Effectiveness
There's more to being involved in a Framework Programme project than just getting the money By Marine Giraud, product development, ALMA Consulting Group.
This article looks at ways to get the most out of participating in a European Commission Framework Programme project, drawing on the experience and insight of a consulting company that provides supporting services to project members
It's important to assess the effectiveness of your research spending, especially if, like the European Commission (EC), you spent €17.5bn on themed research in the sixth Framework Programme (FP6), and are about to ask the European Parliament to commit another €50.5bn to FP7. So it's good to know that the Commission asks independent experts to assess the impact of its past Programmes. Each national contact point also produces an assessment of their country's participation in the Programmes, broken down by research topic and type of organisation.
It is more difficult to assess the actual outcomes of such participation, and whether the initial objectives were attained. One way to do that is through experience. This article draws on our experience of working in FP projects to explain what to expect if you participate in one, and suggests ways to use those expectations to guide you throughout the various project phases most effectively.
In order to assess whether a project was effective or not, it's useful to consider not only one's expectations, but also the potentials offered by the project goals. It turns out that participants often benefit from indirect effects that were not even considered at the start of the project.
Organisations join an FP project for three main reasons. The first is a financial motivation: if the proposal is accepted, the project will be partially funded and the partners will share time and effort towards a common goal, saving money. The second reason is that participants expect to obtain useful results that they can apply. This could mean bringing new products to market, or gaining new knowledge, depending on the type of organisation involved. For instance, a university will be very keen on publishing any results generated.
The third effect is not as obvious, and results simply from participation in a project. Through participation, a company can improve its knowledge of potential partners and competitors in Europe and beyond, as well as being in a position to contribute to the creation of standards. Participation also contributes to the development of competencies inside the company: it involves training, and creates opportunities for employees. Being involved in a project can also be great advertising, especially if the project contributes to sustainable development or involves eco-innovation.
Given that the European Commission is spending taxpayers' money, it's right that it demands an assessment of the impact of a proposed project on Europe, such as its potential to generate employment, contribute to EU competitiveness, or improve the quality of life of the citizens, before it offers grants. The Commission also expects each proposal to include a description of the motivations of each participant, and how they plan to exploit any project results.
The participants are asked to identify their objectives for participating, and their overall expectations. Isn't it too late at this stage to start considering these points? Our experience says that organisations should assess their expectations of participating in FP projects before choosing which to take part in, not the other way around. Once a company has defined a general strategy for participation, it is much easier to explain why it wants to take part in a specific FP project.
Companies should also consider quantitative indicators as part of their assessment. Once set, the indicators must be measured throughout the project and for a few years after its end, until the final impact assessment is made. How can a company think ahead, identify its objectives and present a set of indicators that will influence its choices for participation? We do this through what we call a European Intelligence phase.
It's important to have an assessment phase before participating in an FP project, especially when a new Programme is being created. This enables companies to identify the additional opportunities and new regulations it will bring. Since 2006 marks the transition between the sixth and seventh Framework Programmes, it is the ideal time for a company to reconsider its participation strategy.
Companies should take four main steps to review their participation strategy:
This is meant to identify the company's main fields of expertise. It also lists competitors and evaluates the know-how of the company. This helps determine the areas in which the company would be interested in participating in a project in partnership.
This analysis will enable the company to identify, in its fields of expertise: existing funding possibilities through the Framework Programmes; European stakes in the field in the next few years; key players; and research status eg existing patents.
The results of the State of the Art analysis, the determination of the key players, the company's position in the value chain (technology provider, integrator or end-user) should be worked out in order to conclude, for each development activity, the positioning the company may adopt, as coordinator or partner in an FP project.
Setting up or integrating into existing projects will then be possible and the activities will depend on the positioning that the company adopts, as a co-ordinator or partner, in the project concerned.
The EC wants project proposals that address a global concern faced by the EU and have a research or technology-based answer. The Commission will judge the proposals on how well a project is constructed, and whether it includes the best partners for the job. It will also consider the accuracy of the budget and the project's viability, in terms of what it is setting out to do and the use it plans to make of any results. The Commission's motivation, of course, is to try to ensure the project succeeds in itself and helps strengthen the wider European research landscape.
Our experience tells us that there are several things project teams can do to really make a difference to the success of their proposals.
The partner search should lead to a balanced consortium, in terms of expertise (the best in their domain of activity inside the project) and expectations (no competitors).
