"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+."

The ultimate goal of this project is to enhance quality of medical/health education in the countries of Eastern Partnership (Georgia, Moldova, Belarus) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan) through setting instruments and goals of peer review. 12 institutions in 5 partner countries will take an advantage of knowledge and expertise share from 2 institutions from Bulgaria and Lithuania. The relative uniformity of problems in higher medical/health education in partner countries are derived from the common past. Through different capacity building interventions, execution of peer reviews, knowledge sharing, laying foundation for sustainability and wider dissemination of project’s end products, we envisage the following results to be achieved: 1. Increased awareness on peer review process in academic and administrative domains in partner country institutions; 2. A Multinational Peer Review Board (MPRB) established; 3. Consistency of a continuous peer review process in partner country institutions achieved; 4. Capacity of faculty members and administrative staff in: a. conducting effective self assessment tasks; and b. peer reviewing their vis-à-vis increased; 5. An annual scientific-practical journal of “Peer Review in Medical/Health Education for Eastern Europe and Central Asia” (PRIMED-EECA) established; 6. The level of internationalization of HEIs elevated; 7. Awareness on project’s achievements among the key stakeholders increased. The project will ensure that the achieved results are sustainable and being exploited in the foreseeable future by establishing the above mentioned journal and an independent cross-national Peer Review Association for Medical/Health Education of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (PRAMED-EECA) aimed at: a. Providing a pool of highly qualified and readily available peer reviewers; and b. Assisting medical schools in the targeted regions in effectively preparing for international accreditation.

Georgian HEIs have gone through significant changes, but 3M has so far occupied a minor place in their development agenda because they focused on the infrastructural development for their teaching and research. The project looks at this neglected issue, with the aim of expanding the cultural, social and economic contribution of HEIs through 3M activities. It acts at different levels: it secures the official support and encouragement for the regulatory bodies in favor of 3M and includes it as an integral role of the universities, for which they become accountable. The Ministry of Education and Science issues a position paper on 3M that clarifies the role of 3M and underlines the importance as one of the 3 main goals of the universities, along with teaching and research. The National Centre for Education Quality Enhancement updates the national QA system to integrate the 3M of universities adding criteria to the accreditation system and methodologies for assessment.Each of the 8 universities validates its strategy for 3rd mission development: Top management impetus is assured, resources are allocated and institutional support is granted, formalized in the annual activity plan of each institution. In each HEI, experts are trained to 3M strategic planning and 3M implementation and management. Based on the directions of the strategic plan, key activities are selected for implementation in each institution. All categories of 3M activities are covered (cultural, social and economic). These pilots validate the methodology and accelerate the cultural change in the universities, demonstrating the contribution that the institution makes to its environment through its third mission. Guidelines presenting the key learning points and best practices are developed and shared during the final conference of the project. They stimulate replication of the process (strategic planning and implementation in the other Georgian institutions.

HERD is a National SM initiative with the core objective to enhance the research capacity of Georgian HEIs through developing R&D units supported by professional development of research management mechanisms, skills and tools, evidence based policies & tech-transfer aiming to introduce technology and online national platforms, train admin staff and PhDs, contributing to Georgian R&I capacity nationally and internationally.Specific objectives are: 1. To introduce software online platform for Georgian HEIs R&D units facilitating planning, implementation and evaluation of R&D activities and KPIs. 2. Create an Online Georgian Research Portal accumulating and disseminating all public information on research activities, human resources and infrastructure of Geo HEIs and supporting inter- and intra- university collaboration nationally and internationally. 3. Upgrade the research management and data analysis skills of university admin staff in research management, analyzing institutional research data and providing ground for further forecasting and strategic planning. 4. Enhance the capacity of the target universities in respect to tech- transfer and university-industry collaboration. The relevance of this initiative are: a) Georgian HEIs are urged to respond to the national policies for R&I capacity building to provide high impact in socio-economic development of the countryb) Internationalization of R&D as mandatory feature after joining H2020 as associate memberc) New standards by quality assurance agency to develop evidence-based policies for R&D in Georgian HEIs and tracking the KPIsd) Georgian HEIs attempt to align their research management processes with EU standards.The HERD impact at the individual level [min 10 000 PhD students, 80 admin staff and 4 282 academics], institutional [12 GE HEIs] sector [transferable to the entire HE sector and research centers] and society level [supporting tech-transfer and innovation].