ICARUS project aimed to strengthen inmates’ soft skills through an innovative educational approach combining metacognition and chess-based learning. The overall objective was to promote personal development, increase self-awareness, and support social reintegration by providing both inmates and educators with structured, evidence-based tools. Specific goals: 1- to design, validate and publish a complete Toolkit integrating chess competences with adult education methodologies, offering inmates practical resources to develop transversal skills. 2- To test the Toolkit directly in penitentiary settings through co-teaching between a chess instructor and an adult education trainer, collecting feedback and observing measurable improvements in inmates’ behaviour, participation and emotional management. 3- To create a European Manual for adult education trainers, systematising the tools developed and providing practical guidelines for teaching soft skills in prison using innovative, learner-centred approaches. 4- To ensure wide and sustainable impact by promoting the project’s results across Europe through the website, public events, social media, newsletters and stakeholder engagement.
The ICARUS project was created in response to a need identified both through the partners’ direct experience and through data emerging from FIDE Social Commission’s international project “Chess for Freedom”: the need to offer incarcerated people educational pathways, capable of supporting personal growth and facilitating social reintegration. The collaboration between Skill Up and UniChess had already demonstrated the potential of chess as a tool for developing adults’ transversal skills, while the participating prison administrations confirmed that prisons remain environments with very limited access to high-quality educational opportunities. Adult education trainers and chess instructors also expressed the need for structured tools to work effectively in complex settings. ICARUS addresses these needs by combining a metacognitive approach with the educational power of chess, offering inmates a pathway toward self-awareness and professionals a new method that can be applied in real-world contexts.