Establishing a community of practice (CoP) through a project management structure and logic is a challenging endeavour. Unlike a team or task force, a CoP cannot be simply “set up”; rather, it comes to life as its members gradually develop a sense of mutual belonging and trust by engaging with one another over time around a set of practices they share and care about. Put simply, CoPs can be nurtured but not created.
To reflect on the community development process and assess the quality of the social learning spaces nurtured so far by the WEFE4MED project, the WEFE4MED consortium conducted a series of internal consultations based on reflexive monitoring in action. The objective of these consultations was to identify key bottlenecks and discuss concrete actions that could be implemented to strengthen interpersonal engagement, as well as community identity and ownership. In total, 26 interviews were conducted between October and December 2025, involving 20 representatives from consortium partners, 3 Project Advisory Board members, and 3 key informant community representatives.
Through these consultations, a set of 26 recommendations to support NCoP sustainability was identified. These recommendations were grouped into three thematic clusters, aligned with the three lessons proposed by Cundill et al. (2015) on how to nurture transdisciplinary communities of practice:
Engagement: Foster peripheral participation and onboarding (6 recommendations);
Identity: Strengthen a sense of belonging and mutual trust (11 recommendations);
Leadership: Distribute leadership and decision-making (9 recommendations).
On 11 February 2026, these recommendations were presented and discussed during a consortium partners’ meeting dedicated to NCoP sustainability. Out of the 26 recommendations, a total of 7 were selected for prioritization and implementation during the remainder of the project lifespan.
As the community continues to grow in size, the key challenge ahead is to ensure that the CoP remains a space conducive to meaningful one-to-one exchanges and to fostering a shared sense of togetherness in support of implementing WEFE nexus solutions in the Mediterranean.
