MAIA partners gather in Bilbao for the Annual Assembly

MAIA project partners met in Bilbao, Spain, this week for the annual general assembly. The project is now halfway through its 3-year duration, so this marks a significant milestone in this collaborative effort to address climate change. 

The meeting was held at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) in the Scientific Park. BC3 is the project coordinator. 

The agenda kicked off by getting straight down to business with a run-through of the current status and progress from each Work Package (WP), followed by a lively discussion of the challenges and solutions for each subgroup. 

Throughout the meeting, Project Coordinator Maria José Sanz emphasized the need to think about how the actions and tools produced by each WP feed into each other. Also, the need to consider the long-term impact and legacy of MAIA once the project ends in 2025. 

Work Package Progress Reports

• WP1. List of over 300 stakeholders 
• WP2. MAIA Connectivity Hub/taxonomy work, EU Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Portal, Knowledge extraction and sharing services 
• WP3. MAIA Marketplace, Regional branches, Trade Missions and MAIA Regional Hubs, Training Platform 
• WP4. Policy Briefs 
• WP5. Knowledge Transfer Tools, MAIA website, MAIA Multiply
• WP6. Presentation of the Thematic Working Groups, Communication Tools and Actions, Catalogue of Tools and Services, External Piece of Communication
• Ambassadors engagement. MAIA seed funds update with BC3 financial team, Invitations + first engagement activities, Advisory board 

The event concluded with a wrap-up of next steps and action items for the remaining 18 months. These include finding synergies and points of connection between the WPs and partners. Also, how to translate work to date into practical tools for project beneficiaries. 

The annual event reaffirms the consortium’s commitment and collaborative spirit, serving as a valuable platform to strengthen relationships and enhance collaboration among the diverse partners.

MAIA is a Horizon Europe project that acts as an impact multiplier for climate research projects funded under Horizon Europe and Horizon2020 programs. It brings together the experience of several carefully curated Horizon 2020 projects that focus on innovation for climate resilience, including BINGO, BRIGAID, CLARITY, Connecting Nature, DRIVER+, PLACARD, and RESCCUE. The primary objective of MAIA is to make the current dispersed knowledge more interoperable, accessible, and usable and to render the outcomes economically sustainable.