During the first day, each consortium member presented the history, the organizational structure and the research areas of his institution.

Then, the project coordinator gave a general presentation of the OIPEC project, its goals, its outputs and the general structure of the work packages. A classification of university-industry collaborations was presented, illustrating some relevant examples from other universities, and the specificities of OIPEC compared to other relevant European projects were highlighted.

Finally, one representative for each partner university exposed the relevant initiatives conducted by his university for what concerns the university-industry cooperation. In particular, the following entities and activities have been mentioned:

• Technology transfer offices;
• Teaching activities for industry engineers and/or executives;
• Joint research centres;
• Joint research partnerships and research consortia;
• Laboratories for the development of product/service concepts (“Fab-labs”);
• Network between universities;
• Spin-offs and start-ups;
• Science/Technology parks.

During the evening, the participants visited the famous “Museo del Novecento,” the museum dedicated to the Italian art of the 20^thcentury, and a pleasant dinner was enjoyed.

The second day of the kick-off meeting was dedicated to project administration and management. The project coordinator presented the grand agreement, general and special conditions, and guidelines for the use of the grant; then, the OIPEC contractual framework was presented and a set of management procedures and roles was proposed.

The participants agreed on the structure of the management team, which involves the interaction between a management board and an advisory board; the former is formed by one partner representative plus the project coordinator, while the latter is constituted by members external to the project staff and external to the project consortium (as for instance companies, TTO, …) and clustered in local communities (European, Chinese, Russian). Moreover, intellectual property management and quality assurance was considered.

Finally, the importance of dissemination was remarked. The design of the official logo and the website were planned as high-priority action items.