About

RE:ANIMA is a European joint master’s degree focused on animation creativity, storytelling, and artistic research, deeply rooted in European and international values of cultural diversity, artistic innovation, and academic excellence. The program fosters cross-cultural collaboration, bringing together students from around the world to engage in animation as a universal language that transcends borders and connects global audiences.

Grounded in animated documentary, artistic exploration, and diverse storytelling traditions, RE:ANIMA offers a comprehensive education in animation ideation, direction, and production, while fostering entrepreneurship and creative independence. Designed as a high-level training and research endeavour, the program equips students with expertise in various animation techniques, genres, and formats, ensuring a deep understanding of animation as both an art form and a powerful medium of communication and social cohesion.

With a strong emphasis on European cooperation and mobility, students benefit from a truly international learning environment, studying across Lusófona University (Portugal), LUCA School of Arts (Belgium), and IADT (Ireland). They engage in research, development, pre-production and production, exploring the full potential of animation across different media formats.

The curriculum promotes a balance between traditional and emerging animation practices, aligning with European values of innovation, cultural exchange, and artistic freedom. Graduates emerge as creative leaders, equipped with the specialised skills, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary mindset needed to shape the future of animation in a highly competitive global market while contributing to the continued evolution of European and international storytelling traditions.

Academic programme

From Belgium to Ireland to Portugal.

The program takes an educational methodological approach through projects in development, and during the four semesters the students will acquire differentiated competences, explore diverse methods and approaches in the context of the learning units the curriculum is composed of, while at the same time working on their graduation animation projects. These projects can take the form of narrative, non-narrative, poetic, experimental documentary or expanded animation projects of a various nature that combine techniques and multidisciplinary approaches.

Underlying the academic program is a common system of workshops that combine artistic and social topics with the goal of promoting critical and social awareness on the side of the students and inform their projects with content that strives for originality, creativity and innovation.

A balance of artistic and technological dimensions with cultural awareness

RE:ANIMA proposes a curriculum and didactic approach that balance artistic and technological dimensions, overcoming existing tensions between artistic and technology-driven programmes. Additionally, RE:ANIMA begins with an overarching concept that the animation creative process must be driven by cultural awareness and a critical appreciation of the world around us. The students take part in an international and diverse learning community with students and faculty from different cultures and from all over the world. Teamwork in animation is therefore multicultural and multigenerational. By bridging art, technology and cultural backgrounds, the fundamental innovation of the programme rests in building animation professionals who are international artists, technical collaborators and global citizens.

Core subjects on Animation

Underlying the academic program is a common system of workshops that convoke artistic and social topics with the goal of promoting critical and social awareness on the side of the students and inform their projects with content that strives for originality, creativity and innovation.

Course Curriculum

The programme was designed following a layering structure with the following configuration.

a) Each institution will approach the courses based upon their own conceptual and technical expertise

Semester 1 at LUCA, Genk, will be dedicated to artistic research methodologies, where students will learn different approaches for creating a research dossier for their projects, including visual, narrative, and conceptual references; technical experiments; and a clearly defined set of artistic intentions. These are informed by classes, workshops and lectures on creative writing, visual development, decolonial thinking, philosophy of technology, production financing and management, and different animation techniques ranging from drawing to stop motion and 3D animation.
Semester 2 at Dun Laoghaire will be dedicated to storytelling and its application in animation. The students will be exposed to expanded visual and oral storytelling traditions, as well as the contemporary animation industry as well as production management and budgeting approaches for large scale animation productions. This exposure will inform the further development of their cap stone project.
Semester 3 at Lusófona, Lisbon, will be dedicated to documentary and aims to position students within the format from a historic and analytical perspective, namely as regards exploring the possibilities of its language and strategies for the critical representation of realities.
In the 4th semester, students are assigned to the schools according to their thesis project and focus solely on its production.

b) There are four defined disciplinary tracks overarching semester 1, 2 and 3

Artistic Research: The Artistic Research track provides students with a structured and creative framework to explore, develop, and realize their thesis projects through research-driven methodologies. By integrating artistic inquiry with technical and narrative exploration, students gain critical skills to advance their work while pushing the boundaries of animation and visual storytelling.
Animation Experiments: The Animation Experiments track encourages students to explore various experimental animation techniques and digital tools to develop their unique artistic expression. The course structure begins with an orientation of each student's artistic goals, followed by personalized mentoring that allows for focused development in animation using both free/open-source software and experimental analog techniques.
Entrepreneurship in the Creative Arts: The track begins with an understanding of the various funding opportunities available for animation production. Over recent decades, the European audiovisual and creative sectors have grown in size, significance, and reach. These sectors have not only contributed to the consolidation of European identity and community but have also become vital players in global policy, business, and culture. The increasing innovation within these sectors is driven by the development of specialized skills, cross-society linkages, and the capacity to generate outcomes that transform society.
History and Critical Reflection of Animation: The History and Critical Reflection of Animation track encourages students to engage with the medium in a comprehensive, multifaceted way, blending theoretical knowledge with practical application. By breaking down the linear history of animation, the course opens opportunities for students to analyze and reflect upon the various aesthetic, technical, and socio-cultural aspects of animated films. The course fosters this critical engagement through.

