How to keep up the great spirit of the TRIPLE project’s team in times when we cannot socialise face-to-face and chat over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine? Like many people during this pandemic, we have come to realise how important it is to meet and talk to each other in “real life” and not only by looking at faces in rectangular frames on a computer screen. As travelling across Europe to attend consortium meetings, workshops or conferences seems out of reach for the time being, we have come up with a simple but effective and fun alternative, even though it still means that we need to sit in front of a computer device: The virtual

TRIPLE Café

where we meet informally each Tuesday at lunchtime.

We discuss important topics such as banana bread recipes and how to get rid of the calories again by motivating ourselves to work out by using one of these running apps. We make recommendations for the best French and Italian wines. We find out that some of us have started to learn a foreign language during lockdown and that others remember silly German songs from their time spent abroad a long time ago. We share stories of our cats and dogs, who sometimes take part in the meetings (the benefit of being able to peek into each other’s home offices).

And yes, we also talk about COVID-19, and how it impacts our work and family life and the lives of our partners and children. And that the situation is anything but easy, and very tiring.

But: The TRIPLE community and the fact that we had been used to collaborating online even before the pandemic definitely help to keep going, to meet project deadlines and to advance the development of the discovery platform GOTRIPLE.

A toast to the TRIPLE Café and the TRIPLE team!