WP10 - Management

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Description

While strong scientific leadership can be sufficient to run smaller, individual grants, additional expertise is required in the supervision and monitoring of large-scale, complex projects. Specifically, complementary professional project management is required in such undertakings so that the amount of resources and number of participants are orchestrated along the extended schedule towards the appropriate fulfilment of objectives. Traditional project management standards have in these cases to be flexibly adapted and selected to match the specifics of EC-funded projects, not least because; i) trade-offs between scope, quality, time and cost cannot always be readily solved; ii) there are contractual obligations that limit what can be done and how; iii) there are specific financial and administrative procedures that have the potential to create an excessive overhead; iv) there is a need to create a working team out of independent, geographically scattered institutions. This implies the need for generating adequate work and communication dynamics that support the role of the scientific co-ordination in commanding the project and underpinning the whole work plan, without prejudice of the co-ordinator retaining legal responsibility on specific issues as indicated in the Grant Agreement. It also requires strong financial and legal management that effectively deals with the added flexibility that European projects represent, and the evolving circumstances that a 5-year endeavour will have to face. All of these activities, deeply interrelated with WP1, will be developed under WP10.