In the evening a sociable working dinner at a local restaurant allowed the participants to get to know each other better, ensuring an enjoyable working atmosphere and smooth cooperation during the project and for any future collaborations.
On Friday, after a brief internal presentation on project management and coordination as well as ethics by project coordinator Wolfgang Haider (ZSI), SIMF could officially be kicked off with the SI Mission Facility Launch Event. For this event the consortium members were joined by several guest speakers who introduced the Mission actions and connected Social Innovation in Austria.
Matthias Weber of the Austrian Institute for Technology acquainted the audience with the history of EU Missions and provided insights on its success and the role Social Innovation might play in their context. Sascha Ruhland of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) gave insights on Austria’s strategy and challenges implementing the EU Mission Framework. Leonie Dworsky (ZSI) and Reinhard Millner (WU) introduced the Austrian SI Competence Centre Plus which focuses on labour market projects and reported on their experiences with SIs and SEs in Austria. These insights provoked new thoughts and discussions among the consortium partners, which were immediately discussed but will also be taken into the next phases of the project.
One of our main take-aways of the meeting was that the topics included in the EU Missions affect everyone, making an even more important element. Overall, the two meeting days were very productive for the consortium, providing space for discussion, leaving us with new insights and good collegial relations promoting our project’s success
