Time to take stock of project’s accomplishments, constraints and prospects for the future
Seven months after the beginning of the execution phase, the second Steering Committee of WATERMEDYIN project is taking place on June 7, 2021.
For this meeting of the project governing body, the International Coordination team of CIHEAM Bari is joining with a representative of the Italian Cooperation and of the national Counterparts. The Project Management Units will also contribute to a thorough discussion, aiming at monitoring the state of the art of the project, as well as the next steps to be undertaken.
The agenda has been structured around the following objectives:
- recall the past activities and draft a balance on the constraints and achievements of the implementation phase;
- Reconsider the activities to go, and related allocation of resources;
- reconsider the plan of action of the project, as well as a possible time extension
In addition, the discussion is going to address the adaptation plan of the project activities due to the current Covid-19 situation, the continuation of the project with a group of three target countries – instead of four as initially planned – and will provide a strategic guidance to the initiatives and action yet to be undertaken.
One of the aim of the second Steering Committee is to showcase the main results and achievements to date.
Giving all the activities and actions implemented by the project so far, is worth mentioning the following milestones:
- The local staff and experts were selected, and the contracts agreed and registered between November and January, leading to set the National coordinators, the junior researchers, the communication experts, the tutors for the online trainings and the project local officers according to the Workplan;
- The open-ended survey on the local Innovation support organizations was launched and pushed with the support of the MIP focal points up to the first established goal, to gather enough feedback to shape the groups of startups to invite to the intensive training;
- The trainers were selected, hired and involved in the design of the ISO trainings, that were later conducted in parallel in the 3 target countries, with satisfactory results;
- The feedbacks of the trainings have been examined and acknowledged a high value as input for the planning of further activities benefiting the same target group;
- The call for startups has been designed, published, advertised and closed (after being extended from March 20 to April 9) leading to select the right number of subjects to invite to the training, started on April 28;
- The communication team has been regularly accompanying the activities and boosting their visibility, with special efforts at the time of the call for startups, as planned by the workplan and the communication strategy.
Considering the situation of the region, and the persisting crises at national level, WaterMedyin is testing a set of best practices on the ground, impacting the innovation ecosystems already, benefiting a set of key target groups, such as the Innovation Support Organizations, the Startups, and empowering youth and women. A careful preparatory work by the PMUs will set the ground for the Steering Committee to discuss and give an orientation for the way to go of the project. And beyond
