The Network Meeting of the AEC project Strengthening Music in Society (SMS) took place on 6 May online. We worked on themes such as dissemination and sustainability of the outcomes, future of the project and programme of the next AEC Annual Congress and General Assembly 2021.The working groups have worked on Strengthening Music in Society individually, but also collectively. The outputs of the single working groups were gathered on the visual platform Miro in order to collect and share ideas on themes that require common attention, multiple perspectives or simply larger collaboration.
Our online network meeting started with a plenary session, welcoming everyone from the different working groups, from the Council and from the Office. A roundtable followed with the different working groups showing their progress on the Miro board. This moment was very important to take a look at what others were doing and at the topics of common interest. Then, a brief update on the dissemination activities was offered and the meeting continued in the six break out rooms where attendants split up discussing two main topics: dissemination and sustainability of the SMS outputs.
The groups addressing dissemination discussed tools, channels and strategies to increase the reach and impact of the SMS activities; while the groups addressing the sustainability of the outcomes reflected on how to make sure that even after the end of the project the resources produced will be still used and up-to-date.
After reporting back to the plenary session, the programme of the next AEC Congress of November 2021 in Antwerp, which will be focused on the SMS themes and outcomes, was shown and discussed with the participants. A brief wrap-up closed the meeting with the hope that the next meeting will be in person!
Many outcomes of the project are already available on the SMS Publication website, and even more will be published in the upcoming months. We also encourage AEC member Institutions to use and disseminate the outcomes of the SMS project to increase the impact of the hard work of the SMS WGs members!
