Implementing and Scaling Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) in Health Professions Education

Health professionals are increasingly required to deliver safe, high-quality care to culturally and socially diverse populations. Evidence shows that culturally responsive, interprofessional healthcare improves patient outcomes, communication, and service quality. Traditionally, international mobility programs and student exchanges have played a central role in developing global citizenship, intercultural capability, and collaborative practice skills. However, these opportunities remain inaccessible to most students due to financial, logistical, and institutional barriers, limiting their scalability and equity.Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) has emerged as a sustainable and inclusive alternative, enabling students to participate in structured, meaningful virtual exchanges with international peers. Within Health Professions Education (HPE), COIL offers a novel mechanism to embed intercultural learning, interprofessional collaboration, and global health perspectives directly into curricula without reliance on physical mobility.Despite growing evidence demonstrating the educational value of COIL, there remains limited empirical understanding of how such programs are designed, implemented, evaluated, and scaled within HPE. Much of the existing literature focuses on conceptual benefits or small pilot initiatives, with insufficient attention to the practical realities of curriculum integration, faculty capacity building, institutional readiness, partnership development, and long-term sustainability.This Research Topic seeks to address this gap by bringing together scholarly work that examines the implementation and scaling of interprofessional COIL initiatives across health disciplines. It aims to move beyond advocacy for COIL toward a deeper exploration of how programs are operationalised in real educational contexts, how challenges are navigated, and how measurable outcomes for students, educators, and institutions are achieved.By capturing empirical insights, practice-based evidence, and evaluative research, this collection will provide guidance for educators, leaders, and institutions seeking to embed COIL as a core component of internationalisation, interprofessional education, and culturally responsive workforce preparation in health professions curricula.This Research Topic welcomes manuscripts that explore the design, implementation, evaluation, and scaling of COIL initiatives within Health Professions Education.We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:- Models and frameworks for implementing COIL in health curricula- Interprofessional and intercultural learning through COIL- Faculty development, institutional readiness, and partnership building- Barriers, enablers, and lessons learned in scaling COIL programs- Evaluation of student learning outcomes, cultural capability, and teamwork- Integration of digital tools, simulation, or AI within COIL environments- Sustainability and long-term impact of COIL initiativesWe welcome Original Research, Brief Research Reports, Systematic Reviews, Perspectives, and Educational Innovation papers that provide practical and scholarly insights for advancing COIL practice in HPE. Topic editors: Zahra Aziz, Debra Kiegaldie, Carlo Alberto Camuccio Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78468/implementing-and-scaling-collaborative-online-international-learning-coil-in-health-professions-education