"Below presented project – Simulation in Undergraduate MEDical Education for Improvement of SAFEty and Quality of Patient Care (SAFEMED+) serves to tackle important issues, related to undergraduate medical education in Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, which takes roots back from collapse of Soviet Union and crush of soviet educational system. Despite progressive steps, taken by partner countries towards adopting wester values and implementing up-to-date trends within educational systems as well, undergraduate medical education and practical training of prospective medical professionals particularly, yet remains to be a weak link on the regional level. Taking into consideration national and regional priorities, as well as common needs, was born an idea to develop a project, which would address existing common challenges, yet provide bespoke solutions for given concerns of participating institutions. The project SAFEMED+ was first introduced during KA-2 CBHE call 2016-2017, under name SAFEMED and with rather different formation of consortia, which was shortlisted and placed among reserve projects with best positive feedbacks and valuable recommendations for further improvement. Addition of ""+"" in acronym indicates addition of simulations to the essential body of the project, implying development of all necessary types of simulations, which may be used on the undergraduate stage of medical education, including standardized patients, mannequin-equipped clinical skills laboratory, clinical scenarios, OSCE examinations etc; in order to create a continuum of clinical competences across the curriculum, starting from the first year of studies in Competency Based Medical Education based Curriculum.The enhancement of patient care safety and quality by promoting simulated learning of Clinical Skills implemented in Competency Based Medical Education based Curriculum in Undergraduate Students is the primary impact of the SAFEMED+."

Open science, open innovation, and openness to the world are set as one of the main research and innovation strategies in the European Research Area (ARA). Open science provides an effective framework for the enhancement of research transparency, dissemination, collaborations, and accountability. The academic community in Moldova and Armenia have recognized the importance and advantages of open science principles which is manifested through the numerous initiatives undertaken by the government bodies, faculties, libraries, NGOs, and journal publishers. However, in the absence of coordination, compromise on standards, and a solid legislative support, these initiatives seem isolated and ineffective from the global point of view. The main aim of the MINERVA is to develop conditions for the implementation of the core principles of Open Science at universities in Moldova and Armenia. The Project specific objective is threefold:1. To advance national and institutional guidelines, policies, and incentives related to the open science in Moldova and Armenia, 2. To establish digital repositories at all project`s partner HEIs in Moldova and Armenia and to foster their infrastructural development and interoperability, and 3. To build human research capacities in order to ensure the sustainable implementation of open science principles and enhance the social inclusiveness and accountability of publicly-funded research.MINERVA project plans to improve institutional HR policies and practices through a series of bylaw changes that will prepare researchers for the labour market and society by facilitating their career development. Further, it will enhance their level of competences through a series of practical trainings in transversal and transferable skills. Thus it will harmonize the management of university research potentials and foster regional cooperation in the Eastern Partnership Countries converging with EU developments in higher education sector.

95% of blood collected via venipuncture is not used for diagnostic measurements, and needs to be disposed as biohazardous waste by incineration, which is incredibly wasteful and taxing on our environment. In Europe, there is an urgent need for innovative approaches that engage vulnerable groups and increase access to infectious disease testing by breaking-down social and logistic barriers to healthcare. The decentralization of healthcare have created a need for a simple, safe, standardized and painless collection of serum specimens. The Ser-Col® is a novel serum separation device that simplifies and combines both blood collection and serum separation. With a few drops of blood from a finger stick, serum can be collected which is stable for several months prior to analysis of clinically relevant serum parameters, and thereby reducing biohazardous waste production by 50%. Ser-Col simplifies and reduces the cost of serum sampling by replacing the blood tube, trained personnel, cold storage, and centrifuge with a reliable and easy to use device that links target population to centralized diagnostics laboratories, ultimately leading to the long-term reduction of the burden of infectious diseases. The SCAUT consortium will scale up manufacturing to deliver a market ready version of the Ser-Col and validate its clinical performance against existing standards. To ensure market uptake the consortium will develop an automated serum processing platform for optimal compatibility with exciting laboratory diagnostic equipment and facilitate adoption of Ser-Col by healthcare professionals. This will accelerate commercialization, attract investors and to establish industry partnerships required to realize the full potential of the technology. The SCAUT project seeks to obtain €3 million to finalize the analytical and clinical validation and go-to-market of the Ser-Col® device. The estimated cumulative profit is €463.813 in 2023 increasing towards €18 million in 2027.

Armenia Center for Translational Research on Chronic Neurodegenerative Disorders: A Neuroscience Initiative on Maintaining Healthy Brain Ageing COBRAIN Among its long-term objectives in science Yerevan State Medical University strives to establish a Brain Research Excellence Center for studying the prevention of chronic brain disorders and maintaining healthy ageing of the brain throughout lifespan. The elaborated comprehensive plan to achieve research excellence and sustain national competitiveness in brain research involves a number of necessary elements among them COBRAIN is the crucial starting point. The direct objective of COBRAIN is to enhance the research and innovation capacity of the University through strengthening the field of brain research with a special emphasis on neuroprotective cell-based and drug therapies of brain disorders. By getting closer to the expertise of Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen and Lund University the project will address sub-objectives for establishing neuroscience research structure, investing in early stage researchers, broadening research career opportunities, building innovation capacity, increasing the visibility of the University. The COBRAIN leading partners will provide the crucial knowledge and skills to the University to be able to address drug delivery and to assess compound efficacy in comprehensive animal models of neurodegenerative disorders. COBRAIN is in line with the “WIDESPREAD-03-2018 TWINNING” specific challenges related to bridging the networking gaps between the institutions of associate countries and leading EU counterparts to improve the competitiveness of the research institutions with low performance and achieve a better balance in the quality of research between them. COBRAIN will boost the scientific collaboration activities of the University and advance its human resources and methodological capacities to build excellence and innovation in fundamental and translational neuroscience research.

The overall aim of the proposed project is to improve quality of public health and social services in partner countries through educating qualified interdisciplinary specialists, researchers and academics.The objectives of the proposed project are:1. Comparative analysis of the PhD program structure across participating countries and respective universities and their compatibility with EU teaching schemes. 2. Planning and harmonization of PhD programs in Public Health and Social sciences in Partner universities. 3. Development of course contents, syllabi, learning outcomes and research plan, tailor-made for individual partner universities. 4. Website development, creation of online resources and e-learning courses for PhD students. 5. Training of staff in EU universities in teaching, IT knowledge, research skills and project supervision in EU universities.6. Establishment of a fully structured PhD program in Public Health and Social Sciences and call for PhD students as a pilot program. 7. Development and submission for approval to appropriate authorities the passport and code of specialty.8. Dissemination of project activities through website, interim and final conferences, paper publication. Through implementation of the project highly qualified professionals (researchers and academics) in public health and social services will be trained, that will have extensive interdisciplinary knowledge in particular fields addressing at the same time health issues of population, social determinants of health and applied social sciences. Scientifically proved explanations and solutions to the existing problems in the mentioned fields will eventually lead to the improvement of health and social services in Armenia and Georgia. Through this project the existing PhD programs will be harmonized, restructured and will contain specific educational components, relevant for each institution and each field of study, thus ensuring interdisciplinarity.