
05 Jan The 4th 3DMed consortium meeting went virtual!
Following the 3rd 3DMed constortium meeting at University of Oxford on 11 October 2019, the 4th consortium meeting was held online on 24 September 2020. It turned out to be a great success, as it served the primary purpose of the meeting, i.e., to report the progress, to align individual and joint activities, and to keep up or adjust plans. The meeting was well attended with 38 people on the participant list, including the lead officer and review officer from the Joint Sectariat and some of the observer partners.
To facilitate the participants to stay focused during the meeting and maximize the efficiency of the meeting, the online meeting was shortened from the drawn-out meetings of the past that took up the entire day. Each of the work package leaders presented the progress made in each of the planned project activities in a nutshell within 30 minutes, while saving the details for individual work-package meetings and cross-work-package meetings.
It was heartening to learn, despite the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, mostly caused by the shutdowns and limited access to laboratories, the vast majority of the project partners kept striving to meet the deadlines and timely adjusted the project activities to make sure that the deliverables and outputs would be completed by the end of the extended project duration. Between October 2019 and August 2020, 13 deliverable reports were completed, all on time. Between September and December 2020, another 19 deliverable reports are expectd to be delivered on time.
It was highly encouraging for the project partners to see the unfading interest of target groups and general public in the progress of the 3DMed project, as evidenced by the numbers of the project website views througout the March – August period, with sharp peaks right after the previous newsletters were issued.
While the online meeting was effictive and time-saving, the participats woud love to meet each other in person. It is hoped that by the 5th 3DMed consortium, the meeting can be held in Lille. In the meantime, the project partners will stay in touch with each other online and keep the cross-border collaboration going full steam.