Second Transnational Partner Meeting at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen

On April 24 and 25 2024, the second international partner meeting of the Erasmus+ project 'Symbiosis' took place at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen.

For the first time, representatives from the TrENDi Start-up Service at the University of Vechta joined the partner consortium. As a new project partner, TrENDi will use its strong regional networks to develop, test and disseminate the project's outputs.

---

The meeting commenced with an invitation to the town hall of the municipality of Westerkwartier. A welcome speech by mayor Ard von der Tuuk highlighted the municipality's innovative instruments to solve complex regional challenges. Subsequent discussions among partners underpinned the need for new organizational models and innovative, applied solutions to manage many of the challenges that rural Eruope is facing as a whole.

On day two, project partners were welcomed by Linda Mulder, Dean of the International Business School at the Hanze University and received the new book 'Regions Taking the Lead', written by Anu Manickam, Karel van Berkel and Willem Foorthuis. Later that day, partners visited the NL ECO initiative on the university campus to learn more about the many projects on sustainable energies that Hanze is involved in.

Inbetween the many eye-opening visits and speeches, partners engaged in multiple working sessions to develop comprehensive methodological guidelines for the project's work packages. By doing so, our vision of the project's main intellectual output and its expected impact was once again sharpened!