"The opening event of the Visegrad+ project, held on 28 January 2026 at the Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics of Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPKE ITK) in Budapest, brought together the coordinating host institution and four consortium partners. Three partners attended in person (two professors from Poland and a principal investigator from Slovakia), while the Ukrainian partner joined the meeting online.
During the event, representatives of the research groups presented the focus areas of their projects, along with their available resources, including know-how, technologies, instruments, and research infrastructure. The breaks, shared meals, and laboratory visits provided further opportunities for dynamic and constructive professional exchange among colleagues, guests, and members of the audience. Numerous potential synergies were outlined.
The shared scientific focus of the working groups, namely, wound healing management and the development of innovative polymer-based smart dressings, facilitated highly efficient communication and intensive knowledge transfer. Already ten days after the event, several joint activities have taken shape, and some collaborative research tasks have been launched within the consortium.
At Pázmány, we are preparing to conduct experimental studies on wound-covering hydrogels containing nano-silver nitrate, which were sent from Kyiv. These products are also under investigation in Poland and Slovakia. In parallel, nanofiber dressing samples have been dispatched from the PPKE ITK laboratory in Budapest to Kyiv, where crosslinking procedures will be applied to improve their physical properties. Another shipment of electrospun nanofiber materials is currently en route to Szczecin, where their thermal stability, wettability, and other key physicochemical properties will be analyzed. These coordinated investigations are expected to bring us closer to the development of an optimized nanofiber matrix suitable for advanced wound care applications.
The consortium members intend to publish the results of these studies jointly and to present their findings at international conferences. Discussions have also commenced regarding various mobility and exchange opportunities. Visits to partner institutions and collaborative scientific work offer valuable experience for students, as well as for early-career and senior researchers alike.
We are already looking forward to the next project event, which will be organized online by our Ukrainian colleagues on 20 March 2026."
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The project is co-financed by the governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
