KICK OFF MEETING

Narrative Report

Agenda

Day One 05/10/2023
10:30–10:45 Registratioin & Welcome Coffee
10.45–11.00 Music Greetings from Khazar University Chamber of Orchestra
11.00 Presentations

At the meeting took part the following Azerbaijani HEIS:
• Khazar University;
• Baku State University;
• Azerbaijan Technical University;
• Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan;
• Ganja State University;
• Nakhchivan State University;
• Mingachevir State University;
• Lankaran State University;

and Europe Partners:

• University of Jyvaskyla – Finland;
• L’Aquilla – Italy;
• Izmir Technology Institute (IIT) – Turkey.

The official opening part of the event began with the introductory speech of the founder of Khazar University, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Trustees, Prof. Hamlet Isaxanli. Then the rector of the university Assoc. Irada Khalilova and Parviz Bagirov, director of Azerbaijan National ERASMUS+ office, had a speech to welcome the participants of the kick-off meeting.

European Commission project coordinator Rosalba Nardelli joined the meeting online and wished success to the partner universities.

Presentations of partner universities took place during the event.

Insights – Project Activities

Presentation of the project:
Tatyana Zayseva, Coordinator of the project presented the project objectives, components, moving on to describing the project workpackages deliverables and outcomes.
DIRNA website was launched earlier than planned.
The DIRNA website will be extended to serve as a shared platform for communication and cooperation among potential stakeholders, sharing information and project outputs, lobbying for national policies for protecting digital research outputs and communicating the project’s all activities in addition to the members’ individual activities.
More detailed technical issues of the project were presented by IT manager of the project Sharif Khurshudov.
The main ideas of the Library support for DIRNA were delivered by Aytach Misgerli.

Financial issues, including payment, reimbursements to participants, reporting were also presented, discussed and clarified by Nagi Bayramli.

European partners were presented their vision of the project implementation after lunch.

Day Two 06/10/2023
11.00 Wrap up from previous day

Tatyana Zayseva briefly went over the day 1 introducing the key moments and outcomes of discussions.
Afterwards we quickly went over the agenda of day 2, things to be discussed and decided.
Presentations by local partner institutions on their needs and expectations were delivered.

Lunch
The group had lunch at the restaurant called Green Garden, where they interacted and enjoyed some Azeerbaijan cuisine and culture.

Outcomes
The days spent for the kick- off meeting have been a precious investment for the effectiveness of the partnership and of the implementation of the DIRNA. In fact in these two days basic issues have been clarified and also we worked towards a shared understanding of each activity that will be implemented in the next six months.

A common alignment was at the base to engage partners in more creative and innovative thinking related to the institutional repositories during the second day discussions.
The world cafe on how to structure the study tours in Europe, Summer Schools and Workshops helped participants to have new inputs and diverse approaches that will fit their local context.

What we are communicating, how we should do it, which tools and actions to maximise the impact were analysed during the kick-off meeting and shared with projects partners, agreement on how to work in partnership to achieve the goals of the project.
So, as for all the kick-off meetings, the impact of this activity was to bring clarity and shared understanding among participants and also to increase the capacity of the partners to work properly on EU funded projects.