Kick-off a sense of unity out of us being different!

Togetherness, belonging, a sense of comfort and connection plus an increased sense of responsibility towards the position I am assigned, are the cocktail of feelings I had by the end of the kick-off sessions. I should have kept that till the end of my blog, but I could not because now I want to lightly share with you how it started!  Hoping you enjoy it as I did.

Hi! What are you going to talk about Aya?

Ops! Yes, let me give you a hint. We are 15 young ambitious researchers (we are called ESRs Early-Stage Researchers) who have been selected for 15 research projects for Re-Dwell to investigate the affordability and sustainability of social housing in Europe and to conduct our PhD degree by the end of it! So, we have two jobs in one.

We had 4 days of Kick-off sessions to introduce the young researcher, their supervisors, and the project partners to each other. And to inform us about how the workflow is going to be.

Before it starts ...

To be appointed for a position for the Re-Dwell Research Project was a very international competitive process that I went through. That is why I was over the moon when I was selected to be ESR 4. So, I know my colleagues and all the attendees will be ‘la crème de la crème’ in the field and we are going to be enriching each other experience. Before the sessions start, I was curious, excited, and nervous at the same time. For me, it felt like it is my first day of work although it was not.

Let’s know each other and have a little discussion!

The sessions started with a 2-minute recorded video by each ESR. Each one has his own unique character, his own different story, and life timeline. It was reflected in how each of us presented himself. we were all amazing! Then the supervisors shared with us their interests in research and life. The insights that captured my attention the most were the ones related to empathy, compassion, and the co-creation approach to integrating residents in the decision-making of their housing design and policies.  

Then came the fun part to use Miro Board for the first time for almost all the ESRs! It is an online platform that allows all of us to draw charts and graphs together. We were more than 40 participants in the session, and we all used it at the same time to discover the affinities between us. There were quite a lot of them even though we are all from different parts of the world! 

The sessions were well designed to be interfered with lots of interactive activities for the ESRs to talk with each other. It was a really good strategy to make us discuss ideas, opinions, and share our different perceptions of the 3 main key terms of this project: Sustainability, Affordability, and Transdisciplinary. We were asked to create mind maps for each term and each ESR will be working with different ESRs for each term. In the beginning, we were confused and wondering what to do for the first couple of minutes but then the conversation started, and the ideas flew and filled the Miro Board with mind maps.

Our transdisciplinarity!

The term ‘Transdisciplinarity’ was the most interesting for me to discuss in the sessions as it is relatively new for me. It is a form of research that we are going to adopt in our research projects where different disciplines are crossing the boundaries of each other to find new solutions for complex problems. We are coming from different fields of expertise and educational background. In our case, affordability and sustainability are the two conflicting sides of the housing equation and our real challenge is to find a profound balance.  

Finally, my mixed feelings moved to the calmer side!

After the sessions and meeting all the participants involved, and feeling their enthusiasm, I felt calmer, happier, and much more excited to go through this interesting mysterious journey with the ‘la crème de la crème’ team to discover innovatively affordable, and sustainable housing solutions.

It is not going to be easy! it is going to be a ton of work. After explaining to us the workflow of the whole Re-Dwell project, I felt there will be no time for anything else. That is why after these 4 sessions and realizing the 2 in 1 job I have now, I called my husband and told him ‘hmmm, I do not think I am going to be able to cook anything for the next 3 years, we will miss my cooking!’. I was joking with him but for sure I need to search as a researcher for other mom researchers to learn their secrets!

In the end, I remember when Professor Leandro Madrazo, our Re-Dwell Project Coordinator, gave us a speech before our last interview to be selected or not for this position, he told us ‘I wish you all the best, this opportunity is going to change your life!’. It is true! I knew it, I believed it and I am blessed to be now living it. It is the perfect challenge to extract together our best for the world.

This is the first time in my life to write a blog! I hope you enjoyed it!

See you soon in the next one! Thank you! Bye!