WBAA Board Meeting on Nov 21st, 2020 - report
Originally, the weekend of 21st and 22nd of November has been scheduled for a board meeting of the Western Balkans Alumni Association (WBAA) in Belgrade, Serbia. Due to the emerging health situation, the meeting has been held online via GoToMeeting on Saturday, the 21st of November 2020 with a total of 14 participants, including the National Representatives of each Western Balkan chapter, two representatives of our Service Provider, the coordinator from the European Commission and representatives of the WBAA teams attending specific sessions of the meeting. For straight nine hours we have been working together on several crucial topics concerning WBAA.
The meeting started with a briefing on what has been the annual WBAA action plan for 2020, including reflection on how the plan has been changed and adopted due to the COVID-19 situation. The participants have discussed the status of the ongoing processes and the outcome of the major projects WBAA has conducted. Using the unique experience and knowledge this year had to offer, the board members had the opportunity to discuss and revise the broader concept of WBAA and where WBAA stands as a crucial element in Higher Education policy making in the WB6 countries.
After nine hours of extensive and valuable discussions, including the help and contribution from the Heads and Deputy Heads of the WBAA teams, the meeting has been concluded with several highlights:
- Reinforcement of the WBAA projects scheme, reassuring better guidelines for the future calls for projects and overall increasing the quality of the implementation and increased coordination among project-owners;
- Introducing major changes in the WBAA community platform, thus reconstructing the online presence of the organisation, and broadening the opportunities offered to the members;
- WBAA 2.0. - following the process of creation of WBAA and the steady growth of the organisation, it has been indicated that the time has come for WBAA to be reintroduced, now as a valuable, flexible and coordinated key player in the WB region.
The above-mentioned plans and topics of discussion are expected to completely change the functioning of the organisation, whilst keeping and strengthening the core values and ideology of the Western Balkans Alumni Association.
Stefan Postolov
Italy, 21 November 2020
Edited by Service Provider