Keep on Moving? – Successful MOVE Final Conference and Pre-Conference in Luxembourg
A little more than a month before the project end, the MOVE final conference and pre-conference took place at the premises of our coordinating institution, the University of Luxembourg. From March 7-9, about 80 practitioners, policy makers as well as mobility and youth researchers gathered in the “Maison du Savoir” at Campus Belval and experienced three days filled with interesting keynotes, lively panel discussions and inspiring workshops.
The event started with a video-message by Kerstin Wilde, the Project Officer at the EC Research Executive Agency who has been accompanying the MOVE project since its beginning. After the panel discussion with Mark Kuster from EC DG Education and Culture, Reinhard Schwalbach (Eurodesk), Joao Pinto (Erasmus Student Network) and Research and Youth Policy Officer David Capecchi, the participants split-up into different working groups and discussed strategies and recommendations on the basis of the MOVE results. The outcomes of the discussions were visualised on the spot by a graphical recordings team.
The main conference was opened by MOVE Coordinator Birte Nienaber who presented the results found in the project. In the two following days, participants followed the keynote speeches from Bridget Anderson (University of Bristol), Valentina Cuzzocrea (University of Cagliari), Martin Kahanec (Central European University in Budapest) and Rubén Hernández-León (UCLA Center for Mexican Studies), listened to presentations held by researchers in six different streams and discussed the findings of their colleagues.
The MOVE results were present all over the conference, not only as infographics on the walls or the animated project film, but also in the discussions and talks. Even during the breaks and on the boat trip on Mosel River passing Schengen, the participants used their time to discuss the results with MOVE consortium members, continued to exchange ideas about the presentations and enjoyed the friendly atmosphere of the conference. Thus, when the conference came to an end after three inspiring days, the participants and the MOVE consortium members could look back on a successful event with interesting outcomes.