Autumn in Vienna: Transval-EU Partner Meeting and Midterm Exchange Event

From September 27th to September 28th 2022, the fifth TRANSVAL-EU Partner Meeting and Midterm Exchange Event took place in Vienna. Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation, the OeAD, lead partner in the TRANSVAL-EU project, had the pleasure to host the meeting. More than 40 participants gathered for two days to share about the state of play in the different project streams and discuss next milestones in the project. After (too) many online meetings it was exciting to finally meeting again in person!

The meeting was officially kicked-off by a warm welcome to Vienna from Mr. Eduard Staudecker from Austria’s ministry for Education, Science and Research, who extended his appreciation for the great work that the TRANSVAL-EU Team has achieved thus far and stressed the importance of validation and transversal competences on a policy level across the European Union and within its member states.

The focus of the Partner Meeting were updates and exchanges on lessons learned from the national trainings in the field trial countries. In Austria, Italy, Poland and Belgium, the national trainings with validation and guidance practitioners have already been kicked off, Lithuania will follow shortly.

Furthermore, the research dimension of the project was also at the center of the discussion. We are already excited to share about the research outcomes in Spring of 2023 where the TRANSVAL-EU Research Conference is scheduled to take place (more information on this to follow shortly).

The outlook to the policy and sustainability dimension of the project as well as insights on ongoing internal quality assurance and the involvement of expertises given by associate partners throughout the project concluded the partner meeting, which also encompassed the possibility of visiting a traditional Austrian restaurant, “Heuriger”, to mingle and test some local delicacies.

The Midterm Exchange Event constituted a peer learning activity for the organisations engaged in the Field Trials, gathering for an in-depth exchange about the national trainings and discussing next steps with regards to monitoring the testing and implementation of the curriculum with the validation and guidance candidates.

In conclusion, the Partner Meeting and the Midterm Exchange Event were a big success to kick-off after the summer break and to created momentum for the upcoming project activities.