The kick-off for the EnergyMeasures project took place purely virtually.
At the beginning of each EU project there is a kick-off meeting where the different project partners from different European countries meet to plan the joint work for the coming years. Some of them usually already know each other. Others not yet. The meetings at the beginning of projects are therefore particularly important. Because they create a common working atmosphere and finally connect the names, which one usually already knows from e-mails and application texts, with faces and “real people”.
That’s how it usually is done, but not in coronavirus year 2020. And so the kick-off for the EnergyMeasures project did not take place in Cork, Ireland, as originally planned, but in the form of a video call.
The project coordinators from the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit of University College Cork (Ireland) had scheduled a whole day for this. The schedule was strictly planned and very well attended. We were particularly pleased to host the Financial Officer and Project Adviser from EASME, who provided valuable advice and insights to the consortium. Each of the twelve project partners presented in virtual reality had their timeslots planned to the minute. More than 120 PowerPoint slides provided the virtual framework for the digital event, in addition to the reasonably sharp webcam images from twelve European home offices in eight European countries.
And it has to be said: the strict planning of the colleagues from Ireland paid off, and the working day in front of the webcam awakened anticipation for three years of intensive cooperation in the EnergyMeasures project.