Practiced within the project
The information on project activities served as a foundation for knowledge sharing within the project and for discussions of transnational cases. Approximately two in-person project meetings were held each year, with hosting duties shared among the partners.
Overall, the meetings were characterized by a work environment rooted in equality, diversity, and inclusion. The project was designed to harness our diverse expertise and strengths by combining partners ' research efforts. We needed to recognize our different perspectives and leverage our varied skills to benefit the project. In practice, that meant everyone was treated with respect, could speak openly and be heard, felt safe, and worked proactively, regardless of their role or position.
The project’ s steering group included representatives external to the project. The steering group representatives could, on equal footing, suggest agenda items, comment on completed activities, or propose new ones to support the project’ s progress.
The project team was unevenly distributed, with women underrepresented. However, the project had a relatively high percentage of women compared with their share in engineering and technology education. For example, in Sweden in 2023, the master ' s program in computer science had 13 percent women, and the bachelor ' s program had 14 percent. The master ' s in information technology had a female rate of 21 percent, which is relatively high. Two of the leading positions in the project were held by women, who served as the national contact persons for LTU and Centria. However, how we worked together in the project was crucial for promoting equality and inclusion.
Monthly online project meetings were held during which the team reported on the status of their national case studies. The project meeting agenda was agreed upon at the start of the project and allowed everyone to add topics.