Hello everyone!
It has been a busy 6 months in the office since the new year! We will have to keep our stories short and sweet, as we would be writing a novel otherwise…
We began the year in January with lots of writing; some new projects – so more on that in August when we know how we did. We introduced a new member to the team: Siobhan Doyle. Siobhan will be helping with the administration of our many projects and comes from a background in International Relations and speaks fluent French. We also were at the Coordinator’s meeting in Brussels for a few new projects: SEASIN (South East Asia Social Innovation Network – www.seasin-eu.org) and representing another colleague’s project: Common Good First (www.commongoodfirst.com).
We carried on into February with the Kick Off Meeting for SEASIN (www.seasin-eu.org). We met partners from Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia; as well as European partners in the UK, Spain and Portugal. The project aims to develop a Social Innovation Awards Programme, Network and Social Innovation Support Units in each University.
SEASIN KO Meeting at GCU ^^^
In March we kept up the momentum with meetings in Alicante, Zanzibar, Eindhoven, Shiraz and hosted a TEACHEX (www.teachex.eu) meeting at GCU. In Alicante we had the Kick Off Meeting for the FREE NETWORK project led by Universidad de Alicante and USMA in Panama. This project focusses on Spin Off support in Latin American Universities.
We also had the final meeting of the ENRICH (www.enrich-project.eu) project under the Tempus Programme in Zanzibar. It came together with the SUCCEED (www.ogpi.ua.es/project/116) Project for an interesting final conference about Energy Efficiency Measures in East Africa.
There was another TEACHEX (www.teachex.eu) meeting held at GCU as well. The TEACHEX Project focusses on improving teaching standards and promoting teaching excellence in Israel and aims to set up Centres for Teaching Excellence in each university on the project.
At the end of March we had an interesting week in Eindhoven for our Strategy for Change Strategic Partnership (strategy4change.eu/institutional/). There was training for students from each partner university in Social Innovation and project sustainability. Groups of students were mixed from Eindhoven, Dublin, Glasgow, Aveiro and Umea and each group had to tackle a problem and produce a short film without words to show their understanding and empathy towards an issue and include constructive solutions to the problem. They then presented this to the consortium. There was also a multiplier event with talks from a variety of speakers from academia, business and non-profit; with a specific focus on design for Social Innovation and inclusion. The meeting also coincided with the 2017 STRP Biennale (https://strp.nl/en/) and the consortium were lucky enough to attend the Keynote speech by Kevin Kelly. There was also a hands on exhibition of ideas, technology, art and design – a few of us even tried out the Virtual Reality exhibits!
FREE NETWORK KO Meeting in Alicante ^^^
Waiting for our flight, and at the final meeting for ENRICH ^^^
Eindhoven: Interactive Projects and Technology; Interactive Workshops and Student Presentations
The STRP Biennale Keynote Speech ^^^
In April we got back to the office for a short while and then we were off again to visit the LASIN (Latin American Social Innovation Network) Social Innovation Support Units (lasin-eu.org) and the Studios delivered by Social Innovation Exchange. We also delivered training in Mashhad in Iran for IHEI (www.ihei.eu) and had lovely tour of the city – very colourful!
We stopped off in Rio first to visit both universities there: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and UNIRIO. Then we travelled straight onto Chile; first Valparaiso to see Federico Santa Maria Technical University and then on to Santiago to see Universidad de Desarrollo.
Brazil and Chile Evaluations ^^^
We then had a short reprieve where we celebrated Europe Day in the University and we had another meeting in Alicante for the Kick Off of the INDOEDU4ALL Project which aims to look at improving the Disability Support services at the Indonesian Universities on the project.
With Greek colleagues for INDOEDU4ALL ^^
We headed back to Latin America to finish off the evaluations for LASIN in Panama at USMA and Universidad del Istmo; and then in Bogota, Colombia with Fundacion Universitaria del Are Andina; and finishing in Medellin with Universidad de Antioquia. All the visits were a great success – each university has undergone a big change to implement the centres in each one; with real unique strengths and differences in each SISU, as well as culturally relevant approaches to supporting social innovation in their locale. The SISUs will continue to develop on the feedback from the evaluations over the rest of the project.
Visit to one of the social innovation case studies in Panama; and visits to the SISUs in Panama and Medellin ^^
In June we carried on our busy schedules with the final meeting of the Puedes Project (www.puedes.eu) Rio de Janeiro (second time this year!) and a meeting of the ENG@GE (www.engage-ce.eu) Project in Malta. The Puedes Project was a mutual exchange project with universities across Latin America with the exchange of staff, undergraduate, masters and phD students both from Latin American universities and European universities on the project. The ENG@GE Project looks at helping form a circular economy and provide tools to help foster innovative green entrepreneurship.
Puedes final meeting in Rio de Janeiro ^^^
ENG@GE in Malta ^^^
It has certainly been a busy and dynamic first half to 2017 in our office; and with more to follow in the coming months. Over the second half of the year we will have a meeting for IHEI in Teheran; a LASIN conference in September in Panama; the launching of the SEASIN SISUs in November; a workshop for ENHANCE in Vietnam; and training in both Glasgow and Indonesia for the INDOEDU4ALL Project. For the summer months we will be having a bit of rest, waiting to see the outcome of European bids in August and doing some strategy and forward planning. We will update again soon on our travels and projects – watch this space!
Please get in touch with the office if you want to discuss project ideas, or look at where to access funding. You can find us on:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheEuropeOffice
Twitter: @GCU_TEO
Or send us an email: rose.cawood@gcu.ac.uk
For more information on our projects and projects we are involved in, please see details below:
SEASIN www.seasin-eu.org
Common Good First www.commongoodfirst.com
TEACHEX www.teachex.eu
ENRICH www.enrich-project.eu
Strategy for Change strategy4change.eu/institutional/
LASIN lasin-eu.org
IHEI www.ihei.eu
Puedes Project www.puedes.eu
ENG@GE www.engage-ce.eu
