Newsletter No. 3

The Fashion DIET Transnational Meeting took place virtually in Iaşi

Due to the ongoing pandemic, the second Transnational Meeting “Interim Meeting 1” could also not take place in presence at the “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iaşi in Romania as planned, but was held online. However, virtual meetings still can be a complete success. For the 31st of May until the 1st of June 2021, the project members met to discuss the previous and future milestones using online meeting tools and digital pinboards to work together by sharing ideas and arguments.

Prof. Dr. Mirela Blaga (Romania) was one of the organisers of the virtual meeting in Iaşi and welcomed Ms Grassler from the EU Office of the Universities of Education in Baden-Württemberg, Germany as well as the consortium members.

Figure 1: Elena Grassler (thumbnail bottom right) from the EU Office of the Universities of Education in Baden-Württemberg together with the consortium members

On the first day of the two-day meeting, each partner university reported on the milestones of the first year and gave an outlook on the next steps. All project members concluded that the project has gone very well so far despite the challenging situation caused by the pandemic. Within the first month of the project, the team for example set up its websites, joined bigger venues and submitted first results of the objectives in academic papers. Elena Grassler also agreed and was very satisfied that the project is on schedule and that the planning of the first LTT also worked out well. Just in time for the upcoming LTT, dissemination tools like flyers, logos, bags and roll-ups were designed and compiled, ready to be handed out to the participants.

Furthermore, project management topics and financial issues were discussed in regard to the project reporting. Prof. Dr. Anne-Marie Grundmeier (Freiburg) presented and explained the structure of the last draft of the ESD module as well as the roadmap of the Intellectual Outputs.

At the end of the first day, the organisation of the upcoming LTT was finalised and selected presentations were discussed.

Figure 2: Presentation of the Agenda of the first Fashion DIET LTT in Iaşi, Romania

On the second day, the focus was on the upcoming issues and responsibilities regarding the first and second Intellectual Outputs, including renewed discussions about the ESD module structure in order to distribute the lectures among the four partner universities.

With Glocal Campus, Reutlingen University presented a promising host solution to share the project’s contents via an international e-learning platform. The platform is an international e-learning campus, which is already used by about 90 member universities from 30 countries. This university network offers a great added value in terms of dissemination of the learning modules. Glocal Campus thus could turn out as an ideal solution to reach the project’s main goal that a sustainable future in terms of fashion consumption will need conscious and collaborative consumers through a continuous implementation of the guiding principle of Education for Sustainable Development in education and industry.

The Transnational Meeting ended with the discussion of open questions and upcoming dates. Despite a successful course of the virtual meeting, the team is looking forward to meet in person at the next Transnational Meeting in Reutlingen in September 2021.

Fashion DIET consortium, June 2021