Interview with Professor Tara Grauwet, speaker at Impact Day
On October 14, Impact Day will take place. That's when VISIT FLANDERS Convention Bureau will present its Impact Methodology: a complete roadmap that associations and PCOs can use to capture, develop, communicate and measure the positive impacts of their conference on society.
One who has already put the power of this methodology into practice is Professor Tara Grauwet. As a researcher at KU Leuven's Laboratory of Food Technology, she deals with food processing and its impact in making the right food available to all. Professor Grauwet also chairs the 38th EFFoST International Conference, taking place Nov. 12-14, 2024, in Bruges.
How did her team go about capturing the impact of their conference? Professor Grauwet will be speaking about that at Impact Day. For this article, she gives a sneak peek.
The methodology also allows associations and PCOs to immediately identify the partners needed to achieve the impact goals. How did you motivate those stakeholders to commit to the EFFoST conference?
"First, we identified who the crucial players are in the industry. We invited those people to an event, which took place in Bruges, at the location where the conference will also take place.
That event was a success; every invited stakeholder was on the deal. Indeed, every party realized that those impact goals benefit the entire industry. In working groups, we then refined the objectives further. We also looked at what initiatives we could take on the fringes of the conference to achieve the objectives.
So, by using Visit Flanders Convention Bureau's methodology, we really laid a strong foundation that will contribute to the success of the conference. Defining impact goals mobilizes the stakeholders. You create a common, higher purpose that everyone can rally behind. So even before the conference has started, you can say that we have already had impact."
