The NGO Ukrainian Modern Digital Science (UMDS) has been awarded funding as a member of an international consortium under the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships in Adult Education (KA220-ADU) programme for the project “FraudShield: Empowering Adults Against Financial Scams and Social Engineering in the Age of AI.”
The project brings together seven organisations from five European countries — Czechia, Albania, Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia — combining expertise in finance, adult education, digital technologies, cybersecurity, behavioural research and financial fraud prevention. The consortium is coordinated by Mendel University in Brno (MENDELU), Czechia and includes:
Mendel University in Brno (MENDELU), Czechia — Project Coordinator;
Prague University of Economics and Business (VŠE), Czechia;
University of Tirana, Albania;
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine;
Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, Estonia;
Rīga Stradiņš University, Latvia;
Ukrainian Modern Digital Science (UMDS), Ukraine.
Building Financial Resilience in the Age of AI
FraudShield responds to the rapidly growing threat of financial fraud and AI-enabled social engineering, including AI-phishing, deepfakes, voice cloning, impersonation schemes and manipulated AI-based investment offers. The project aims to strengthen the ability of adults to recognise, verify and resist fraudulent financial practices and make informed financial decisions in an increasingly complex digital environment.
The project targets adult learners aged 18–65+, with particular attention to people with fewer opportunities, adults aged 50+, and communities facing barriers to digital access and financial education.
A key innovation of FraudShield is the adaptation and cross-national validation of two internationally recognised instruments for assessing financial vulnerability: the Lichtenberg Financial Decision Rating Scale (LFDRS) and the Financial Exploitation Vulnerability Scale (FEVS). These instruments will provide the methodological basis for identifying individual vulnerability to financial exploitation and developing personalised educational pathways.
The consortium will also create a case-based FraudShield Test, an open multilingual digital FraudShield Platform, AI-supported self-assessment and learning tools, a general course on AI-enabled financial fraud, six specialised micro-courses, practical resources for educators and the FraudShield Ambassadors’ Toolkit. The project is expected to reach more than 300 adult learners and train at least 30 FraudShield Ambassadors.
UMDS: From Research and Diagnostics to Digital Dissemination
UMDS will have a significant methodological and implementation role in the project. In particular, the organisation will lead the research component related to Financial Vulnerability Tests, including the standardisation of research protocols and data templates for cross-country validation.
UMDS will also lead the development of the FraudShield Ambassadors’ Toolkit, designed to support further dissemination of fraud-prevention knowledge among adult learners and professional communities.
Through FraudShield, UMDS will contribute its expertise in financial crime prevention, AML/CFT, digital assets, financial risk assessment, blockchain analytics and financial security, while bringing Ukraine’s unique experience of financial decision-making and resilience under conditions of extreme uncertainty into the European adult education environment.
Participation in FraudShield marks an important step in strengthening UMDS’s institutional integration into European research and educational networks and expands the organisation’s contribution to European initiatives at the intersection of financial security, digital transformation, education and responsible AI.
