Wise Angle Interview | STEP_UP NEWSLETTER: MAY 2022

Q: Why did you initiate/join the STEP_UP project?

Wise Angle is a young and dynamic company whose motto is to advance science, boost innovation and empower society. We are highly active in research, consultancy and development of European projects devoted to focus areas very close to STEP_UP, including Healthcare Innovation, Science for Society and Education and Training in topics of social innovation. Our initiatives also span across a large variety of European programmes such as the EU R&I Framework Programmes and the multiple opportunities offered by Erasmus+ partnerships, among others. When we were invited by our long-time partner SHINE 2Europe, the originality of the project and the opportunity to participate in the policy analysis work as well as the co-creation and gamification activities strongly resounded with the social mission implicit in our line of work. Furthermore, an Erasmus+ project entirely dedicated to management and prevention of pandemics made us feel that we were originally contributing to a common societal challenge of our time.

Q: What did you like most thus far in the project? Why?

The gamification of the educational content and its translation into in a point-and-click videogame with pedagogical purposes is a much fascinating challenge which requires a great deal of dedication. Stereotypes concerning videogames being a ‘hobby for children’ have only been fading in recent times. Furthermore, it is when you engage in the real experience of writing a videogame script and designing an interface platform that you truly appreciate the hardship of calculating scores and developing branch-paths for every choice you make in a game like STEP_UP. There was a lot of interesting brainstorming, as our partners come from different generational alongside cultural backgrounds. The meaning of the Erasmus+ experience is to push all of us to find a common solution and convert an “intellectual output” into a real-life product with a functional use for society!  

Q: What is the most important thing you learned or take away from the project for you thus far? Why?

Working in a European project on training for pandemic management and prevention makes you appreciate that while we all lived the same fight against a wide-spreading disease, each European country experienced different shades of grey. Whether in terms of chronological COVID waves, the typologies of applied restrictions or the national public opinion’s reactions, commonalities and differences made for a much enriching framework on understanding the EU’s motto “United in Diversity”. Constantly considering “oh, so that’s how they did it” or “why didn’t we do it like them?” is a large part of the intellectual reward on these activities, as well as the challenge of generating a common product where universal lessons could apply to all European cases.

Q: What are the next steps you will work on in the project?

After several rounds of co-creation of the projects’ outputs – and it has been a long journey across virtual libraries, policy manuals and videogame scripts! – it is now time for Wise Angle to assume a leading host role in our new headquarters at the Barcelona Health Hub in the beautiful Art Nouveau Site at the Hospital de Sant Pau. Currently, we are going to host both the next transnational project meeting and then the main training activity of STEP_UP, consisting of a short-term joint staff training in August 2022. This will allow to provide the right skills and knowledge to key-personnel from the partners to later deliver STEP_UP workshops to multiple target group audiences (we call these the “multiplier events”). As we enter the last year of the project, it is time to spread the word about the training opportunities of STEP_UP!