The Transnational Meeting of GEGS took place in Larissa, Greece, on the 11th and 12th of April 2022. It was the first face-to-face meeting of the partnership, and everyone was happy and excited to see each other and discuss the project process.

The event started with a short presentation about the regions of Thessaly and Larissa by our host and partner, Dimitra. Next on the agenda was the topic “context and relevance of GEGS from 2022 onwards “. Those partners, who are piloting the field trial in their country, presented their process, implementation, and the challenges they faced so far. Partners involved are Ballymun Job Centre, Ciofs-FP. Dimitra, gsub mbH, Eurocircle, and Rinova Ltd.

Afterwards, the ministries that lead the project strategically, presented policy measures in their respective region. Firstly, SenIAS provided a perspective from Berlin, including updates on labour market policy, digitalisation, and migration. Secondly, the Region of Thessaly talked about social characteristics, strategic objectives, and the social welfare sector in their region. Lastly, the Autonomous Region of Sardinia contributed to the discussion sharing updates  on policy and practice in terms of new digital guidance systems in Sardinia.

Next on the agenda was an update by our technical partner Jobiri about their platform adapation for the German, Greek and Italian job market. They expect to launch the platform in September 2022, so watch this space to find out more.

Söstra GmbH, who is responsible for the external evaluation, shared results from their research and evaluation. The feedback from the partners on the project was positive, scoring mainly between “good” and “very good”. At the end of the first day of the meeting, participants worked in three groups to elaborate on points from the previous discussions on the field trial and subsequently presented them to the rest.

The second day started with a discussion on project management, followed by a presentation on the dissemination and exploitation strategy. For that, participants worked in two groups; the ministries and selected partners joined the policy peer expert group, whilst the rest worked on dissemination.

To sum up, it was a very productive meeting providing new input for the next 1,5 years. More than that, everyone appreciated the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas in person.

We are looking forward to the next meeting in October which will take place in Cagliari, Sardinia.