After long time of uncertainty in the world, with the COVID-19 cases falling and travel restrictions beginning to ease, FRIENDS project partners have finally been able to organize the 4th FRIENDS project meeting and to meet in person in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The 4th project partner meeting took place from 19 April until 22 April 2022, and was hosted by PYU. During the four-days hybrid meeting, leadership and workshop facilitating roles were allocated to all partner HEIs, regardless of how the HEIs participated – online or face-to-face. In total, 20 project participants attended the meeting face-to-face and they were joined online by partners from IAU, RIM, SRU, and BUC who could not travel to Europe. The first day of the meeting began with the official opening ceremony led by PYU. A plenary session on the recent developments in FRIENDS and the project implementation updates followed. Discussions, part of the Home Away from Home Retreat, also began during the first day of the 4th partner meeting. The Intercultural Passport, the FRIENDS Teahouses operation and management, and the exploitation activities in Work Package 6 were just some of the important topics discussed. The agenda of the last two days of the partner meeting in Thailand included workshops on the project final report and a quality panel. Partners had a time window allocated for one-on-one consultations with VUM so any questions that remained unanswered during the sessions, could be addressed.

Overall, the hybrid meeting saw productive discussions with high level of engagement, and provided the partners a chance to map the journey ahead. (Agenda of the Meeting, Video Recordings of the Meeting)