The hybrid kick-off-meeting of the EC Erasmus+ project CLUVEX (CLimate University for Virtual EXchanges; 1 Jul 2023 – 30 Jun 2023; https://www.atm.helsinki.fi/cluvex) took place in Helsinki, Finland during 30-31 October 2023. Almost 30 persons from the CLUVEX Partners/Teams, Expert and Student Advisory Boards attended the event, including 15 attendees onsite/ face-to-face.

The main objectives of the meeting were: (1) to report/discuss all CLUVEX WPs (objectives/ tasks/ deliverables/ milestones/ timelines/ resources/ etc.); (ii) to discuss/develop Virtual Exchange (VE) concept (handbook for VEs; feedback from moderators and students; online work – attractive; exercise(s) for VE Weeks); (iii) to discuss/develop VE Weeks for students (when in Spring & Autumn semesters; necessary preparatory work; announcing Calls; content incl. exercise(s); credits; certificates); (iv) to learn/discuss options with registration and credits for VE Weeks; (v) to learn/ discuss the BioArt Society vision/approach; (vi) to outline and discuss dissemination plans (website; forms; EC ECAS web-reporting); and (vii) to introduce members of the CLUVEX Experts & Students Advisory Boards (EAB & SAB).The agenda of the meeting included: (1) Welcome and introduction of participants onsite and online; (2) Project general overview; (3) Introduction of EAB and SAB; (4) Climate University and courses; (5) Approaches to registration of credits for CLUVEX VEs; (6) BioArt Society vision/approach for CLUVEX project and VEs; (7) Reporting on all CLUVEX WPs, where each WP presented objectives/ tasks/ deliverables/ milestones and outlined steps on how these will be achieved/ realised in the project. All delivered presentations followed by questions/ comments and discussions among involved participants.

It should be noted that the CLUVEX project public website has EN, AR, and UA webpages and regularly updated. The active work has been started on developing VE GuideBook, Climate Literacy GuideBook, and Climate Messenger Code of Conduct. These are expected to be ready (in EN+UA+AR languages) by Dec 2023 – Mar 2024. At the same time, new climate training guidelines and Glossary Climate University for VEs are under development, as well as methodologies and approaches to be used for implementing are defined.

The VEs for moderators/facilitators (in total up to 50 from all involved Universities) will include 5 trainings/ workshops (up to 3 days each) to be organized until Jun 2024 to teach moderators. Such trainings will include introductions to the CLUVEX concept and technical tools/skills; to Climate University MOOCs courses; to soft skills; to CLUVEX handbooks and materials; and to CLUVEX exercise/ group work for VE Weeks.

During 2024-2025, in total 5 Calls for VE Weeks will be launched. Up to 500 students will be invited in each Call, and by end of the project in total up to 2500 students will be educated to become the Climate Messengers. The targeted audience is mainly students (BSc, MSc, PhD, PostDocs) from the CLUVEX Universities/ Partners as well as from other Universities. The 1st VE Week is expected in November 2024 and the 2nd VE Week – in April 2025. The planning of VE Weeks and developing new methods for remote group work are in progress. The registration of students for VE Week will be done through University Helsinki Open University system. The CLUVEX goal is to encourage students to participate in the Climate University’s e-learning courses after VE Weeks.

Text by: Hanna Lappalainen, Laura Riuttanen, Alla Borisova, Alexander Mahura, University of Helsinki