My Experience at the WUR European Workshop in Porto
By Samir Mammadov
WUR offers many opportunities for students to engage in various academic activities in different ways, including field trips and excursions. The most prominent one among students is the European Workshop Environmental Sciences and Management (EUW). I had the utmost opportunity to participate in this workshop in the beautiful city of Porto, Portugal. How did it go? Let’s find out below!
European Workshop: What is it?
EUW is a consultancy project that takes place in two academic periods. Its main goal is to broaden students’ knowledge and skills by executing a collaborative and interdisciplinary consultancy assignment. The project consists of roughly 30 students; this year, there were three projects available, one in Portugal and the other two in Germany. As it is a restricted course, students from certain master’s programmes can join. We have the following representatives:
- MSc Environmental Sciences
- MSc Urban Environmental Management
- MSc Governance of Sustainability Transformations
- MSc Resilient Farming and Food Systems
- MSc Tourism, Society, and Environment
- MSc Environmental Technology
- MSc Marine Resource Management
The core aspect of the EUW is the fieldwork that takes place outside of Wageningen to collect data. My EUW topic is food waste management in Porto, so our fieldwork took place in Portugal for ten days.
Preparation Before Departure
Travelling to Porto was scheduled for weeks 4 & 5 in our academic calendar, and up until that, we were doing preliminary work. This work consisted of getting to know the client and project content, providing a preliminary report on action plans and a literature study. As EUW, we were divided into focus areas and expert groups due to the scale and interdisciplinary nature of the project. The work before departure was busy as we had to be together from 9 until 5 almost every day, but it was all worthy the moment we arrived in Porto.
Time in Porto
Throughout the ten days in Porto, we had to do a lot of things, consisting of doing surveys in the streets, meeting the client and doing interviews. This took place in the first half of our stay; we first got to know our client and project even better. For a few days, we were doing surveys in the streets, approaching locals for their opinions. It had its own challenges, such as language barriers or hesitation, but overall, people in Portugal are very kindhearted and talkative. In the second part of our stay, we analysed the surveys and interviews we collected to provide results. On the last day, we had a presentation on preliminary results in which our stakeholders joined us, together with the press from Porto. Despite the initial stress, the presentation went very well, and it was generally a big success.
Throughout our stay, we managed to get to know Porto on an intimate level. Once the work hours were over, we were out every day to explore the city, its cultural sites and its amazing cuisine. We all stayed in a hostel at the centre, so we had breakfast together every day and got prepared for work. Our stay together brought people closer, since most of us were initially strangers to each other. We cooked, travelled, and had drinks together, especially in our free time on the weekend. I personally even took a bus to Lisbon on Sunday to explore the beautiful capital.
My Personal Experience
I had the loveliest time in Porto, it’s definitely one of my favourite experiences that I’m still cherishing. From the academic perspective, I learned a lot about doing fieldwork and collecting data, which is very useful for future projects such as my master’s thesis. Most importantly, as a traveller and admirer of urban life, Porto stole my heart with its architecture, landscape and cultural goods. The best part of the EUW is that the people I worked with up until now are very dear to me, and we spend time together outside the workshop. I wouldn’t have asked for a better outcome!
Takeaways
If you have a chance to participate in EUW, don’t second-guess it. You will not regret joining the workshop; it’s a rare opportunity that will teach you so many things, ranging from consultancy to crisis management. You will also collect so many meaningful experiences that will become nice memories to look back at. If you are interested in knowing more about the European Workshop, check our previous blogs or download WUR’s official EUW information document.
Cheers,
Samir
