2017 Travels and Office News

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:

 

Facebookwww.facebook.com/TheEuropeOffice

Twitter@GCU_TEO

Or send us an emailrose.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 

 

 

 

NEXT STOP: Hanoi, Santiago, Valparaiso & Bogota…

Hi Friends!

We have been absent from here for a few weeks but we have lots of new travel stories to update you with, including pictures!

Firstly – we started off our travels in Vietnam for the ENHANCE Project, in beautiful Hanoi to discuss applying Social Innovation to research and European Funding with our Vietnamese partners, as well as a visit to see the stunning Ha Long Bay.  For details about ENHANCE, see the end of this post.

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And the beautiful Ha Long Bay

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Next we were on our way to Chile to stop in Santiago, and then Valparaiso for our LASIN Project meetings.  We landed over the beautiful mountains in Santiago, and had our first lot of meetings at Universidad de Desarrollo, and then a workshop with partners Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), to prepare partners for the development of their individual Social Innovation Support Units.  We then had a visit to two innovative projects in Santiago – first to Ideas Factory Santiago, and second to Laboratorio de Gobernio.  

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Ideas Factory Santiago and Laboratorio de Gobernio

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We then spent a day in beautiful Valparaiso at Federico Santa María Technical University where we wrapped up our project meetings and visited the Ideas Factory in Valparaiso. 

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Finally, some of the group went Bogota, Colombia for the for SIX Summer School.  The event showcased other organisations and their activities in Social Innovation, as well as talks about different aspects, opportunities and challenges in social innovation.  For more information on this event and SIX’s activities see this link:

http://www.socialinnovationexchange.org/categories/read/six-summer-school-2016-in-colombia-social-innovation-in-divided-societies

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For more information on ENHANCE Project, see here: www.project-enhance.eu

For more on LASIN Project, see here: lasin-eu.org

For more on SIX, see here:  www.socialinnovationexchange.org

For more on Ideas Factory Chile, see here: www.ideafactory.cl

For more on Laboratorio de Gobernio, see here: lab.gob.cl

For more on Universidad de Desarollo, see here: www.udd.cl

For more on Federico Santa María Technical University, see here: www.usm.cl

 

Keep up to date with our office through:

Facebookwww.facebook.com/TheEuropeOffice

Twitter: @GCU_TEO

Or send us an emailrose.cawood@gcu.ac.uk

Oh hey there Panama, Ireland, Uganda…

Hola amigos!  Sorry for the hiatus on here – we have been rather busy.  Read on…

We have been off on our travels this August and September, and we have another two trips in Vietnam and Chile at the end of September and beginning of October. Our project LASIN based in Latin America will take place in October in Santiago, and a visit to Vietnam to network and then attend the ENHANCE Project meeting are happening in September to October.

Firstly, we met in Panama City for our LAURDS project meeting with partners to discuss project management and the progress of the project. It rained a lot but it was nice to see friends and colleagues again. See the pictures below:

p5 p4  panana panama

Our meeting in Dublin was around Strategy For Change project with partners in Aveiro, Umea, Eindhoven, Dublin and Glasgow.  We heard from interesting academics and practitioners in the area of social innovation and attended a workshop with Fighting Words a creative writing enterprise in Dublin, before sampling some live Irish music in the pub!  Pictures below:

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Fighting words – www.fightingwords.ie/          Pictures below:

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Next was our meeting in Kampala, Uganda for the Enrich Project International Conference and coordination meeting.  Weather was warm and we had interesting talks from practitioners in the field of renewable and low carbon energy, as well as a Whistle Stop tour of Kampala before returning home:

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We also hosted the eSTEM meeting where Egyptian partners visited our engineering labs during the week long capacity building meeting.   See pictures below:

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However we also still had colleagues around in the Office and we always welcome anyone who wants to pop by with questions and ideas or for a chat.

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For more information on the projects discuss see the links below, or go to our Facebook and Twitter pages for updates.

LASIN: lasin-eu.org/

ENHANCE: www.project-enhance.eu/

LAURDS: www.gcu.ac.uk/gsbs/staff/professordavidedgar/

Strategy for Change: strategy4change.eu/

Enrich: www.enrich-project.eu/

eSTEM: www.eelu.edu.eg/index.php/projects/Erasmus    /    www.estem.edu.eg

 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheEuropeOffice/

Twitter: @GCU_TEO

 

Or write to us: Rose.Cawood@gcu.ac.uk