On January 30-31, at the European University (Tbilisi, Georgia), the first working meeting of the representatives of the consortium of the project “Development of Veterinary Faculties at Georgian HEIs to Create a New Pool of Young Veterinary Professionals in Georgia” (VETPRO) was held within the framework of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) programme.

The kick-off meeting was attended by the representatives of all member universities. More precisely, Gvantsa Jichoshvili (Project Coordinator), Lika Jikia (Financial Manager), Mariam Mania (Administrative Personnel), Vazha Kiladze (Technical Personnel), Maia Kereselidze (Senior Researcher), Davit Bostashvili (Senior Researcher) and Marika Bokuchava (Junior Researcher) were among the meeting participants from the European University.

On behalf of the European partner universities, the meeting was attended by Kaspars Kovalenko (Project Manager) and Lelde Titmane (Junior Researcher) from the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, as well as Toomas Tiirats (Project Manager) and Külli Kõrgesaar from the Estonian University of Life Sciences.

As for the Georgian partners, Guranda Modebadze (Project Manager), Levan Makaradze (Senior Researcher), Nino Milashvili (Senior Researcher) from the Samtskhe-Javakheti State University, and Natia Tsipuria (Project Manager), Teona Khupenia (Researcher), and Ketevan Lataria (Researcher) from the Shota Meskhia State Teaching University of Zugdidi were among the attendees.

The VETPRO project administrative and academic team members discussed a number of issues related to the project work packages, planned activities, and grant management. An action plan for the first six month was set up, according to which roles and responsibilities of each institution involved in the project were clearly defined and assigned. It should be noted that the audience underlined the importance of thorough research on needs analysis and best EU practices. With reference to this latter, the VETPRO project European partners expressed their readiness to provide assistance to their Georgian colleagues.