The ENGAGE kick-off meeting took place in a form of five consecutive virtual meetings that each lasted two hours. The meetings were scheduled for Friday afternoons (Asian time) / mornings (EU time), and more specifically: 15th, 22nd, 29th January, 5th and 26th February.
Each meeting was attended by between 15 and 20 participants from all the partner institutions. The meetings were hosted by the coordinator on videoconferencing platforms (Google Meet and Microsoft Teams).
A large part of the kick-off meeting consisted in the presentation of the partners, which allowed the whole consortium to gain much better knowledge of the participating universities, reinforcing the partnership.
Each of the five kick-off meetings had a specific focus:
The first meeting provided a general project overview. The coordinator introduced its team, and the project workplan was run through with the partners, in order to clarify tasks and responsibilities.
The second meeting was reserved for presentations of Myanmar partners. At the end of the meeting, the project logo was selected by the consortium with a two-stage vote.
The third meeting hosted presentations by Cambodian partners.
The fourth meeting included presentations by Laos and Swedish partners.
During the fifth meeting, the University of Bologna outlined the most important issues about the contractual and financial management, and the partners had the possibility to clarify their own doubts. After that, the University of Uppsala introduced WP2 and the next project activites. Finally, the project website was presented by the coordinator to the consortium.