ADLIFE’s First Consortium Plenary Meeting

We held our first ADLIFE Consortium plenary meeting of the project on 20th and 21st October. As is now the way in 2020, the meeting was held virtually over a video conference platform since we were unable to travel to our intended partner hosts, Region Jämtland Härjedalen in Östersund, Sweden. However, as we have all now adapted to our virtual meeting world, we were able to engage in two days of fruitful and interesting discussions about the programme of work via our video conferencing facility. Each Work Package provided detailed updates on their achievements to date and outlined planned activities for the forthcoming six months. The two-day event highlighted how much we already have to be proud of in ADLIFE – we all know that 2020 has not been an easy year and we have experienced unprecedented and unforeseen challenges. However, our time together in this forum over these two dedicated days allowed us to celebrate what we have already achieved and look forward with excitement to forthcoming tasks and activities we will focus on together into 2021.

Of course, no Consortium meeting is complete without learning something about the cultures of each partner and networking, and of course, we found a way to make these virtual too. Over the two days, Work Package meetings were interspersed with music breaks and virtual ‘speed dating’ breakout rooms. These activities meant we all enjoyed some traditional musical interludes from across the partner countries and got to know each other better in those 1-1 ‘speed dates’. We even found a way to get a photograph of most of our consortium members in one go!

We ended our virtual meeting with clear plans for activities for the next 6 months of the project and great hopes of coming together in real-life in 2021 and making that trip to Sweden.

Written by partners at the University of Strathclyde