The Erasmus+ CLUVEX project (July 2023 – June 2026; https://www.atm.helsinki.fi/cluvex) continues steps for organization and carrying out the Virtual Exchanges (VE) or so-called the VE Weeks for students from the CLUVEX Partners’ Universities (Yerevan State University, Armenia;  Mechnikov’s Odessa National University, Ukraine; Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine; University of Copenhagen, Denmark; and BioArt Society, Finland; and the coordinator – University of Helsinki, Finland), other collaborating Universities in these countries, as well as other European, Neighbourhood East, and NIS countries.

Since July 2025, the CLUVEX Partners actively participated in preparing and distribution/ promotion of the Call-for-Students and Call-for-Moderators for the 3^rd VE Week, in organization and carrying out a short series of trainings for new moderators (three online meetings, which focused on topics of: 1st on 8 September – introduction to CLUVEX project, day-by-day programme, DigiCampus; 2nd on 15 September – introduction to Climate Horizon exercise, tools for climate data analysis; and 3rd on 22 September – orientation for VE Week, questions/ answers). The training for new hosts (1 online meeting on 18 September) was also organized. Finally, the 3^rd VE Week for students took place online during 6-10 October 2025 (see summary/ details).

The Call for the CLUVEX 4^th Virtual Exchanges for Students (4^th VE Week for students, 23-27 February 2026) has been announced in mid-October 2025 (opened on 3^rd November 2025 & to be closed on 15^th February 2026 – for students, and opened on 27^th October & to be closed on 8^th December 2025 – for moderators), and information is actively distributed/ advertised among students of the CLUVEX project Partners/ Universities (from Armenia, Denmark, Finland, Ukraine) and other collaborating Universities. After the 3^rd VE Week completed, the preparatory steps for the 4^th VE Week started. These included: (1) Announcements for the Call-for-Students and the Call-for-Moderators for new VE Week in February 2026; (2) Arrangement of trainings for new moderators, which will take place online on 10 December 2025, 5 and 11 February 2026 which will follow similar topics used for moderators in Autumn 2025; (3) Arrangement of training for hosts, which will take place on 29 January 2026; (4) Improving the Climate Horizon group exercise textbook as a guide for students and moderators; (5) Updating the day-by-day programme of the VE Week which includes all 8 lectures divided between three days as plenary sessions and daily detailed introduction of the Climate Horizon exercise to participants. It should be noted that after registration of moderators in DigiCampus educational platform (hosted by University of Helsinki), all moderators are granted access for all materials (slides and video-recordings of delivered presentations/ lectures/ web-based tools for climate related data visualisation and analysis, and additional materials) from all trainings for reading, repetition, and self-education.

See summaries of the previous CLUVEX VE Weeks: 1^st VE Week (October 2024), 2^nd VE Week (May 2025) and 3^rd VE Week (October 2025). The CLUVEX 5^th VE Week (the final VE Week of the CLUVEX project) will take place during 20-24 April 2026.

Moreover, the CLUVEX project overview and outcomes/ results of its activities were presented at the Atmosphere and Climate Competence Centre (ACCC) – Finish Atmospheric Sciences Network (FASN) Annual Science Conference as poster (10-12 November 2025, Helsinki, Finland); at the International Scientific and Practical Conference “Geography, Cartography, and Geographic Education: History, Methodology, Practice” as oral (31 October – 2 November 2025, Chernivtsi, Ukraine); as well as at other national events. The work on peer-reviewed manuscripts is in progress. See also updated CLUVEX promotional materials such as proposal, stages in workflow for VEs, VE Weeks for students and earned bonuses for students, logo, leaflet, banner, poster, project general overview, etc. & see also publicly available reported deliverables in web-table “Deliverables” of the CLUVEX website.

Text by: Hanna K. Lappalainen, Alexander Mahura, UHEL-INAR