A meeting was held at the University of Malta to summarise the effects of the pilot courses for students conducted as part of the international SUMED (Sustainable Multidimensional Media Contents) project. The project is being implemented at the UG Institute of Media, Journalism and Social Communication. The Institute presented six courses incorporating elements of sustainability in media and public relations.

The fourth project meeting, held on October 29-30, was hosted by the University of Malta. It was attended by representatives of all project partners. The University of Gdańsk was represented by dr Beata Czechowska-Derkacz (project manager on behalf of the UG), dr Dominik Chomik and Anna Kietrys-Tusk. Dr Grzegorz Kapuściński also participated remotely in the proceedings.

The visit to Malta was an opportunity to exchange experiences and present achievements in the implementation of courses and pilot classes for students, carried out as part of the SUMED project. Those gathered were treated to over a dozen individual presentations, which covered a variety of activities, from traditional lectures and exercises to placements in external settings to other, mixed forms of activity involving employers from the media market and the wider social environment. Among the courses delivered were new ones created as part of the project, but participants also showed how sustainability content can be incorporated into existing, permanent items in journalism and PR degree programmes.

The University of Gdańsk presented an offer of classes and courses including sustainable development content, which are offered to students of Journalism and Social Communication. These are taught by members of the project team, but other staff members of the Institute of Media, Journalism and Social Communication also joined in: dr Grzegorz Kapuściński, dr Monika Białek and dr Dominika Rafalska.

Dr Beata Czechowska-Derkacz presented the effects of the project she led: a design seminar, a media relations workshop and a Student Media in a Friendly Environment class. One of the aims of the seminar is for students to responsibly address environmental issues, topics important for social development, and journalistic ethics. The Media relations workshop, delivered within the university's extensive studio facilities, serves to develop the problem-solving skills and tasks faced by PR professionals, with an emphasis on well-being at work and proper relations with the media environment. The course Student Media in a Friendly Environment, involved students in practical tasks in the media and media coverage of conferences held at the University of Gdańsk.

Dr Dominik Chomik delivered two courses: the lecture Tabloids and Tabloidisation and the course series Sustainable Development and Market-Oriented Journalism. The courses were oriented not only towards promoting the content of sustainable development, but also the controlling and activating function of the university in this area.

Dr Grzegorz Kapuściński presented the course and the effects of the public relations exercises, the idea of which was to use PR activities to promote and report on the activities of companies and institutions acting following the ideas of sustainable development.

The University of Gdańsk's offer met with great interest and was very positively evaluated by the project partners. The discussion that followed the presentations showed that, although Polish market and educational realities have their own specificities, most of the problems associated with teaching journalism and media-related subjects, as well as the challenges of contemporary journalism and the media, are universal in nature. It is precisely the search for universal solutions and the adaptation of the experiences of partner universities in these areas that is one of the main objectives of the SUMED project.

The next meeting and presentation of project achievements have been scheduled for October 2025 during a cyclical international conference organised by the Institute of Media, Journalism and Social Communication of the UG: MEDIA-BUSINESS-CULTURE 2025.

The SUMED project is implemented as part of an international partnership. The project leader is INNOCAMP PL Spółka z o.o. (Poland), specialising in social innovation projects. The project partners are: University of Gdańsk (Poland), Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), University of Malta (Malta). The Principal Investigator of the project on behalf of the University of Gdańsk is Dr Beata Czechowska-Derkacz (Institute of Media, Journalism and Social Communication, UG). The project has been running since 1 November 2022, with a planned completion date of October 31, 2025.

The main objective of the project is to promote sustainability, technology, and digital solutions in the higher education sector and the labour market by organising courses and workshops for teachers and students and creating a common learning environment (new syllabuses and pilot courses) for teachers from four European universities - the project partners. This will provide all project participants with attractive tools to implement new media education solutions in their organisations. All these activities are focused on media in a broad sense, including media education and production, media content creation, public and media relations strategies, advertising, marketing, image creation, or market research.