and Creative District (Belgium), an entity specialised in social innovation in the cultural and creative industries, fostering initiatives with sustainable impact.

The project addresses the need to transform higher education so that persons with disabilities can actively participate in the design of assistive technologies and services that respond to their real needs. To achieve this, Design2Freedom is structured in three main phases: consortium training, implementation of university pilot projects, and evaluation with the development of transferable resources.

This presentation introduces the results of the pilot projects carried out during the first semester of 2025 at the participating universities. These pilots applied approaches based on active learning, collaborative work, universal design, and the social model of disability. The experiences involved both students with and without disabilities, along with academic staff and local social organisations. The educational contexts covered a variety of disciplines in the fields of social sciences, technical studies and others, integrating the principles of universal accessibility, gender equality and human rights.

The joint evaluation of the pilots, using both qualitative and quantitative tools, enabled the identification of educational good practices that not only enhanced teaching competences and student engagement, but also strengthened collaboration between academia and civil society. These practices, based on user participation, person-centred approaches and universal design principles, are being disseminated to support their replication and scalability in other European higher education settings. In addition, the project is in the process of developing open educational resources —methodological guides, a pedagogical toolbox, and an online platform— to facilitate this transfer.

Keywords: Inclusive education, Person-Centred Design, Universal Design, Higher education, Disability.