By Valentina Hampejs CS4
Working on an international project with partners from all over Europe has incredible benefits, as I discovered just days into my PhD at RESONATE. Just four months into my PhD journey, I had the exciting chance to attend the second Annual Meeting in Barcelona on 1st and 2nd July 2024. There, I met with RESONATE’s diverse network of experts in nature, landscape, health and more. Let me tell you how it went.
Cold Weather, Warm Smiles
While the launch meeting (or the first Annual Meeting) of RESONATE was hosted in Vienna last September, this year’s meeting took place at the site of ISGLOBAL, one of our Spanish partners in the project. This meant the meeting venue came with a direct view of the beach of Barcelona. Our meeting officially started on Monday, 1st July at 9am. Before that, we were greeted with a hot cup of coffee or tea (which was dearly needed as it was unseasonably cold and rainy in Barcelona this day). Unlike the others, who have been working together for a year, I didn’t know most of the team until now; except, of course, for the project members from the University of Vienna, where I am based. To quote last year’s blog, ‘international meetings might seem scary’; I must admit that I was quite nervous about meeting everyone in person for the first time, knowing that the team consisted of brilliant people. Luckily, it soon became apparent that my nervousness was unfounded. It was easy to engage in conversations and to chat before the official start of the meeting, which created a pleasant atmosphere. A big advantage for me was finally being able to put faces to the names I have been reading and hearing about for the past few months.
My First Time at a Big Annual Meeting
After the initial welcome session, the demanding part of the meeting began (and thus the real reason we came all the way out to Barcelona). Although I had a glimpse of the meeting’s agenda, in retrospect, I may have underestimated it a little. The morning was filled with updates from each individual work package and case study to bring everyone up to speed and accompanied by discussions, problem-solving, and exchanges of improvements and ideas.
Immediately after the updates, three focus group sessions for RESONATE Case Studies started simultaneously. In case you are not familiar with our project, let me provide a quick overview: In total, RESONATE will conduct nine different case studies, of which three case studies will investigate the whole population (Level 1 Case Studies; CS 1-3), three at-risk populations (Level 2 Case Studies; CS 4-6), and three individuals with already existing conditions (Level 3 Case Studies; CS 7-9). Since I will be combining (or synthesising as we say) the CS 4-6 data in the future, I decided to attend the Level 2 focus group session. So far, so good. We had almost an hour to discuss and resolve everything. ‘What could go wrong?’ I thought. Well, if you have been to such a big meeting, you probably know what happened: Time happened. During these 50 minutes, we discussed similarities, differences, and problems that occurred during the piloting of these studies. Although we were able to debate and resolve a lot, unfortunately, a time-extension was needed. However, I got the feeling that this is simply the way it is with EU-wide (and beyond) projects; it’s difficult to agree on everything within one session.
At this point, I could have used another break, but other working sessions about specific work packages were on the schedule. Again, we wanted to spend the time we had in person as efficiently as possible, so we had two further parallel sessions of three workshops at the same time. I attended one on the European stakeholder survey and one on troubleshooting for qualitative data handling, and learned a lot in both. Luckily, the ISGLOBAL team provided refreshments, such as coffee, tea, or snacks throughout the whole day to safeguard our energy levels.
My Highlight: Mindful Walking
My personal highlight was being able to participate in the mindfulness walk in the evening, which will also be part of in Case Study 6 in Barcelona. This abbreviated version of the nature therapy session took place after a short break that I spent on the beach watching the waves (again, it was still uncharacteristically cloudy otherwise I would have taken a dip in the water). We met at the starting point of a possible route and started with an introduction of what was going to happen. During this session, which only lasted an hour, we learned how to walk mindfully and took part in mindfulness procedures between the walks. Our guide, Catrin, told us what and how we should pay attention to, such as the feeling under our feet, what we hear, what we smell, and how to get rid of any unwanted thoughts that jump into one’s mind. The aim of this session was to be in the ‘here and now’. It was a perfect way to relax and to reconnect not only with nature but also with myself and my body after a busy (but nevertheless exciting!) day. The day ended with a wonderful dinner at the Sal Mar restaurant; to my delight, we had every kind of tapas you can think of.
Fuzziness, Fellows, and Farewells
After way too little sleep – which was all my fault, the conversations were just too nice, and I didn’t think about the fact that the apartment I was staying in in the city centre, and not next to the beach as the restaurant or meeting venue – the meeting started punctually at 9 am. The morning was fully packed with presentations and workshops. One workshop that I particularly remember was the session on Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping. A Fuzzy Cognitive Map allows you to think about the relationships between certain elements or concepts and to visually represent your thoughts. Roughly speaking, I would describe it as a more precise and thoughtful mind map. Together in groups, we had to think about one in relation to our research, specifically how we believe that nature-based therapies relate to health, environment, society, and economy.
Just before lunch, we had an insightful update session from our sister projects GreenMe and NatureLab. This was followed by two last sessions, again held in parallel: the Steering Committee meeting and the Early Career Network (ECN) meeting. I joined the ECN meeting, and it was a great opportunity to connect with the bright minds of our project who are at the beginning of their (academic) careers. We discussed ways to support each other and how to stay in touch. I really appreciated that we had time for that. I realised that everyone is potentially struggling with the same things at some point in their PhD or early career process, and having fellow peers who knows how you feel and is willing to support you takes a lot of the pressure off one’s mind (or at least mine). Afterwards, we officially concluded the meeting with perceptive feedback from our Advisory Board and bided our amazing hosts at ISGLOBAL farewell.
Unfortunately, I had to leave (then finally sunny Barcelona) on the same day, but I managed to enjoy at least one glass of sangria with some colleagues on the beach before heading to the airport. Reflecting on those two days, I feel incredibly fortunate to be part of such a motivated, dynamic, and welcoming community of researchers. To sum it up, those were two interesting, exciting, long but insightful days.
I am already looking forward to our next Annual Meeting in Padua in 2025
– and this time, I have already decided to stay a few extra days!