Course Classes

1st semester - LUCA

Research-Based Animation I (6 ECTS)
Animation Experiments I (6 ECTS)
Creative Animation Atelier I [Storytelling and national identity] (9 ECTS)
History & Critical Reflection in Animation I (6 ECTS)
Entrepreneurship for the Creative Industries I (3 ECTS)

2nd semester - IADT

Research-Based Animation II (6 ECTS)
Animation Experiments II (6 ECTS)
Creative Animation Atelier II [Storytelling and national identity] (9 ECTS)
History & Critical Reflection in Animation I (6 ECTS)
Entrepreneurship for the Creative Industries II (3 ECTS)

3rd semester - LUSÓFONA

Research-Based Animation II (6 ECTS)
Animation Experiments II (6 ECTS)
Creative Animation Atelier III [Storytelling and national identity] (9 ECTS)
European Heritage in Animation (6 ECTS)
Entrepreneurship for the Creative Industries III (3 ECTS)

4th semester - Divided by each institution

Master Thesis and Dissertation (30 ECTS)

The Graduation Project

Graduation project work is composed of two parts:

an animation project, that has been developed since end of semester one;
a written report.

These two parts together constitute the graduation project that signals the final stage of the student’s academic path.

The project included in the dissertation takes the shape the student decides: it can be either a narrative, experimental, documentary or expanded.

Complementarily, the student is required to produce a theoretical and critically grounded report / project dossier that frames and reflects upon that same project. The dissertation is developed individually.

Diploma Awarded

In view of the Erasmus Mobility Programme and the Europass system, all three partners will adopt a joint diploma supplement, based on the three national supplements.

The official diplomas will clearly indicate that this is a Joint Master. The number of ECTS earned will also be indicated in the Joint Diploma supplement.

FAQs

Mobility Scheme

The mobility track of RE:ANIMA makes the harmonisation of the curriculum inevitable.

The Academic Board has taken a joint decision on the location of each semester, based on the evaluation of the advantages offered by each partner and the educational needs of the program and defined structure.

The programme targets a maximum class of 21 students per intake, who will be together for the first three semesters, splitting into 3 groups of around 7 elements in the fourth semester. In this last semester, each group will remain in one of the Consortium’s schools depending on their final project: narrative and non-narrative storytelling at LUCA, documentary approaches with social based content at Lusófona and artistic research at IADT. The final Project assumes the format of a project in short fiction, documentary, experimental or expanded animation (i.e., art installation with animation, live animated settings for shows, 360-animation films), in accordance with the students’ interests, supplemented by a written report that integrates a theoretical and critical reflection and analysis of the topic explored in the students’ work. In the first three semesters, the students will work in collective projects, while the final project is individual.

Student mobility is organised around the courses/semesters in the following manner:

1st semester: Research

Hosted by LUCA School of Arts in Genk, the first semester introduces students to artistic research methodologies that generate knowledge through animation practice. Based on The Vienna Declaration of Artistic Research (2020), students explore both practice-led and practice-based approaches, combining theoretical reflection with creative experimentation. Through classes, lectures, and workshops, they study a wide range of cultural and artistic references while developing an artistic research dossier. Topics include Philosophy of Technology, Decolonial Thinking, narrative approaches, and animation management. Practical workshops cover techniques such as expressive drawing, stop motion, VR/AR, and 2D/3D animation using open-source tools, fostering integrated research-based projects.

2nd semester: Development

At IADT in Dublin, the second semester focuses on storytelling in multiple cultural contexts. Students study Irish narrative traditions—from folklore and oral storytelling to contemporary screen practices—while exploring sound design and post-colonial identity. Broader cultural and geographical perspectives encourage diverse storytelling approaches. The semester also examines Ireland’s animation industry, emphasizing funding and production management. Students continue developing their thesis projects, refining story structure and visual language.

3rd semester: Pre-production

Based at Lusófona University in Lisbon, the third semester emphasizes documentary filmmaking, merging historical, analytical, and practical study. Students explore Europe’s documentary heritage and the potential of animated documentaries, engaging with Portuguese cultural contexts to create a collective documentary animation. Entrepreneurial skills such as business planning and pitching are developed, preparing students for the creative industries. A key milestone is the thesis proposal presentation to the Academic Board, guiding the direction of their final project and school placement for the fourth semester.

4th semester: Production

In the final semester, students complete their creative projects and written reports at one of the partner schools, forming their individual dissertations. The program concludes with a public screening and evaluation session, where the final works are assessed by internal and external examiners.