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The present article addresses the professional conclusions of an international platform of education in intercultural discourse in the European Union's EDUC Project. In flagging social issues and concerns, cross-cultural academic collaboration is a powerful tool to bring about social change . In our educational project participants encounter different cultures, so the discussed topics, and especially the metaphors for the Covid-19 pandemic, receive instant reflections from different cultural perspectives , multiplying the potential sphere of valid interpretations , yielding novel perspectives in intercultural pragmatics and communication. This gives birth to a novel methodology that builds on the open-minded integration of different points of view, understanding universal traits of human cognition and differences in culture in the linguistics of discourse., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)

This article explores a novel methodology in the globalized classroom to face and tackle new challenges across cultures. The new online educational form of international discourse has the potential to make a difference in and outside Academia as it encompasses interpersonal communication across cultures and thus offers a novel framework for interpretation of different sociocultural perspectives to bring about social change. It transcends geographical and physical boundaries as it brings people together for discussion in the online joint event. Our study guides the reader through a collaborative educational framework and offers a methodology that transcends boundaries, exemplifying a tool for 21st century education. It offers techniques that bring on social change and enhances open-mindedness in tackling social problems with valuable methods from the fields of humanities and intercultural, collaborative communication., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2022.)