The kick-off meeting took place on 13^th of November 2020 on Zoom, hosted by the team of the University of Antwerp, with the to gather the consortium together for the first time in order to get acquainted with each other, to introduce the project and its aims because not everyone was involved in the application process.

First the aims of the study, a common framework for the research and a research plan were discussed. It was decided to start researching the already available mentorship programmes in each partner country to map different mentoring models in fields of art and culture organizations, academia and entrepreneurship. It was greed that the research will consist of two parts:

• Desk research on documented, available cases/organizations/programmes as well as the theoretical background of mentorship. In order to do it, it was decided to create a special folder on Drive, where all the partners were to add 5 relevant articles for everyone to read;
• Practical research by interviewing the already existing, different mentorship programmes. For the collected interview material to be comprehensible and compatible later on, it was decide to compile a common framework of questions. Therefore the 2nd part of the meeting, which took place in a form of workshop, dealt with such practical, but also qualitative questions as choosing, what kind of organizations/cases to interview and furthermore, what kind of questions to ask. At the end, the University of Antwerp prepared a draft of a possible topic list/questionnaire that the other partners were expected to comment and amend during the upcoming weeks after the kick-off meeting.

The meeting touched also such practical and managerial issues as how and when to sing the partner contracts; how the partners would be reporting to the leading partner – which were the reporting periods and deadlines; how to fill in the time-sheets – which are the most important aspects to pay attention while doing it. In order to ensure a smooth communication among the partners and also help in case of problems and questions, it was decided to establish regular meetings on a monthly basis. The leading partner explained also the general rules of the communication in case of questions or problems by which the partners first communicate with the leading partner and the latter addresses the national agency.

You can get acquainted with the full agenda and minutes of the meeting.