An inflated budget may simply lead to the project being rejected. It is important to calculate the budget as closely as possible. Later on, during project co-ordination, the budget will serve as a basis for analysis, with any deviations being fully justified.
The work program should be clear and organised, with responsibilities for the completion of each task, and associated deliverables. At this stage, risk assessment and associated milestones should be deeply considered. The time spent in this activity will bring additional credit to the project, and make it much easier to steer the project during implementation.
The management structure should reflect the measures anticipated, to ensure that the objectives are reached and that conflict-resolution issues are taken into consideration. Given the various responsibilities of the co-ordinator, a structure that delegates part of the technical co-ordination to work-package leaders or sub-project leaders, with adequate communication and decision flow, is vital.
Quality-assessment planning is also valuable. Indeed, the project partners themselves are the most appropriate people to judge the quality of the deliverables submitted to the EC, as the deliverables should provide the conclusive elements to end one task and start the next. The deliverables should also provide the supporting information to implement the work to be done in other work packages, so it is important they are validated by the work-package leaders.
One management structure that takes these issues into account is shown in the diagram.
The ratio of funded projects that gave rise to results that are actually exploited is still weak, so the EC will be very keen to fund projects in which the partners have identified a strong potential for exploitation beyond the project duration. Defining specific rules for ownership of any results in advance is also very important for the success of the proposal.
The co-ordination phase of a project is the exciting part, where all the activities described in the contractual documents are brought to life. The challenge here is to optimise the time and effort spent in each of the activities, and to maximise the exploitable results generated.
Our experience in FP projects tells us there are four key activities:
The challenge here is to ensure that the technical activities foreseen in the project plan actually happen, according to the plan's timing and budget, and to identify any problems well in advance. To do this, the co-ordinator needs help from the work-package leaders who manage and report on the progress of the work packages.
The key role here is maintaining a high level of communication between the activities being carried out. This is why sufficient time has to be dedicated to co-ordination activities in any FP project. The EC agreed that up to 7% of FP6 project funding could be used for co-ordination. This threshold is regularly questioned by project co-ordinators, who usually spend more time than foreseen on co-ordination. The key point for us is to involve a professional project manager from the start, to save overall co-ordination time.
The EC's reporting requirements make it very difficult for a new organisation to manage all the legal and contractual aspects that accompany an FP project. It is important to have a good understanding of the contractual clauses and expectations of the EC throughout project implementation. This is especially true for the Consortium Agreement, which defines the ownership of each generated result and associated exploitation rules.
This involves managing all the knowledge that arises from a project, including its deliverables, reports, schemes, prototypes, specifications, meeting minutes, databases and so on. We usually work with an internet-based collaborative platform, developed internally, that gathers all project-related documents and allows the partners to get information on the latest project developments easily. See it here
In FP projects, we work with world leaders in their research domain, focusing on R&D that will give rise to breakthrough technologies. This might be why, among the research community, communication is sometimes considered a little trivial. But in FP projects, communication is anything but trivial.
A well organised communication flow within a project gives the partners a sense of belonging and brings substance to the project. A strong communications strategy also helps the consortium members disseminate non-confidential project-related information to the outside world.
Throughout FP6, we have advised the consortia we have been involved with to set up a communication strategy for their project. This usually starts with the creation of a project identity. The research themes involved and the key words are useful to create a logo that will symbolise the project. Most of the time, the best logo is chosen from among several proposals, as shown here.
Once the logo has been chosen, a graphical style should follow, with colours which represent the project. It is then easy to create template documents for the project, in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats, and a project brochure to be distributed during any events at which the project is presented.
The example shows the creation of an identity for one FP6 project: Innovatial - innovative processes and materials to synthesise knowledge-based ultra-performance nano-structured physical-vapour-deposition thin films on gamma titanium aluminides. Those communication activities were praised by the EC may see their funding rise from 50% of the total to 100% during FP7.
Indeed, the Commission wishes to increase visibility of the FP projects to the public and has taken this issue to heart. Janez Potocnik, the European Commissioner for science and research, has been doing his bit to enhance the visibility of FP projects, focusing his recent interview with the Cordis news service on FP7.
Effective participation in FP projects needs an integrated approach, which takes into account the partners' strategies from the very beginning, optimises each phase of the project and keeps the original objectives in mind. The rules of the upcoming seventh Framework Programme should make it simpler to implement projects, enabling European participants to get the most out of their participation and to find the support they need to produce the innovations they need.
doi:eiq-2006-009-0007
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