The aim of this project is to develop, test and implement a standardised assessment on safe prescribing during the undergraduate medical curriculum in the European Union (EU). This is necessary because current junior doctors make many prescribing errors with potential consequences for patient safety. Studies have shown that these errors are partially caused by a lack of prescribing knowledge and skills among medical graduates which is due to inadequate clinical pharmacology and therapeutics (CPT) education during the undergraduate medical curriculum. Introducing a cross-border assessment might help to improve prescribing knowledge and skills of medical graduates and harmonise the CPT education during the undergraduate medical curriculum in the EU. During this project, we will develop, test and implement an online assessment tool and question bank ('European Prescribing License'). The European Prescribing License (EPL) focuses on knowledge and skills that every EU medical graduate should have acquired in order to prescribe safely in clinical practice. An Expert Board consisting of clinical pharmacologists from each EU country will be established who are involved in item development and review. Additionally, representatives of partners universities will form an Assessment Board which oversees that items entered into question bank are fit for the intended purpose. During the project period, approximately 4,000 penultimate and final-year medical students of eight participating EU medical schools (BE, CR, EL, ES, NL, IT, PO, SE) will complete the assessment. The EPL will be accredited by the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT) and regarded as an extra quality indicator for medical graduates.Apart from the development, testing and implementation of the EPL, we will publish two research papers about the feasibility and effectivity of the EPL. Additionally, a presentation and workshop about the EPL will be held for CPT teachers during the 15th EACPT congress in 2021. Also, we will organize a short-term staff event to train clinical pharmacologists of the participating medical schools how to write high-quality items for the EPL and assess items of other teachers. By introducing the EPL, we expect that the prescribing knowledge and skills of medical graduates of the participating EU medical schools will improve. Additionally, we expect that the quality and quantity of CPT education in the participating medical schools will be improved and harmonized in order to prepare students for the EPL. After this project, the EPL will be coordinated by the Education Working Group of the EACPT. Additionally, the EPL will be freely available to all medical schools in the EU, so the number of participating medical students will eventually be much higher. By increasing the prescribing knowledge and skills of medical graduates, we expect that future medical doctors in the EU will make less prescribing errors which will contribute to improvements in the quality and safety of patient care.

In neurons, sites of Ca2+ influx and Ca2+ sensors are located within 20-50 nm, in subcellular “Ca2+ nanodomains”. Such tight coupling is crucial for the functional properties of synapses and neuronal excitability. Two key players act together in nanodomains, coupling Ca2+ signal to membrane potential: the voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels (VDCC) and the large conductance Ca2+ and voltage-gated K+ channels (BK). BK channels are characterized by synergistic activation by Ca2+ and membrane depolarization, but the complex molecular mechanism underlying channel function is not adequately understood. Information about the pore region, voltage sensing domain or isolated intracellular domains has been obtained separately using electrophysiology, biochemistry and crystallography. Nevertheless, the specialized behavior of this channel must be studied in the whole protein complex at the membrane in order to determine the complete range of structures and movements critical to its in vivo function. Using a combination of genetics, electrophysiology and spectroscopy, our group has measured for the first time the structural rearrangements accompanying whole BK channel activation at the membrane. From this unique position, our first goal is to fully determine the real time structural dynamics underlying the molecular coupling of Ca2+, voltage and activation of BK channels in the membrane environment, its regulation by accessory subunits and channel effectors. BK subcellular localization and role in Ca2+ nanodomains make these channels perfect candidates as reporters of local changes in [Ca2+] restricted to specific nanodomains close to the neuronal membrane. In our laboratory we have created fluorescent variants of the channel that report BK activity induced by Ca2+ binding, or Ca2+ binding and voltage. Our second aim in this proposal is to optimize and deploy this novel optoelectrical reporters to study physiologically relevant Ca2+-induced processes both in cellular and animal mode

The overall objective of CONTESTED_TERRITORY is to form an international and intersectoral network of organisations from across Europe and Latin America on a joint research programme that pursues conceptual and empirical knowledge generation on innovative and sustainable bottom-up models of territorial development. We consider community-led practice enacting alternative knowledge as basis for a productive framework to grasp transformations of space and society supporting local-to-global knowledge diffusion. In particular, the RISE action will deliver novel understandings on how ordinary people produce innovative models for more sustainable and resilient environments. By this, we will learn how they shape, negotiate, imagine and collaboratively manage territories in contested and uneven power relations and how they progress models of social integration. The participants of the network will exchange and generate new knowledge to surpass mainstream understandings of development and contribute to scientific breakthroughs by integrating bottom-up strategies to adapt to risk, vulnerability and exclusion. Our progress will engage with and contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda from alternative conceptual and practical perspectives. At the same time, we will nurture novel approaches to redefine the relations between humanity and the envi-ronment by including discourses emerging out of Latin American popular culture and indigenous cosmovision. This provides opportunities for academic and non-academic participants to actively shape practice and policies targeting more inclusive territorial development and different models of social cohesion. This will generate significant benefits for societies in Latin America, with transferable out-comes to Europe. Staff members participating in this action will develop new skills; be exposed to inspiring research environments, significantly widening their career perspectives in and beyond academia.

Embedded in the framework of an enhanced European vocational education and training (VET) system, our project pursues the development, implementation and establishment of an attractive, digital and interactive approach to VET in the field of healthcare, consistent with the socio-demographic needs of three interconnected regions: Tenerife (Spain), Berlin (Germany) and Paola (Malta). Each partner has a socio-demographic reality that can be somehow complemented to the other two, namely: population ageing is one of the major challenges for the Canary Islands health system where, in addition, there is a tremendously high unemployment rate together with the need of skills improvement; the German socio-economic fabric has to face up to the shortage of skilled and qualified healthcare and caregiving professionals; not only has the Maltese VET system steadily built a reputation as a centre of excellence while raising the status, accessibility and attractiveness of professional VET, but they also count on an Institute of Community Services, which is especially relevant to the VETHealth project. In this scenario, the VETHealth project has the following main objectives of action: (1) the digitalisation of learning, (2) the validation of participants in the labour market and (3) the improvement of communication and functional skills for occupational purposes. Each of these objectives is to be accomplished by carrying out different strategic activities, namely: (1) creating an online healthcare assistant training course — entirely produced using ICT-based methodologies and delivered in a digital, multimedia and interactive format; (2) organising a 2-month work placement and practical lab sessions — to be carried out at an international location, i.e. Germany and Malta, aimed at increasing work experience opportunities — and using electronic accreditation of prior experiential learning — for the recognition and validation of learning outcomes (skills and competences) across non-formal and informal knowledge; and (3) designing an online language course, specific to the VET needs in healthcare — leading participants to reach A1 level in line with the CEFRLOur project can be conceived as a powerful digital asset resulting in certified and accredited qualifications (Level 4 according to the EQF), the validation of learning outcomes across informal and non-formal learning, and two online courses — an online healthcare assistant training course and an online language course, specific to the VET needs in healthcare. Both courses are the product of using a cloud-based tool for the creation of e-learning content to be transferred into comprehensive and engaging audiovisual media in audiovisual production and facilities, and made available for participants in an accessible learning management system, where the e-learning experience becomes fully flexible and interactive. Our project must be understood as a bridge to the future to count on qualified and competent healthcare and caregiving professionals, with skills and competences in a foreign language of demographic relevance, which will contribute to achieve effective communication in healthcare provision. All in all, the successful completion of our project will ultimately lead to long-term quality VET training in healthcare and the provision of quality healthcare in the framework of the internationalisation of VET for tomorrow's Europe.