The art of finding project partners

How do you find your project partners? From training participants and clients, I often get the question „how to find good partners??” and while I have my ideas of doing it, I wonder how do you select yours?
What is the good balance between involving new partners to bring some specific expertise contra the risk that they are not performing?
Lately I’ve been in some interesting discussions about the importance of a common understanding of the project; maybe the partner you believe is not performing well is just having a different view of what should be done and how…  Unfortunately sometimes, it’s enough that the person in charge of the project at one orgasniation changes and the cooperation is suddenly totally different…

There is no need to say that the partners must be chosen carefully, of course the right selection is important, not only for good results and outcome but also for smooth and enjoyable implementation.
Partners should have the necessary skills to implement the activities, and bring relevant expertise into the project etc, but the ability and willingness to cooperate should also not be underestimated. I think we all know or can imagine what a nightmare  to  work with someone you simply cannot understand…
At the same time, good partners and true cooperation makes it a pleasure to work and tricky issues can be solved and crazy deadlines met…
All the EU projects have their own aim and activities, but they serve at the same time to foster cooperation and help us understanding each other. We can learn a lot working together, exposure to best and worst practices is very useful…:)

So what do you think? There is all kind of online services for the purpose but do they really work?
If you would design one, how would it look like?
Are international brokerage events useful? And whatever good way of finding partners, the question remains, how to know if they will be good??

Bodil

Changes in reporting on the Participant Portal

Please note a change in the financial reporting rules. From next week the justification of costs will be submitted in the financial reporting section and not the technical one.

Information received from the EC officers:
“Up to now the “Explanation of the use of the resources” had to be provided in the scientific part of the project report via the Participant Portal. From 21st May 2012 this section will become part of the financial reporting function.
This technical modification will provide consistency between the Forms C and the figures introduced in the explanation on the use of resources. The change does not imply any changes to the rules and requirements for reporting. The change is purely a technical modification.
For new reports the use of the new function in the financial reporting function will become mandatory.
During a transitional period those users who already started to draft their reports in the scientific reporting function, the explanation on the use of resources can either be completed in this tool or can be transferred to the financial reporting function.”

The explanation on the use of resources are the justifications of personnel costs, subcontracting and any major costs incurred by each beneficiary, such as the purchase of important equipment, travel costs, large consumable items linked to work packages. More information can be found in the FAQ section on the Participant Portal.

We like this change and hopefully after inserting a new row it will not automatically jump to the top of the page. :)

Challenging Audit Day

Last week’s audit training was quite special for various reasons. Gabor, based on his experience related to EC financial audits as well as the comments and suggestions of the previous audit training participants, has developed a brand new audit workshop:

The participants had to audit us!
We created an almost real scenario where the group of auditors had to cross-check two reporting periods in one of our projects. Of course, not all materials were real, but really seemed like.

Just the evening before the training Gabor’s wife decided to give birth to their second son, so me and my colleague, Ömer, had to lead the workshops and give the presentations about audit. The whole day was a challenge for us and also for the participants, but it all ended perfectly.

Some of our costs were “rejected”, but fortunately the auditors (well, the participants) did not find any systematic errors. The workshop was quite useful and fun for all of us. We managed to provide all useful information to the participants and Gabor’s son and wife are healthy and happy!

Next audit workshop will be in June. If you want to test yourself as an auditor, come and join us!

Gabriella

          

New clarification in the FP7 Guide to Financial Issues published in January 2012

 

There are discussions about whether or not to charge the costs of project meeting costs under “Management” costs.
Let’s see the updated guide:

• Page 81: Scientific coordination of the project cannot be charged under “other activities” (they are not management). Costs related to project meetings (kick-off, periodic, final) should in principle be charged under RTD activities, since they are deemed to address scientific/research aspects of the project.

• Page 82: Most of the project meetings are scientific meetings and have to be charged as a scientific (RTD) activity.

•  Page 83 as an example of Management activity: The administrative tasks involved in the preparation, executing and post-processing of major project meetings such as Steering Committee meetings, General Assemblies and meetings with the advisory board (tasks: agendas, invitations, location of meeting places, organization of rooms and equipment, preparation distribution and archiving of materials, minutes and action lists);

Based on the different clarifications and discussions, we still think that, for instance, costs for organising and attending the kick-off meeting can be considered Management costs if planned as such in the budget and if the meeting covers financial and administrative issues and strategic decisions for the project.

Any comments most welcome!