Assistant Professor Alena Gizdić has received funding for an innovative international educational project entitled Culture, Vulnerability and Resilience in Psychopathology: A Virtual Exchange Module. Developed under the leadership of Assistant Professor Gizdić at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, the project is being implemented in partnership with Professor Armin Zlomuzica from the prestigious Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. The project is funded by the UNIC VIP Fund (UNIC Fund for Virtual and International Educational Projects), co-financed through the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme, which supports innovative forms of virtual and international collaboration.

Through the innovative Virtual Exchange format, students from the two universities take part in a shared learning experience that brings together clinical psychology, psychopathology, research methodology, and intercultural perspectives. The project enables students to apply theoretical knowledge to complex real-world issues while examining psychopathology from different cultural, clinical, and scientific perspectives. A key strength of the initiative lies in developing competencies for international and interdisciplinary collaboration, strengthening critical understanding of cultural influences, and fostering the ability to formulate scientifically grounded and culturally sensitive approaches to assessment and intervention. The project is fully integrated into the course Integrative Approaches to Understanding Psychopathology (course coordinator dr. Gizdić) at the Faculty of Croatian Studies.

This project represents an example of good practice in combining international academic collaboration with digital technologies to enhance the quality of higher education. It also marks an important step in the further internationalisation of teaching at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Croatian Studies, by enabling students to collaborate directly with students and academic staff from a partner European university and by embedding virtual international exchange as an innovative teaching method within the regular curriculum.

Through this initiative, international academic collaboration moves beyond individual academic connections and becomes a structured educational activity with direct benefits for students, the Department, and the Faculty. The project has been designed as a sustainable and scalable model that can be refined following evaluation, repeated in future cohorts, and adapted to other courses and areas of teaching. As the UNIC VIP Fund is available to teaching staff across the University of Zagreb, the project may also serve as a catalyst for the development of similar initiatives across other faculties and constituent units of the University.