Editorial: Empowerment through education innovative interventions for higher education students

Together, these studies illustrate how curriculum design, multimodal resources, and formative assessment strategies can support deeper learning and conceptual understanding. Importantly, these approaches converge in repositioning assessment not as a terminal act of measurement, but as an integral and continuous component of learning processes.A third thematic area highlights the relational and institutional conditions that support student well-being, belonging, and persistence. The PROTEUS initiative evaluates outcomes of a university-wide student success program (Carneiro Pinto et al.), while Gonçalves and colleagues demonstrate the positive impact of mentoring on well-being, engagement, and academic achievement. Chan, Tamura, and Wang show how structured student-faculty interactions -such as shared meals -can strengthen students' sense of belonging, and Sampaio et al. describe a career intervention supporting academic adjustment. Barragán Moreno and González Támara further examine the multidimensional dynamics of student dropout. These findings resonate with a growing body of research indicating that mentoring relationships, institutional support structures, and a strong sense of belonging are key predictors of persistence and academic success in higher education (Tinto, 2012;Strayhorn, 2008). However, a critical challenge remains the scalability and sustainability of such interventions within resource-constrained and highly differentiated institutional systems.Complementing these institutional perspectives, several contributions explore intra-personal processes that shape learning experiences. Xu and Yu investigate self-regulated learning using Ridit analysis, Bereded, Abebe, and Negasi examine the mediating role of engagement between emotional intelligence and academic achievement, and Sjølie, Johnsen, and van Petegem adopt a person-oriented approach to profiling feedback antecedents. These studies highlight the importance of integrating psychological and pedagogical perspectives in order to better understand how students interpret feedback, regulate their learning processes, and sustain engagement over time. Bridging these dimensions remains a key theoretical and practical frontier, requiring models that integrate cognitive, affective, and social components of learning. Taken together, the contributions in this Research Topic offer an integrated map of evidence and practice that highlights five key priorities for contemporary higher education: 1) redesign teaching and assessment to support meaningful and authentic learning 2) build mentoring, belonging, and well-being as infrastructures of student success 3) harness technology and AI responsibly while safeguarding academic integrity 4) cultivate intra-personal processes such as engagement and self-regulated learning 5) promote soft skills, leadership, and entrepreneurial competencies across disciplines.These priorities can be conceptualized as interconnected dimensions of a broader student empowerment ecosystem, in which technological, pedagogical, psychological, and social factors dynamically interact.Despite the breadth of perspectives represented here, several challenges remain open and call for sustained inquiry.First, the rapid diffusion of generative AI raises unresolved questions about governance, transparency, and pedagogical integration.Evidence suggests that many students already rely on AI tools when completing academic tasks, often without clear guidance about appropriate use or academic integrity standards (Saude, Barroz & Almeida, 2024). This situation underscores the need for assessment models capable of distinguishing between productive AI-assisted learning and practices that undermine authentic knowledge construction. Scholars increasingly argue that the future of assessment may lie in more authentic, process-based, and multimodal approaches that emphasize critical thinking and collaboration rather than the mere reproduction of information.Second, although several contributions highlight the value of mentoring, community building, and career support initiatives, future research should examine how these interventions can be scaled and sustained within complex institutional ecosystems.Longitudinal and cross-cultural studies are particularly needed to assess the durability and transferability of belonging-oriented interventions.Third, the growing attention to psychological dimensions of learning -such as emotional intelligence, engagement, and self-regulation -suggests promising opportunities for integrating cognitive, affective, and pedagogical perspectives in higher education research and teaching. Translating these insights into scalable instructional designs remains a central challenge for both researchers and practitioners.From an applied perspective, the studies gathered in this Research Topic also highlight the potential for innovation across multiple levels of higher education systems. More fundamentally, they suggest that the future of higher education lies in the capacity to design integrated learning ecosystems that align technological innovation with human development.At the classroom level, the pedagogical models and assessment practices described here provide actionable frameworks that instructors can adapt to promote deeper engagement and conceptual understanding. At the institutional level, mentoring programs, community-building initiatives, and career development interventions demonstrate how universities can construct integrated ecosystems that support both academic persistence and personal development. In this respect, higher education institutions are called upon not only to impart or share knowledge, but also to actively create the conditions that enable students to become independent, reflective and socially responsible individuals.More broadly, the emphasis on soft skills, leadership, and entrepreneurship reflects the evolving role of universities in preparing graduates not only for employment but also for participation in complex, dynamic, and innovation-driven societies.In this sense, the contributions collected in this Research Topic illustrate how pedagogical innovation, technological transformation, and student-centered support systems can converge to shape more inclusive, adaptive, and future-oriented higher education environments.