Virtual World Congress of Dental Students

The Virtual World Congress of Dental Students is a students’ project of School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb, which was created in 2010. It is held every year in the spring, and participation is free. Students and doctors of dental medicine can participate in the congress as passive or active participants. Passive participants join the virtual conference room via an online platform (e.g. Zoom) and listen to lectures by doctors and students, while active participants are competitors of the scientific program who present their scientific works. The scientific program has two categories – undergraduate and postgraduate, i.e. students and doctors of dental medicine. Winners from each category win valuable prizes from our sponsors. Active participants submit their papers, i.e. abstracts, before the congress through a Google form. Then every abstract and scientific paper goes through a review.

The first round of peer review is performed by the Project Organizing Committee (students of our school), which ensures that the submitted abstracts are written in accordance with the rules. In the second round of review, assistant professors and professors of the School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb review the abstracts, evaluating the scientific relevance and giving guidelines to the active participants for completing the final paper. The final paper of active participants’ scientific work is reviewed by international reviewers who make up the third round of reviews. In addition to the scientific program, the Virtual World Congress also includes lectures by renowned international lecturers and lecturers from the School of Dental Medicine, University of Zagreb.

This project is designed to encourage students to participate in research activities or initiate their own research projects. The goal was to improve communication and cooperation among students of dental medicine, as well as lead to the creation of a globally connected community of knowledge and innovation. The main idea of the project is to provide every dental student, including those who could not attend meetings regularly due to distance or costs, the opportunity to learn about current trends in dental medicine and to present scientific work to colleagues and teachers