V2WORK Sustainable Network Workshop

From June 30^th to July 3^rd, the V2WORK project held a Sustainable Network Workshop hosted by the University of Danang, with participation of the EU partners online. Like so many others, V2WORK has had to adapt to the new limitations of working in a Covid-19 world. With international travel restrictions in place, and partners in Europe working from home, the project has designed a blended-format workshop, with the Vietnamese partners all gathered in Danang to facilitate discussions and joint working sessions, and the European partners participating through the videoconferencing platform Livestorm.

The objective of the workshop was to establish a collaborative environment in which the V2WORK partners can work together to define and create a network that will support future collaboration between Vietnamese universities regarding student and graduate employability and entrepreneurship. In order to adapt to the time difference between Vietnam and Europe, the workshop was structured so has to have online sessions in the afternoons (in Vietnam), and group working sessions in the mornings between the Vietnamese partners.

The workshop was designed in such a way as to facilitate the sharing of useful tools and examples of networks (during online sessions), followed by corresponding working sessions, in order to address various aspects of the creation of a network and provide signposts to follow for the creation of a new network of Vietnamese HEIs.

The workshop was very successful, resulting in a clearly defined network of Vietnamese universities dedicated to supporting career services in their efforts to promote students’ and graduates’ employability and entrepreneurship, the Vietnam Employability and Entrepreneurship Support Network or VEES-Net, and a roadmap to guide its creation and launch in October.