The European research project against blindness gathers its partners in Valencia

The European project “Targeting RNA as an approach for treating retinal disease” (RETORNA) has begun its journey in Valencia with its first meeting hold on the 9th and 10th of March 2023.

The 2 days meeting is the starting point of this long and challenging research and training journey! It was an occasion for partners to meet in person and to settle together the main points of what will be the work of this European consortium for the next 4 years.

The agenda of the first day was fully booked, but partners could also enjoy some moments of the typical Valencia holiday: Las Fallas.

Photo of the meeting

The morning started with a short presentation of each participant and of the Project. The agenda covered the following topics presented by the Coordinator Javier Sancho and by the Project Manager Andreea Craciun: work packages, deliverables and their deadlines, the budget. The session on the recruitment process has been also a very important topic on the agenda where partners could debate and propose solutions and ideas. A special session in the first afternoon was dedicated to the election of the Supervisory Board.

All the sessions run smoothly and partners made a very positive contribution, provinding inputs during the entire meeting. and Andreea Craciun as Project Manager,

Dr. Javier Sancho, professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the UCV and coordinator of the project, has highly valued this meeting and has stated that it has served to establish links between the partners and make decisions about important aspects of the project. The meeting has also served to analyze the applications received for the ten research subprojects distributed among all the partners and that will address the main issue from different points of view. Other members of the project at the UCV participated in the meeting, such as Dr. Jorge Barcia, Managing Coordinator in the Project.

The meeting was organized also in the online version, in order to give the possibility to all partners to be present. Profesor Aileen Murphy and Profesor Ann Kirby participated to the meeting by attending online directly from Cork, Ireland.

In conclusion the 2 days meeting was an occasion for all partners to share their ideas, make proposals and recommendations, putting effort all together for managing a quality project.