On January 24-25, 2021 Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy (TMA) hosted an online kick-off meeting, in order to initiate Erasmus+ funded Capacity Building Project for Higher Education (CBHE) - SAFEMED+ (Simulation in Undergraduate MEDical Education for Improvement of SAFEty and Quality of Patient Care).

Aside of consortia members, the kick-off meeting was attended by the Coordinator of National Erasmus Office (NMO) of Georgia, Ms. Lika Glonti, corresponding NMO representatives from Armenia and Ukraine, as well as representative of EU Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), Mr. Stefan Weinant, who will serve as project officer throughout project duration.

Design and development of SAFEMED+ project was led by Tbilisi Medical Academy, which in its turn confirms focus of TMA towards interrnationalisaiton and implementation of western standards.

The project, which in its turn aims to implement and improve teaching through simulation within the curricula of consortia member universities in accordance with the principles of competence based medical education, brings together following HEIs from EU member states and Eastern Partnership Region:

- Petre Shotadze Tbilisi Medical Academy (C) (Georgia)
- Tbilisi State Medical University (Georgia)
- University of Santiago De Compostela (Spain)
- University of Catania (Italy)
- Vilnius University (Lithuania)
- (Bukovinian State Medical University (Ukraine)
- Ternopil State Medical University (Ukraine)
- Open University of Armenia (Armenia)
- Yerevan State Medical University (Armenia)

During the meeting aside of project related administrative and financial matters, were discussed strategic directions for implementation of SAFEMED+ project and implementation of project outcomes, as well as current curricula of consortia member universities and current prospects of clinical skills centres.