04/02/2020
After meeting for the first time at the summer school in Malta, the next step was to figure out how to stay in touch, considering the fact that the 8 ESRs live in seven different countries. Keeping a track of our progress as a team as well as helping each other by sharing relevant information is quite important. In this kind of situation, the use of technology makes our life easier. Thus, the idea of arranging a skype meeting once per month and creating a shared folder online for important documents was suggested to help with the communication .
Our first skype meeting was done, and everything went smoothly. There was a very fluent and easy-going dynamic in the team. Each of us gave a brief update of our activities. An update of what had happened regarding our independent projects since the last time we saw each other in the Summer School was the starting point of the skype meeting. Since we have an upcoming conference, FoodSim2020 (Ghent, Brussels), we also gave a general overview of what each of us had in mind to show at the conference. Hearing different points of view under the same umbrella project was amazing. We were doing research!
More than only sharing our outcomes, we also expressed any questions we had regarding the project. We have plenty of upcoming deadlines, so communication within the team is vital to keep us on track and support each other. The meeting was an excellent opportunity for us to share new information, discuss the project and keep us in tune for the upcoming conference submission. It is crucial to do frequent meetings because many common questions are answered, and we have a visual relationship as a group. In order to have evidence of our first meeting, we took notes that work well as proof for our supervisors and as reminders for ourselves. Once we had everything clear and under control, we scheduled our next meeting. I am looking forward to sharing with the rest of the team what I have been working on the last month and hearing what they have done.
It was a great moment to see all the researchers after our training week. I wait anxiously for the next meeting in Ghent where the PROTECT projectwill be part of the conference.