International teamwork can be sustainable and agile – The ONE project seeks solutions

The ONE Meeting project aims to increase the environmental knowledge and digital communication and collaboration competences of higher education leaders and staff, to carry out multi-national projects successfully with only one transnational partner meeting. The Open University of the University of Jyväskylä is one of the partners in this international project.
International teamwork can be sustainable and agile – The ONE project seeks solutions
The ONE project explores, how to make international projects more agile and environmentally friendly

Collaboration between institutions is greater now than ever before. The rapid growth of communications technologies, the lowering costs of travel, increasing multilingualism and open borders have enabled greater transnational collaboration.

Nobody has supported collaboration more than the European Union through projects and mobility grants. Yet as the scale of the climate crisis becomes evident and EU and national governments adopt more ambitious environmental goals towards a climate neutral EU by 2050, we can no longer ignore the environmental impact of our European project work.

The ONE Meeting project's (ONE) goal is to optimize international work processes. In order to do this, the ONE searches the ONE project - final logo.pngfor new ways to condense international teamwork into a single in-person meeting. To compensate for this change, the quality of virtual communication must increase and the in-person meeting must be all the more productive.

The project aims to make international projects more agile and environmentally friendly – and at the same time to keep them socially responsible.

Virtual collaboration toolkit for international cooperation

The ONE project wants to raise awareness for the topic. It will also create a toolbox of sustainable and user-friendly tools to make virtual exchange easier. Additionally, the plan is to develop a freely accessible guide which explains how to get by with only one meeting. The Open University of University of Jyväskylä (JYUOpen) has active role in the process of creating a toolbox called ONE Virtual Collaboration Toolkit.

“After an extensive audit of meeting, project planning, creativity and collaboration software and tools, we showcase the best in the toolkit with practical guidance on how to integrate them and make the most of them”, says university teacher Virpi Uotinen from JYUOpen.

The One Meeting Project is coordinated by the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. Other members of the project, in addition to the University of Jyväskylä, are the European university continuing education network Eucen, the Italian Università di Milano-Bicocca, the Spanish Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,  and the private education companies Momentum and Canice Consulting.

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