Athens PM 7

The first day focused on project progress and evaluation. Prof. Koundouri opened by framing Athens as a fitting venue for CATALYST’s final phase, after which Angelina Taneva-Veshoska reviewed overall status, noting 70 courses developed, 5 CoVEs established, and over 800 learners enrolled, while flagging that sustainability and dissemination work still need attention before the May 2026 closure. Prof. Dumova-Jovanoska then presented the second external evaluation report, rating the project “Excellent” overall (mostly green, with networking/visibility marked yellow), praising the co-creation approach and platform development, and recommending stronger associate-partner engagement, activated gamification tools, better visibility of national-language content, and a clear post-project impact framework. The day closed with a WP7 session on communication KPIs — website visits far exceeded targets (250,000+ vs. 1,000) and social media engagement was strong, though newsletters and the stakeholder database still need finalizing — with partners assigned to verify metrics, update dissemination logs, and each develop their own implementation and promotion plans.

The second day centered on sustainability planning. Partners from Austria, Germany, Greece, North Macedonia, and Portugal each presented national sustainability strategies, converging on shared priorities: maintaining CoVE networks post-funding, translating materials into national languages, pursuing hybrid funding models, and strengthening policy ties — with Germany’s plan and Greece’s MoU-based collaboration model highlighted as strong examples. The afternoon session addressed integrating these national plans into a European CoVE network, shared responsibility for platform maintenance, plans to pursue new EU funding calls, and early preparations for the April 2026 final conference in Skopje (poster call by December, working groups forming in January). Key actions included each partner submitting an Individual Implementation Plan by 15 November and scheduling sustainability workshops via a shared Doodle poll, setting a roadmap for the final six months of the project.