The project’s kickoff meeting took place in Vienna from 5 to 6 May 2022, and it was hosted by the project coordinator VHS Wien – lernraum.wien. Staff members from all partner organisations were present to establish the project working team, discuss on the project on a common basis and confirm the project plan for the next steps.
The 2-day agenda of the meeting consisted of the following areas of work:
- (Re-)introduction to the project, its aims and the timeline of activities
- Research design, first steps and collection of good and bad practices (PR1 – Research)
- Courses/workshops and educational programs design – brainstorming on objectives and design (PR2 – Workshops)
- Development of guidelines – first thoughts and plans (PR3 – Guidelines)
- Vision of the project and its desired outcomes and achievements
- Policy recommendations – the approach and focus (PR4 – Policy Recommendations)
- Project dissemination and impact activities
In the meeting, the project team had the opportunity to discuss directly and face to face on the project, check the common understandings and the differences in approach between the organisations, set achievable and realistic outreach and impactful actions, and ensure that the participatory character remains prevalent in all the actions.
Common decisions on the project at this stage included:
- review models of participation
- carry our focus groups/interviews with people, follow mixed-method approach maintaining the participatory character (2-3 teachers, 5 learners and 3 stakeholders)
- 10-15 examples of good and bad practices critically reviewed and analysed
- maintain the element of political participation – highlight institutional democracy vs direct democracy vs decorative participation – how different levels work
- accessibility aspects – prioritise easy language and accessible versions of contents
- literacy aspects – address obstacles and focus on inclusive strategies
- transparency of activities and processes
- elements of participation – level of public characteristics, outreach methods, flexibility of practice
- focus on tools and methods with participatory and experiential characteristics
- guidelines to emerge from events and discussions
- organise content and approaches on micro-meso-macro levels
- promote the project and write relevant articles to different platforms
- schedule regular short meetings one every two months (or more regularly if needed)
- interviewers / facilitators of interviews and focus groups to be taking notes during exchanges and processes to consider them for the impact assessment