On Thursday and Friday 22-23 June, the last of this years' kick-off meetings with CERV and Justice beneficiaries took place.

This year three kick-off meetings have been organised by DG JUST, attended by a total of almost 300 representatives of beneficiaries (including NGOs, EU umbrella organisations, academia, public authorities) from around 150 projects funded.

• 13 -14 June: coordinators and beneficiaries of the action grants selected under the 2022 e-justice, judicial cooperation and judicial training calls (JUST-2022-EJUST, JUST-2022-JCOO and JUST-2022-JTRA);
• 16 – 17 May: coordinators and beneficiaries of the action grants selected under the 2022 Daphne and Rights of the Child calls (CERV-2022-DAPHNE and CERV-2022-CHILD);
• 22-23 June: coordinators and beneficiaries of the action grants selected under the 2022 Equality, Gender Equality and National Roma Contact Points calls (CERV-2022-EQUAL, CERV-2022-GE, 2022-CERV-NRCP). This meeting was opened by DG JUST Director General Ana Gallego who recalled the importance of EU funding to promote EU values and fundamental rights and the key role of civil society organisations who are active on the ground and ensure the concrete application of EU policies.  

What changed this year:

For the first time, this year the kick-off meetings were organised over 2 half-days with a networking dinner in between.

The meetings included both sessions dedicated to relevant policy developments, as well as in-depth presentations on specific grant management aspects (novelties of the current MFF; how to deal with amendments; the use of EU Survey; reporting requirements etc.) and on horizontal topics such as gender mainstreaming and adherence to EU values.

Workshops were organised for project beneficiaries to meet with both their project officers and responsible policy officers, to have policy-oriented conversations as well as the opportunity to discuss specific administrative and financial project implementation issues related to their projects.

Beneficiaries particularly appreciated the possibility to meet in person and have different opportunities to promote their projects and get to know other projects and organisations in the same field.

What comes next:

We are currently busy with the evaluation of the first 2023 calls for proposals.

The next kick-off meetings with the selected beneficiaries will be organised early to mid-2024.