The Collaboration Compass project is now six months in, and we are glad to share what we have been up to. This newsletter will keep you updated on project milestones, upcoming activities, and new resources as they become available.
Who We Are
COCO brings together five partner organisations across Europe with a shared goal: strengthening collaboration between higher education institutions and civil society organisations to address real social and environmental challenges.
- Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
- ACEEU GmbH, Germany
- PISOP, Centre for the Promotion and Development of Civic Initiatives, Poland
- University of Camerino, Italy
- Aalborg University, Denmark
The project runs from October 2025 to September 2028 and is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme.
Getting Started: Our First Transnational Project Meeting
In December 2025, the consortium came together in Camerino, Italy, for our first Transnational Project Meeting. Partners aligned on the project roadmap, agreed on ways of working, and began laying the groundwork for the activities ahead. It was a productive start and a good opportunity to strengthen the relationships that will carry the project forward.
Photographed here, representatives from each partner.
Developing Our Approach to Deliberative Dialogue
A key focus of these first months has been preparing for our Deliberative Mini-Publics: structured participatory sessions that bring together university staff, students, and NGO and CSO representatives to explore needs, barriers, and opportunities for cross-sectoral cooperation.
To support this, we developed a set of World Café guidelines outlining how to design and facilitate these sessions in a way that gives every voice space and produces genuinely useful outcomes. You can read more about the approach in our upcoming blog post.
[Link to guidelines – coming soon]
Three Mini-Publics; Three Countries
In March 2026, we ran our first three Deliberative Mini-Publics, one at each partner university:
- Camerino, Italy (5 March): approximately 15 participants
- Poznań, Poland (6 March): 20 participants
- Aalborg, Denmark (25 March): 10 participants
Across the three events, over 40 students, academics, and civil society representatives came together to share their experiences and perspectives on HEI-NGO collaboration.
The insights gathered will directly inform the next phase of the project, including the development of the Civic Classroom and the Collaboration Compass toolkit.
Coming Up
In the months ahead, we will be moving into reciprocal mentorships between university staff and NGO representatives, as well as beginning work on the Civic Classroom course materials. Follow us to keep updated as these activities take shape!