COPIED
3 mins

Communication in time of pandemics - INTERACT experience

Kevin Fulcher

When COVID-19 arrived in Europe, our main challenge in communicating the Interact programme came from fundamental changes to the way we work.Interact offers training and knowledge sharing for Interreg programmes and others. One of our principal service delivery methods was events, bringing people together from across Europe to exchange and learn from each other.

Usually, these in-person events have long lead times. We book venues months ahead of the event being delivered, as our target audience needs time to ensure time out of the office can be managed, make travel arrangements, etc.

With a purely digital offer, our service delivery lead time has reduced to mere weeks from concept to delivery. These lead times were our main communication window, so they have almost disappeared. In this new reality, ensuring the right information reaches the right people quickly is more important than ever. We now rely even more on the networks and informal working groups than ever before.

“With a purely digital offer, our service delivery lead time has reduced to mere weeks from concept to delivery”

More specifically in communication terms, our events page is now more focused on helping people find the right information quickly. More events can be viewed at one time, and more information is available without clicking. Our primary outreach method (Newsflash email) is now monthly, responding to the shorter notice period and the ease with which people can now join events much later than would be possible for physical meetings.

Our in-person events were also our chance to exchange with programmes and to network. They helped Interact stay up to date with what problems programmes were facing, and helped us maintain our relationship with our key audiences. In losing this, we are now even more dependent on more intensive one-to-one discussions and programmes reaching out to us. The short coffee breaks at events were a chance to reset for the next session, and for us to spend 5 minutes with colleagues from INTERREG to understand their work, and any needs or challenges.

With the ease and confidence we now all have in communicating by video, better communication with programmes is helping us to deliver better services. We are also aware we need to fundamentally rethink the way knowledge and services are signposted. With so many meetings, having information readily and easily available is more important than ever.

In a way, a benefit of having the new programme period so close is that Interact will be able to take these lessons forward into the next period and build our new communication environment around this reality. While it is easy to envisage a rush of in-person events as soon as the epidemiological situation (and green passports or similar) allows, the benefits of short online meetings have established themselves.

Whereas our online learning portal, established in 2018, was an experiment for us, and a niche service for those willing to learn online, it is now a more standard service model. The number of courses added in the past 12 months reflects a greater movement to hybrid learning. Asynchronous learning and presentations, which enable more focused use of time when everyone does come together, have become a standard approach for many events.

In addition to the new approaches, new skills in communicating will also stay with us - confidence and competence in video recordings and online engagement is a norm, not an exception. The flexibility to rapidly deploy interventions, rather than requiring 2 months to schedule something, will also likely mean that Interact is better able than ever before to respond to urgent programme needs as we all face the new regulatory environment.

Kevin Fulcher is the Interact Communication Manager

This article appears in Rural areas: an eye to the future

Go to Page View
This article appears in...
Rural areas: an eye to the future
Go to Page View
Editorial
Wiktor Szydarowski, ESPON EGTC
The way into the future
The semester of the Portuguese Presidency of the
Now is the time for territorial, smart and ambitious investments!
Elisa Ferreira Europe's response to the crisis is
Thematic dossier
A Long Term Vision for Rural Areas to turn changes into opportunities
A new pathway is emerging for the prosperous future of rural areas
Fatima Bacharel Andreea China Rural areas:
The EU cohesion policy needs a universal basic income
Nowadays, the environment is a priority in the
Rural areas are entitled to the EU's cohesion and crisis response
Rural areas not only represent the smallest building
The future of Europe will depend on how we deal with rural areas
Peter Schmidt Stefano Palmieri The EU enjoys incredible
CAP reform and a Green Deal: an unmissable opportunity to promote agroecological practices
Guillaume Cros The Occitanie region is
How to harness the potential of rural areas to m ake them suitable places for innovation opportunities?
' Eugenio Giani In her speech during
Which future do you want for rural areas?
Marion Eckardt Last year, the European LEADER
Taking action to spur growth in French rural areas: the rural agenda
Marie-Lorraine Dangeard The Territorial Agenda 2030 provides
Reinventing Scandinavian Mountains
Jan Edøy Erik Hagen Em pirical
Landscape transformation programme: An institutional innovation model
Miguel Freitas The new European forest strategy
Rural networking to build a Long Term Vision for Rural Areas
Enrique Nieto In early 2020, the President of
The pandemic may help us re-discover places that were left behind
João Ferrão is a research professor at the
Cit izens and territories should feel the im pact of NextGenerationEU funds
In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, Local
The macroregional strategy for the Adriatic-Ionian Region: a common vision, a shared mission
Mathilde Konstantopoulou Following the end of the
Why we need new evidence to better address the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic
Nicolas Rossignol ESPON' s first attempt to
Older people’s interests in policymaking: a lesson from COVID-19?
Piera Petruzzi Member State governments have begun to
Development challenges for lake areas in the EU
Károly Fekete Éva Geletáné Varga
Leaping from a primary to a quaternary sector in a rural EU border area
Sandra Spule What are employment options for
Measuring the climate impact of spatial planning
Pauline Riordan Because of its broad reach,
Functional areas as emerging geographies: how to define and measure them
' Zintis Hermansons The understanding of different functional
Eco-clust er s as governance tools
Jacopo Riccardi Thijs Fikken Europe's urban-maritime
European Year of Rail 2021. Connecting places and people
Valeria Fedeli The year 2021 is the
Measuring digitalisation in regions and cities, matching the targets of the 2030 Digital Com pass
Anke Schuster Marek Bobiš The COVID-19 pandemic has
Driving and scaling-up innovation in cross-border digital healthcare from the demand side
Martin Gauk Angela Emidio The ESPON
Communicating Cohesion Policy on Planet Pandemia One year on
Image: Claudio Nichele Agnès Monfret Claudio Nichele Like
Communication in time of pandemics - INTERACT experience
Kevin Fulcher When COVID-19 arrived in Europe,
Interreg Europe communication during the COVID-19 pandemic
Petra Polaskova The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically
How to hold an international event when everybody is stuck in their homes?
Jenny Koutsomarkou Imagine the impact of the pandemic
Upcoming ESPON events Transnational Outreach
Due to the COVID-19 restrictions, all events will
Territorial resilience: meaning and main implications for spatial planning
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic across regions
Setting up the ESPON 2030 Program m e: heading towards the finish line
The last few months have been particularly intensive
Policy Brief on rural areas: More than just a publication
Fatima Bacharel Andreea China Since the
Outlook of the Slovenian presidency
Blanka Bartol TomaẐ Miklav Ḉ iḈ In
Looking for back issues?
Browse the Archive >

Previous Article Next Article