One thing is for certain (well, maybe nothing is for certain….but still); more of our work will be online from now on, especially within universities. While it is relatively straightforward to organise a meeting, or a lecture online, those informal chats you have with people you meet in the hallway, after a conference, or on your way to work that inspire, perhaps even define your work moving forwards aren’t possible with this virtual model we have put in place. How can we change that? Consider planning in virtual brainstorming sessions regularly for students and staff. This could be a virtual 9am coffee chat at the start of the day with no particular agenda, or one with a particular theme that anyone interested in exploring it could sign in to at a given time, or simply open up certain virtual spaces for students and staff to drop in whenever they want to have those in person chats they are missing that may, still, inspire their current or next project.
