PLENARY MEETING – Kick-off Event of the new SWINDON project at the TU Braunschweig, February 01 – 05, 2015

The chairman of the new SWINDON/exceed project Prof. Norbert Dichtl (right) receives the project chair from his predecessor Prof. Müfit Bahadir (left). The SWINDON/exceed network community  meets for a photo session.

 

The new Regional Coordinators (RC) of the SWINDON/exceed regional networks, the SWINDON/exceed Chairman, and Scientific Coordinator. From the right to the left: Prof. Bülent Topkaya (RC MENA network), Prof. Norbert Dichtl (Chairman), Prof. Edmilson Santos de Lima (RC Latin American network), Prof. Samuel Paré (Sub-Sahara African network), Prof. Thi Thanh Van Ngo (RC South East Asian network), Prof. Andeas Haarstrick (Scientific Coordinator of the networks).

 

During the Plenary Meeting the entire network community discussed the roadmap and future activities of the new SWINDON project.

It was agreed that the future network structure shall consist of “full” and “associate” member institutions. The status of membership is based on very few criteria suitable for evaluating the activities of the members. This includes the number of activities, offering university capacities, participations in workshops, number of joint publications or activities for joint research initiatives. For SWINDON, each regional centre has proposed a list of candidates for “full” membership. During the course of the SWINDON project each regional network can invite associate members by a majority of  its full members. The project management board  is asked to approve the invitation, finally.  The list of associate members shall be revised by the regional coordinator each year and has to be submitted to the management board for approval.

By requiring on the basis of cooperation within the SWINDON project, which is part of the DAAD ex)(ceed II Programme „Excellence Centres for Exchange and Development Cooperation”, all participating (full) members entered  into a mutual understanding in order to promote future cooperation in knowledge transfer, higher education, capacity building, and research. All members agreed to ensure that the established network will be maintained and strengthened through the upcoming project activities.

Like the previous SWM project, the SWINDON project will continue with measures that have been proved by project areas like capacity building, higher education, knowledge transfer, networking, and research. New focus will be on strategic objectives comprising network effectiveness, visibility, and network sustainability.

The network effectiveness is determined by comparing the clearly formulated target-setting with the actually achieved outputs and outcomes of the respective project measure. For example, a clear link (red thread) between the thematic orientation and the output and outcome of an expert workshop must be recognisable. This shall also be applicable to all further project measures (Table 1).

Table 1: Overview of overall project objectives, strategies, areas, and measures

Overall project objectives
  • Contributing to post-2015 agenda/goal 6 through cooperation at eye level between Germany and the developing countries within the framework of the SWINDON project
  • Building capacities in developing countries and in Germany in the field of Sustainable Water Management
  • Disseminating Sustainable Water Management at the public, local, and national level in the developing countries and in Germany
  • Further increase of project effectiveness and network visibility
  • Developing structures and instruments for a sustainable network (self-preservation of the network)
Strategies to be jointly developed for:
Building a consolidated and sustainable network consisting of “full” and “associate” members organised in regional networks with trans-national coordination by TUBS Establishing adequate knowledge transfer and educational tools available for professionals, teachers, and graduates in all regions Developing/performing joint research projectswith partners from developing countries and Germany in the field of sustainable water management Creating a pool ofexperts with much-needed know-how for higher education and research institutions, industry, politics, and for identifying priority topics and planning technical contents of workshops Further development of the curriculum database and development of an expert database making both available for higher education, capacity building, and development of graduate curricula on sustainable water management
Project areas and measures
Areas Measures
  • Network
  • Capacity Building / Higher Education
  • Knowledge Transfer
  • Research
  •  “Active” summer schools
  • Expert Workshops
  • Regional Meetings
  • Training Courses
  • Exchange of Graduates
  • Teacher Exchanges
  • Curriculum Database
  • Expert Database
  • Expert Groups
  • Management Board Meetings
  • Coordination Trips
  • Joint Research Proposals
  • Joint Publications

In general, it was concluded that within each of the four regional networks (Latin America LA, MENA/Middle East ME, Sub-Sahara Africa SSA, and South-East Asia SEA) one coordinating enforcement body (strategic regional centre) acts as a “nucleus” with responsibility for ensuring the continued development and sustainability of its own regional network. The regional networks will develop concepts and disseminate projects within sustainable water management embedded in their regional context and demand. Owing to their network and academic reputation, they will moreover establish contacts to industry, state agencies, and NGOs in order to exchange ideas for new research projects dealing with water. They will also contribute to the establishment of study courses and the implementation of measures for knowledge transfer to enterprises and political stakeholders and will develop concepts for the organisational and financial sustainability of the network.

Schedule of the Plenary Meeting:

Program Plenary Meeting Goslar February 2015

Written by: exceed-admin | April 2, 2015 - 20:54 | Categories: Public