The Virtual Institute- a new online European platform to fight poverty related diseases

 
The EURIPRED consortium is a partnership of 17 leading organisations in the field of  poverty related diseases (PRD)  partially supported by the European Commission has developed  a new online  platform that strenghthens  efficient collaboration  among researchers working in the field of HIV, TB, Malaria and Hepatitis. The platform has the following modalities:    

 

PRD BioBanks
The  virtual BioBank offers the  ability to easily share information on available blood samples  with the objective  to accelerate lifesaving discoveries on PRD. The researcher  may directly access  the virtual BioBank and enjoy the platform's  comprehensive information solutions (such as harmonised  search and retrieval of information of large volumes of data)  that foster  the collaboration and sharing that  are essential to  advance research.

Online training module
The virtual institute training functionality is a flexible tool that enables the organization and  structuring of  any  eLearning modules. The user can upload  his/her content or use existing online content across various platforms (youtube, etc.) to build the  online training courses. The monitoring system installed in the training module allows the user to keep records on the most. 

Dissemination
The dissemination  module may contain documents that are made available to raise awareness among researchers, general public as well as the policy makers, industries and other stakeholders to promote the project vision and its achievements. As a living module, the content may be constantly updated reflecting the impact of the project's dissemination activities addressed to raise awareness and acceptance of scientific and public audiences and reaching the broadest possible audience to create an efficient  framework for knowledge transfer between research centers and industries.

Networking

The platform has a powerful professional networking module with about 30 different functionalities  enabling the user to join or form new networks and significantly strengthen collaboration within the project and with outside world. The  project’s partner  may invite an external user by forming an extranet network with a limited access to the project's activities for the external users. The virtual institute networking platform enables instant communication within and outside the project. The networking platform has two areas: the first one links the project with  external networks and projects and the second is the internal area that reinforces collaboration between the project’s partners via mapped out  activities. The internal networking area is a fully protected from the external threats place that enables the users to execute the project’s  tasks in much more efficient collaborative way.