September has been a busy month for the HECAT team as we entered the piloting stage of our project.
This work took team members to Slovenia, where fieldwork was carried out in both the capital, Ljubljana` and in the city of Ptuj. Collaborating closely with the Employment Service of Slovenia (ESS), teams worked on the ground to test our tools’ current iteration while learning from our stakeholders and end users. Across the week, a range of interviews and focus groups helped us to gain sociological and anthropological insights, which will help guide the coming months of our project! This work was led by Work Package 5 members from Roskilde University and assisted by team members from the South East Technological University and ESS.
The month rounded out with a consortium meeting, hosted in the School of Economics and Business, the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. An expansion of our monthly Zoom meetings, our in-person consortium meeting was a brilliant follow-up to our past gathering at Sciences Po Paris in May. This two-day event, allowed us to discuss our tool’s progress in person and review its features while advancing our academic offerings. It also allowed our team to work closely beyond the confines of a screen which is a much-needed change of scenery! We are very grateful to our Slovenian partners, The University of Ljubljana, Employment Service of Slovenia and Jožef Stefan Institute Ljubljana, for hosting this visit and cannot wait to unite in person once again.
September has been a great introduction to the exciting work planned for the coming months of HECAT. To keep up to date with the day-to-day happenings of the project, visit us on Twitter @SoUnemployment
