The Governing week of the SEA-EU alliance kicked off with an informal get together Monday, whereas the more serious matters started next morning. First off were the Technical Working Group and the Quality and Ethics Committee.
Every six months a different partner university of the SEA-EU Alliance hosts a Governing week, and this time Nord University is the host and Bodø the venue. About 100 participants from the nine different universities come together in Bodø the last week of May.
Making the alliance motor work
The Technical Working group plays an important role in the alliance. Each of the nine universities has a SEA-EU office, that manages the alliance work locally and meets up in this group. The purpose of the group is to manage the grants from the European union and coordinate the local managers across the alliance.
– Our job is to keep track of what is being done, and to quantify that and report to the European commission, says SEA-EUs technical manager Juan Ramón Real.
– Another important task is to coordinate the work across the alliance. Every member of the Technical working group is part of a local SEA-EU-office at their universities, and in charge of managing their internal budget, coordinating their nominees of the expert groups, and disseminating SEA-EU locally, he says.
The Technical Working Group has online meetings twice a month and is happy to meet face to face at the Governing week.
– We had some good discussions in today’s meeting, especially important was the talk with the Project officer of the European Commission, and a valuable teambuilding workshop, says Juan Ramón Real.
In the teambuilding workshop the group discussed communication protocols and future visions, among other things.
– We have to acknowledge that we all come from different cultures, systems and working environments, but that should not hinder us from having ambitious goals for our work, Juan Ramón Real states.
Quality and ethics – an important matter
Tuesday was also the meeting of the Quality and Ethics Committee. This committee is composed of a group of experts on quality assurance, ethics and data protection (1 per university in each topic), the SEA-EU Vice Rector for Quality (from University of Malta), the SEA-EU General Coordinator and the SEA-EU Technical Manager as Secretary.
At the meeting held were discussed the Quality and Ethics manuals, quality assurance of joint programs, and updates concerning completed milestones and deliverables.
Even though the discussions were about serious topics, the atmosphere was good and laughter was never far away. An element that caused some funny situations was Nord's throwable microphone cube ("Catchbox"), which had to be passed on to every speaker.
After the day's meetings, the participants gather for an informal sushi dinner at the restaurant OHMA. A lot of important networking and possibilities to get to know each other better happens at the more informal gatherings. Many participants etablished new friendships and had a good time together this evening.
Governing week
Nord University welcomed around 100 participants from nine universities to Bodø the last week of May for the Governing week of the SEA-EU-alliance. The Governing week is the alliance's consortium meeting which takes place every sixth months.
During these days there are meetings and parallell sessions, cultural events and networking. This is where crucial decisions of the nine partner universities are taken.
