On 28.09.2020 there was held a kick-off meeting of the project FUTURES – Future laboratories for professional and personal development coordinated by the Faculty of Management Engineering of the Bialystok University of Technology from the funds of the Erasmus+ program (Strategic Partnerships for higher education, KA203).

The meeting was attended by representatives of all partner organizations: Middlesex University London (UK), Valuedo (Italy), Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas (Greece), Hanze University Groningen (Netherlands) and Research Network Łukasiewicz – Institute of Exploitation Technology (Poland) and project coordinator – Bialystok University of Technology (Poland).

The meeting was opened by the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering Management BUT (FEM BUT) – Katarzyna Halicka, Ph.D., associate professor at BUT, who emphasized the importance of international initiatives undertaken for the development of the Faculty. Then – coordinator of research tasks – Anna Kononiuk, Ph.D., thanked the partners of the project and members of the BUT team for their work on the project so far and the possibility of WIZ PB acting as coordinator of the consortium. She also presented the main assumptions of the project. Then all the representatives of the consortium took the floor and discussed their previous experience in the implementation of foresight research. BUT FEM experience in this area was presented by Ewa Rollnik-Sadowska, Ph.D. – the project manager.

During the meeting, issues relevant to project management and implementation were discussed. Among other things, project objectives, and planned results (Intellectual Outputs) were presented, detailed guidelines for project management, including financial, organizational, and administrative issues. The quality assurance procedures of the project activities, key project indicators, and issues related to the dissemination of project results were also discussed.

Due to the epidemiological situation, the meeting was held virtually via the Microsoft TEAMS platform. The form of the meeting, although unusual for kick-off meetings, did not affect its effectiveness and allowed to discuss all the issues planned on the agenda.