Graduating with a degree in Linguistics and Translation from the University of La Sapienza in Rome, Maddalena Lukasik is a young professional whose journey has been fueled by a keen interest in diverse cultures and a sense of wanderlust.
Her academic pursuits took her beyond the boundaries of her hometown, leading to immersive experiences in Rome, Warsaw, and frequent travels to Norway to learn the Norwegian language. She joined META Group as an intern in 2018 and have been since them, developing her career within our company.
What do you do at META? How is a typical day for you?
My role involves monitoring exploitation-related activities in re-MODULEES and iEPB, as well as providing assistance in the service delivery of Horizon Results Booster assignments.
Each day is unique, as some days I am occupied with service delivery, and online meetings, while on other days I am fully dedicated to reporting and analysing the documentation received. Maintaining the smooth flow of activities and ensuring a clear understanding of processes are crucial aspects of my work.
Ensuring the use of research results
What is it like working on exploitation?
I am responsible for the exploitation-related activities of the European projects, ensuring that the developed results will be used at the end of the grant period. Sometimes, explaining why it’s crucial to think about the long-term sustainability of results during an ongoing project can be challenging.
What project(s) or assignment(s) are you currently involved in? What is the most exciting part of this project?
I am currently involved in re-MODULEES which is approaching the end of the project (April 2024), iEPB which has recently been launched and HySCALE which started a few months ago.
As re-MODULEES is the first project for which is am responsible, for me, it is exciting to observe that after such long support in exploitation activities, the partnership aims to valorise the results and cares about achieving the impact beyond the project end. The project has a real potential to facilitate the deep renovation of residential buildings supported by a platform and digital/physical HUBs.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Sometimes it is difficult to collect documentation relevant to feed activities’ development. It strongly limits the progress of the process, that’s why I always try to be clear that my job relies on inputs received from Beneficiaries/Partners. For the preparation of an exploitation pathway, all I need is collaboration.
What do you like the most about your job?
I love talking and being in contact with people from different parts of the world and collaborating to achieve shared goals and objectives. Furthermore, I like that I have passionate and professional colleagues. As I had to learn everything from scratch, I was lucky to meet my META colleagues, as they taught me a lot and I know that I still can count on their help.
We encourage them to think with a problem-oriented logic, to find concrete solutions to the identified problems of potential customers/market.
What are some of the challenges facing the clients, partners, or beneficiaries you work with? How can they be addressed in your opinion?
Our Beneficiaries/Partners often have in their hands fantastic results, but they do not know how to push them “on the market” and turn them into concrete benefits.
We are their facilitators in helping to understand how to follow a strategy to avoid situations such as the one described above. We encourage them to think with a problem-oriented logic, to find concrete solutions to the identified problems of potential customers/market.
A Nice METAmemory (a memory or story related to you and the company that you like)
A nice METAmemory was in…. Nice! It was when, after the pandemic I attended my first consortium meeting ever in presence. It was an amazing experience, as for the first time I met colleagues with whom I was in contact just online until that moment.