The EU High Level Group of Experts on Literacy paints the complete picture: "An estimated 20% of adults lack the literacy skills they need to function fully in a modern society. An estimated 73 million European adults lack qualifications above upper secondary school level, many because their poor literacy makes educational progress impossible. The latest results from PISA, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment, show that one in five EU 15-year-olds had poor reading skills. Even as literacy becomes more necessary, reading levels have stagnated." These numbers reflect the grim picture of literacy in Europe, which of course needs to be reversed, if the EU is to achieve its ambitious educational, social, political, and economical goals. LiRe2.0—much like its precursor project LiRe—asserts that the most effective way in improving one’s  reading skills is reading for pleasure: reading that we choose to do of our own free will, anticipating the satisfaction that we will get from the act of reading.

A lifelong learner is first and foremost a lifelong reader. A lifelong reader is self-motivated, finds value and pleasure in reading, and thus reads, learns, and evolves throughout her/his lifetime. The LiRe2.0 project aspires to contribute to the effort of creating European schools, universities, and professional environments that are populated by millions of lifelong readers. The project dispels the widespread notion (especially amongst parents and educators) that technology is the enemy of reading. LiRe2.0 is based on the opposite assumption: Innovative use of ICT-based, open educational practices and resources that link up informal, non-formal, and formal reading/learning, can play a significant role in enhancing people’s reading attitudes, reading engagement, and reading skills; especially in the case of disengaged or reluctant readers and marginalized learners.

The LiRe2.0 project addresses low achievement in basic skills through more effective teaching methods and develop basic and transversal skills by using innovative methods in order to:

• Provide innovative pedagogical methods, best practice guidelines, and implementation strategies towards scalable, systemic, and sustainable use of ICT for reading promotion.
• Involve in the project and convince all stakeholders that innovative use of ICT-based educational practices and resources can enhance people’s reading attitudes and engagement.
• Inspire, guide, and facilitate the creation of reading cultures and communities among pre-teens and teenagers, university students, and working adults, through the use of Web 2.0 technologies and other forms of digital/social reading and “book-talking”.
• Describe, implement, and disseminate multiple ways in which technology can encourage reading for pleasure and reading engagement, in various settings, and for diverse readers (pre-teens, teens, university students, working adults).