The show must go on – this also applies to the Multiply project whose purpose is to increase national cooperation for integrated energy, mobility and land-use planning. And when you cannot meet live, go digital.

In March, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and the host city Örebro were ready for the first peer-to-peer learning meeting with the Swedish network within Multiply, which includes seven municipalities. However, as a result of the covid-19 outbreak none of the participants could travel to the host city.

- Instead of postponing the event we decided to go online. We quickly readjusted our workshop schedule and informed our municipalities. They were pleased that we chose to go ahead as planned and exited to experience a digital workshop, says Aurora Øvereng, member of the project crew at IVL.

Important that leaders of the webinar sat together

Focus for the workshop were two topics: energy and mobility. Discussions about financing and land-use planning had to be postponed to upcoming webinars as the presenters were absent due to illness.

The digital tool Teams was chosen for this webinar. 17 persons from six municipalities participated, and five from the project management team at IVL.

- It was important that some of us in the management team sat together, so we could make quick decisions during the workshop, Aurora Øvereng declares.

Two important upsides of going digital

Asked about the upsides of having a digital workshop, she mentions two that stick out:

• No travel and less expenses
• More people have opportunity and time to attend

- The latter gave multiple angles to the discussions and increased the knowledge exchange, says Aurora Øvereng.

A useful step was that work on the energy plans could begin thanks to the webinar, which gave a good start to the Swedish part of the Multiply project.

Networking was lost

There are of course limitations of digital workshops. Communication was mainly between the management group and the municipalities, not between participants. So one of the purposes for this first workshop – networking – was not achieved, especially when not having coffee breaks and lunch together.

- The discussions may have been longer and more in-depth if we had met in person. And it would have been good to form groups of energy planners, for example. This is something we are looking into for the upcoming webinars, Aurora Øvereng says.

Hoping for a social boost after summer

The plan now is to have three webinars in the month of May, one of them a two-day digital workshop. All will be held in Zoom where it is possible to form separate groups, for example of people from different municipalities.

- And we hope the covid-19 situation will make it possible to have a multiple-day live workshop in the forerunner city of Umeå in September, to get a huge social boost!

More information:
Jeanette Green, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute,
project leader Multiply, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +46 10 788 67 40

Aurora Øvereng, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., +46 10 788 66 76

Caption: Aurora Øvereng from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute is part of the Swedish Multiply project management team who arranged a workshop in form of webinar in March.