SONATA 2nd Consortium Meeting at IRI UL

Jun 14, 2024 | Consortium meetings

On the 6th-7th June 2024, the SONATA team met in Ljubljana, Slovenia, for the 2nd SONATA Consortium Meeting. Hosted by IRI UL – Institute for Innovation and Development of University of Ljubljana, the meeting offered a fantastic opportunity for the SONATA partners and PhD students to update each other on their research and development progress as we reach the six-month mark, while also taking the opportunity for some socialising and sightseeing in beautiful Ljubljana.

Things kicked off the evening before the first meeting day, as some partners took a walk up to Ljubljana Castle, taking in the stunning views from the tower, and later gathered for a traditional Slovenian dinner.

The next morning the Consortium Meeting commenced at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, where Work Package leaders updated everyone on progress and next steps. After lunch the first of the SONATA Co-Design Workshops was held, allowing us to better understand exactly who we are aiming to help – the workers! Bringing the experiences of the project partners, worker personas were created, to help us better understand the challenges and issues faced by people in their workspaces. By having a clear idea of the people who use these existing shared spaces, we can improve our design methodologies, making our results more relevant and positively lifechanging.

This was followed by a working session “Design thinking & design adaptations”, presented by UN Studio. Later in the afternoon was a second workshop, aligning the work and outcomes of Work Packages 3,4,6 & 7, underlining the importance of meeting together to keep SONATA’s efforts coordinated and adapted to ongoing developments. This fruitful day was concluded with a social dinner and a wander through the historic centre of the host city.

Day 2 saw updates on the final three Work Packages, while the SONATA doctoral students met to discuss their research and the challenges they face, later presenting their ideas to the partners who offered feedback and support, leading to a very beneficial discussion for the students about their work.

Two parallel workshops rounded up the meeting, with academics and research partners gathering to discuss co-supervision of PhD students and potential collaboration while industry and target group representatives met to consider market strategies and potential Exploitation of the SONATA outputs.

After such a successful event, everyone at SONATA is already looking forward to the next in-person Consortium Meeting in Aachen, Germany, in February 2025.