19.07.2023 INCOPS Closing Meeting in Marburg

INCOPS Closing Meeting and Last Learning, Teaching and Training Activity 13.-15.07.2023

After three years of great collaboration our project is already slowly but surely coming to an end. For our closing meeting (Transnational Project Meeting) and the last staff training (Learning, Teaching, Training Activity) the project members met once again in person in Marburg from 13 July to 15 July 2023. This three-day meeting was organized by the Marburg side and compared to our last event in November 2021 this time our guests were able to enjoy our city in summer!

The meeting started with a great opening event – several colleagues were able to already join us for the inauguration lectures of Prof. Dr. Felix Anderl und Prof. Dr. Miquel Pellicer on 12 July 2023, the two new professorships at the Marburg Center for Conflict Studies. Meeting in the impressive historic hall of the old university in the middle of the old town of Marburg, this event was a great opportunity for our guests to get to know some colleagues, students, researchers and staff from the Marburg Center for Conflict Studies.

In the three following days the closing meeting in combination with the final staff training provided us with the opportunity to elaborate on final duties and activities. Apart from discussing the finalization processes of our project’s outputs and findings and dissemination options beyond the project, it provided the opportunity to evaluate the consortium activities of the past three years. Further, the partners discussed possible future cooperation opportunities after the INCOPS project’s end.

The following people participated and contributed at the closing meeting and the staff training: Adrian Corpadean (Cluj), Ana Pantea (Cluj), Chris van der Borgh (Utrecht), Daniela Nascimento (Coimbra), David Curran (Coventry), Frank Grundig (Kent), Lena Runge (Marburg), Luuk Slooter (Utrecht, online), Sergiu Mişoiu (Cluj, online), Stéphane Voell (Marburg) and Thorsten Bonacker (Marburg).

Key aspects that we discussed were the recommendations in our policy brief which is to be published at the end of the project. Moreover, partners jointly reviewed parts of the outputs and products in order to underline once again the synergies for the holistic approach. In this context, the partners discussed the recommendations described in the guidelines for ethics and security in WBL in Peace, Conflict and Security Studies. Likewise, the experience report of our pilot program regarding the Service Learning inspired support structure for internship modules that is run by Marburg was again addressed as an example of applied practice for improving the integration of theory and practice in our field of studies. Once again, the great value of the integration of diverse online tools was outlined and the partners plan on setting up a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) course as described in our report.

Partners also discussed options for further dissemination products and future publications in order to sustainably reach the variety of practical partners, advancing the integration of WBL and expanding our networks.

Furthermore, most partners were able to join this year’s summer party of the Philipps-University at the new botanical garden on Friday afternoon. This offered a great opportunity to present different departments, research centres and other projects the university is involved in to our colleagues from Cluj, Coimbra, Utrecht and Kent. Apart from that it was a nice festive occasion for concluding our three-year project with some music in the sun.

In the following weeks the reports and guidelines will be published.