TR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate for EU Affairs organized an EU Programs and Project Opportunities Hybrid Workshop on May 11-12, 2022 where information on EU funding programmes and calls and EU project experiences were shared. Our Project Consultant Aslıhan Kağnıcı was one of the speakers at the event and she spoke about the H2020 GLASS project and her EU project experiences.
The workshop, which aims to raise awareness of EU programmes and calls by bringing together universities, professional and business organizations, the private sector, and non-governmental organizations, especially public institutions, started with the opening speech of the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director for EU Affairs Ambassador Faruk Kaymakcı where he pointed out the importance of the EU programs for us to adapt to the changes required by green and digital transformation in the globalizing world and for the transition to a sustainable economy.
During the 2-days workshop, several panels were realized with the great interest of the participants physically and online. The information on Horizon Europe, EU Health, Digital Europe, Creative Europe, Digital Single Market, Citizens, Equality, Rights, and Values Programme were shared by the experts and also the representatives of the organizations that have project experience within the scope of these EU programs shared the achievements, outputs, challenges, lessons learned and cooperation processes with EU member states in the projects they implemented.
At the “Project Opportunities for Democratic, Participatory and Inclusive Societies” session, Our Projects Consultant, Aslıhan Kağnıcı gave details about the Horizon 2020 R&D project GLASS which has a novel citizen-centric e-government model and mentioned important points about the participation processes in EU projects.
She started her presentation by explaining the multi-partner structure of GLASS, which has left 15 months behind. Underlining the importance of this structure in an R&D project, Kağnıcı drew attention to the achievements created by the diversity of partners.
She explained the effect of the digital identity development (e-wallet) implementation while talking about the novel e-governance model of GLASS which allows citizens to control their own data, on the relationship between the state, the private sector, and citizens.
Kağnıcı showed the story of the character Alice who was created by GLASS, moving to Portugal. In the video, Alice experiences the bureaucratic processes she may encounter when starting a new life in Portugal and uses her e-wallet to make these processes more easily by controlling her own data (you can watch the video here)
Kağnıcı explained the framework of the GLASS project by emphasizing citizen sovereignty and underlined the transparency of the sharing processes of personal data and valuable documents, the traceability of registration processes, free movement across borders, and the inclusiveness of public institutions.
Aslıhan Kağnıcı continued her presentation by explaining how TAGES got involved in the GLASS project and shared her experiences regarding the participation processes in EU projects. Kağnıcı underlined the importance of strong social relations and good communication and said that past studies have a strong influence on new projects.
Kağnıcı concluded her presentation by sharing that the most valuable achievement of EU projects is to learn new information and to produce innovative solutions by evaluating different perspectives.
You can click to watch all the presentations from the event:
11 May 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKlgfRSCeXI
12 May 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQIgwVJvFuE&t=28020s
You can follow the developments regarding the GLASS project on the project’s website and social media accounts: