Proposal coordinator’s actions

In our last blog post, we arrived to the stage in proposal development when we have a sound partnership, a clear picture of all of the call requirements, and know what we need to compile in terms of technical, financial and administrative data. We are now ready to actually write the technical proposal, develop a budget and fill in the financial and administrative forms. Here comes the challenge: who will actually take on this responsibility and when and how everything will be prepared?

This is a team work to be led by a “proposal coordinator” (you!), who may be the owner of the project idea or assigned to this role by the institution coordinating the project. In this process, the proposal coordinator will need to act like a conductor of an orchestra. A sound plan also needs to be in place; this plan should indicate what needs to be compiled by when with a number of strict deadlines and milestones until the proposal submission deadline.

Clearly, you will need the input of your partners to various parts of the proposal. Some of this input will be generic, which need to be provided by all of the partners (e.g. administrative and financial data), while you will also need specific technical input for the technical parts of the proposal. The latter is usually more difficult to acquire from the partners. Here, if you know your partners’ expertise very well, you can request and obtain from them very relevant input for different parts of the proposal. The proposal coordinator’s goal here should be to get the most out of these partners.

In order to organise this process and receive consistent and complementary input (as opposed to receiving overlapping input and ending up having gaps), first make a good outline of the proposal with specific sections and sub-sections including the major project activities and their brief definitions (i.e. work packages). Provided that you have a good picture of your partners’ expertise and capabilities vis-à-vis the project concept, you may already assign roles to the key partners, such as “work package (WP) leadership” in the project. In that case, those partners should compile and develop the relevant sections of the proposal (e.g. WP descriptions, related background information, etc.).

Similarly, for those specific technical chapters, you can turn to the most relevant partners and ask them to compile those chapters. In so doing, compile a first draft of the proposal with the main objectives and concepts as well as work plan laid out and ready to be further developed or adjusted, as needed.

In our next post, Part 6 of this blog series, we will discuss how to further develop and complete the proposal and bring it to finalisation.

Ömer

Early starts pay off

Deadlines are part of our everyday lives. Paying your bills and monthly car mortgage usually has a deadline so has the submission of your weekly lottery ticket.

With a few exceptions human nature in general tends to underestimate the time needed to do something if the deadline is far away (for example in the case of FP7 calls, which are posted in mid-July and the deadlines are sometime at the end of the fall or early winter), but as it draws nearer and nearer one may realise that he/she should have started preparations so much earlier rather than leaving everything for the last few weeks.

 

 

 

Successful proposal preparation is definitely not a last minute job and Brussels deadlines are very sharp and unforgiving for the late comers.

For instance, building a consortium takes time. A lot of time. Even if you already have a good network of professionals from previous proposal applications or projects you carried out together bringing them on-board may be tricky during the summer holyday season. Not to mention setting up new links with potential partners you haven’t worked with previously.

That is right. If you want to deal with only developing the proposal and the miniscule but plenty of administrative issues in the very last weeks you got to have an 80% ready consortium by 2 months before the submission deadline. Key partners are essential to support the frame of your proposal concept. Minor roles can be assigned later on but if you are on your own 8 week before the submission deadline with your idea only, having noone to back you up your chances are quite slim to be able to round up a potent consortium in time.

Picking partners is like arriving to the market place at an early hour. On a first come first served basis you may find very appealing and fresh products leaving the rest, less attractive for the late comers. Similarly if you manage to put an internationally recognised key partner behind your idea early on, the chances that it will be picked by someone else will be limited (since it is already engaged), and your chances of delivering a strong proposal based on the provided expertise are greatly boosted immediately.

After having your consortium (almost) ready you got to delegate tasks to each of them, preferably with an even distribution. Ideally you have the frame of your concept ready by the time you start searching for potential partners, so once you have them you will have a clear idea regarding the way you expect them to contribute. Of course your initial concept may evolve during the preparation phase as a result of receiving input from the relevant partners and you should be open to such minor changes in your initial plan. Keep in mind that you partner up with an organisation because you trust them with their expertise on the given field, so be open to their suggestions and opinions.

To be continued…

Proposal Development- Part 4.: Actual proposal preparation

Happy New Year everyone! In this first blog post of 2013, we continue with our Proposal Development blog series. Our other blog series on the project lifecycle will also continue in the upcoming days and weeks.

In Part 3 of this blog series, we had established the consortium for our transnational European project proposal. Having established the consortium is a milestone, after which you can proceed with the actual preparation of the proposal.

Of course, nothing prevents you from already starting developing the proposal before completing the partnership; however, as the consortium composition is intrinsically linked to your proposed action in terms of the required expertise to implement that action, it would be more advisable to proceed with the development of the major parts of the proposal upon completion of the partnership, or at least the “core” partnership. Paradoxically, it also happens oftentimes that you notice while detailing your work plan that you are actually missing certain expertise to cover certain tasks, and realise that you had better bring in another partner. This is also totally OK.

Probably, the most characteristic feature of this whole process (proposal preparation) is that it is “iterative”. It is typical to return back to various stages a number of times to refine, rectify and adjust certain things until perfection. Keeping this in mind, let’s have a look at the next steps in putting together the proposal.

 

Most project proposals (applications) consist of three major parts:

• Administrative
• Technical
• Financial

Before starting filling in or developing any of these parts, it is imperative to make a sound planning on the preparation and compilation of the proposal. For this, it is important to understand clearly the formal requirements as well as the amount and scope of the information and material which you need to compile (quantitatively and qualitatively).

Clearly, you have already checked the requirements at first place while assessing your project concept against the call for proposals and while establishing your consortium. You may also have prior and ongoing experience in preparing and submitting proposals under EU programmes. However, although the general eligibility conditions and requirements of the programmes usual remain the same throughout the implementation period of that programme, the specific requirements of the call for proposals may show differences from year to year (or call to call). New sections may be added to application forms, templates may get updated, submission procedures may change. For this reason, it is advisable to check and double-check carefully the work programme and the call text:

• If not indicated already, try to figure out how much budget is available for the work programme topic you are targeting and how many proposals are expected to be funded (in so doing, understand the budgetary limitations for your project);
• Check whether there are any specific requirements on the partnership (e.g. SME involvement, involvement of certain end-users, etc.);
• See whether there are any other “horizontal” issues to consider and address in the proposal (e.g. gender issues, social aspects, spill-over effects of the action, etc.);
• Though a very simple suggestion, many mistakes actually happen here: make sure to download the latest application forms and templates!

 

Once you have a clear picture of all of the requirements as well as the data and information you need to compile, then make a plan. In our next post, Part 5 of this blog series, we will look into detailed planning of the compilation of the different pieces of a project proposal and the first steps of action by the proposal coordinator.

Till then, we wish you a great kick-start of the year!

Ömer