The third meeting of the Virtual Health Lab in Higher Education (VHEalthLab) program took place online on January 27, 2025, bringing together project partners from Cyprus, Greece, Spain, and Romania. As the initiative continues to expand, the session focused on recent advancements, upcoming milestones, and key action points for the next phase.

Building on previous progress, the team is making strides in the development and integration of virtual biology labs. Efforts are currently centred on case-writing, with new case studies being reviewed for use by pre-service teachers and secondary education. Additionally, three more case studies are set to be uploaded in February, further enriching the program’s offerings.

A significant focus of the meeting was the ongoing development of the VHEalthLab eLearning platform. The team is actively working on improving its functionality, including refining review processes, implementing feedback mechanisms, and enhancing accessibility across different devices. Plans are also in place to create tutorial guidelines to support users in navigating the platform effectively.

Translation efforts are progressing, with all partners working towards finalising content in multiple languages by May 2025. Evaluations of the cases in OpenLabyrinth, the interactive learning environment, are scheduled for July, ensuring quality and usability for students and educators.

Looking ahead, the team is also strengthening the program’s dissemination efforts, with an upcoming newsletter launch in Spring and ongoing updates through social media and stakeholder networks. Additionally, the final project meeting is being scheduled for late October or early November 2025 in Cyprus.

About the Program 

The VHEalthLab program is funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships in Higher Education initiative. The program’s main objective is to create high-quality, open-access virtual labs that align with STEM curricula and supplement traditional lab work. Coordinated by the University of Nicosia, with participation from the Ministry of Education, Sports, and Youth in Cyprus, this two-year initiative aims to advance virtual learning tools across health science education.