September 2016
The second year activities started on 8 September with a Project Team briefing in order to plan the work schedule for the organisation of the upcoming events. In particular, taking into account the positive outcomes of the first year Conference, it was decided to postpone that event in the second year as well (Event Nr 1). The approximate timeframe was planned in March 2017, and the final date was going to be set after having contacted the key speakers. Moreover, the Project Team welcomed a new member, Marta Gatti, who supports in the project activities.
Cinzia drafted an updated version of the project logo, which contains the complete reference number of the project and thus can be distinguished more easily. The new logo is now included in the official documents regarding the project and has been uploaded also on the Erasmus+ Beneficiary Dashboard.
As far as the internship opportunities offered to selected Summer School attendees are concerned, 14 applications were submitted after the course: three undergraduates in their last year of Law Master programme, three newly graduates in Law from the University of Verona, five trainee lawyers, two lawyers and one market leader in credit recovery activities. The host firms/companies directly contacted the applicants in order to start the recruiting procedures and then finalise the internship programme. In this regard it was deemed more useful to leave the actual planning of the length of the internship to the agreements reached between the applicants and the host firms/companies. KPMG Human Resources singled out two trainee lawyers among the applicants and carried out the interviews. One of them was going to start the internship at the law firm on 1 October, while the other will start later this year.
October 2016
The first weeks of the month were dedicated to the draft of the Technical Report for the first year activities, whose submission was due no later than 31 October. The Project Team, under the supervision of Prof. Baruffi, collected the necessary data and filled out the form, as well as the Declaration of Honour. In the Report, in particular, all the activities implemented during the first year have been acknowledged, also specifying the changes in relation to the application, which mainly concerned the speakers of the Inaugural Conference, two Teaching Staff members of the Summer School and the workshops organised during the course. These documents were then uploaded in their final version on 26 October.
As to other activities, Isolde, Diletta and Cinzia started planning the upcoming second year Conference. First of all, it was decided to focus on a more specific theme within the broader framework of the EU fashion industry in order to diversify this year’s event from the previous one. In this regard several options were considered: among them, the impact of social media and new technologies on the fashion world was deemed to be an interesting subject matter. These ideas were shared with the whole Project Team, which welcomed them well. Consequently, some first contacts with social media experts and start up companies have been established to plan a draft programme of the Conference. Also, Prof. Baruffi contacted Carlo Corazza (Head of Unit of the European Commission DG GROW) and invited him to take part in the event. After he accepted, the Project Team decided to schedule the second year Conference on 10 March 2017.
Moreover, Cinzia updated the social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter with new information on the project and its activities, while Diletta took care of updating the project results on the Erasmus+ participant portal.
November 2016
The activities continued throughout the month on various levels.
As to the internships opportunities, Prof. Baruffi and Isolde met with Anna Caprara of Consorzio della Moda of Verona, who expressed the difficulties of the company to organise the recruiting procedures due to unforeseen commitments of its staff and to critical issues encountered in the opening of a new office where the interns would have carried out their activities. Therefore, it was agreed that Consorzio della Moda will offer internships positions starting from 2017.
With regard to the project website, the University IT Offices informed the Project Team that all website hosted on the University servers would have undergone a technical and visual update to be carried out within the next months. With a view of preparing for this update, Isolde, Cinzia, Diletta and Marta started reviewing the contents of the current version of the website and collected them in separate folders. The materials regarding the first year of the project were moved to separate pages on the website, while new pages were created for the second year activities. Then, these contents were ready for the transfer on the new website, which was going to be performed directly by the technicians of IT Offices.
The organisational activities for the Conference have been carried out as well, particularly by Prof. Baruffi and Isolde.
The Module Leader Caterina started planning the Summer School-related activities. More precisely, she reviewed the results of the evaluation questionnaires submitted to the participants of the first year course in order to verify the possibility of introducing some adjustments to the second year schedule. She later discussed the potential changes with the whole Team and contacted academics and practitioners who could be added as members of the Teaching Staff.
Also during the month of November, Cinzia updated the social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter and Diletta uploaded new project results on the Erasmus+ participant portal.
December 2016
The technical update of the project website continued also during the month of December. Indeed, the University IT Offices worked on the new layout and graphics in order to accommodate them to the contents of the previous version of the website, which were collected and classified by the Project Team. The updated website is supposed to be ready to go online within the end of the month, after the technicians have run the necessary functionality tests.
On 16 December a meeting between Prof. Baruffi and Anna Caprara of Consorzio della Moda was scheduled. The representative of the consortium introduced to the Academic Coordinator a new opportunity of cooperation, namely the participation of the Law Department of the University of Verona in the developing Regional Innovation Network on Fashion (Rete innovativa regionale) that will bring businesses, professional associations and higher education institutions to work together on new projects and ventures. Prof. Baruffi welcomed this proposal, which is going to be discussed by the Law Department Council in its upcoming meeting in January 2017. The Academic Coordinator and Anna Caprara decided to finalise the details of this further form of cooperation after having received the Council’s formal approval.
As to the internship opportunities, the Law Department opened a call for applications for the position of intern at the Secretarial Service of the project, which is managed by the European Documentation Centre of the University. The call is addressed at students enrolled in the last year of Master programmes in Law who attended the first edition of the Univr Fashion Week Summer School. In January 2017 the Project Team (namely, Prof. Baruffi, Caterina and Isolde) will evaluate the applications and carry out the recruiting procedures. The internship is scheduled from February to June 2017.
Cinzia drafted a new issue of the Newsletter (n. 4/2016), which contained a summary of the first year main activities (the Conference and the Summer School), as well as a look into what is news as to the upcoming activities and their organisation. The upload of the Newsletter on the website and its dissemination through mailing lists are going to be taken care of by Isolde.
Diletta drafted the Report on the activities from September to December 2016, which was discussed and reviewed by the whole Team before Isolde uploaded it on the website.
Verona, December 2016