In this work we report some results, obtained within the framework of the ERC Project CHANGE, on the impact on the performance of the virtual element method of the shape of the polygonal elements of the underlying mesh. More in detail, after reviewing the state of the art, we present a) an experimental analysis of the convergence of the VEM under condition violating the standard shape regularity assumptions, b) an analysis of the correlation between some mesh quality metrics and a set of different performance indexes, and c) a suitably designed mesh quality indicator, aimed at predicting the quality of the performance of the VEM on a given mesh.