Aims:
The aim of this action was none other than to coordinate and centralize
all information related to the project in order to ensure agile exchange
of information among all partners as well as to quickly communicate any
matters brought up by the members to the European Commission
Function and structure:
Organized in three bodies:
-Project Director
-Project Coordinator
-Technical and administrative support team.
Functions of each:
-Project Director:
• Presides and Chairs the Board of Directors
and the Control Committee.
• Is legally responsible vis a vis Brussels
• Has knowledge of all the actions that are
to be developed in the project.
• Supervises the progress of said actions.
• Programmes and organizes talks and meetings with other partner,
aided by the technical and administrative support team.
• Integrates and synthesises results obtained by the partners
so that these may be used in future actions of the project.
• Executes the decisions of the Control Committee.
• Supervises the work of the technical and administrative support
team.
• Designs and executes a contingency plan should the project need
re-focusing.
- Technical and administrative support team.
• Organizes and attends meetings and seminars
on the project, prepares the minutes and provides logistic support.
• Designs and maintains an internal web page that helps to control
the budget and the technical aspects of the project. This web page is
for exclusive use of the project partners.
• Maintains and up-dates (in collaboration with project partners)
: archive procedures and processing, registration of financial data
on the project, and control of personnel, in order to guarantee compliance
of all administrative stipulations affecting the project.
• Organizes and maintains the general archive of the project.
• Prepares financial and activity reports.
• Writes up and publishes the minutes of the Seminars which take
place during the time of the project.
• Coordinates and obtains consensus on the development and publication
of the educational material about the project.
• Organizes the visits of European Commission civil servants and
lends support during the time they spend here to carry out the required
auditing tasks.
-New Control Committee
Members:
• Project Director
• Project Coordinator
• A representative of the administrative and technical support
group
• A representative of each of the beneficiaries.
The functions of this Committee are:
• To meet every fifteen days to indicate the
present developmental stage of the project. These meetings will be held
fortnightly until the project has reached the desired degree of development,
after which time the meetings will be held once every three months.
• Decide on project milestones and explain how those goals will
be reached.
• Make progress reports.
• Re-evaluate the actions when difficulties in the implementation
of the same turn up.
• Meet at least once every three months. During 2004 meetings
are to be held on the twentieth of each of the following months: January,
April, July, December.
• Meet once a year, for a two-day period, to present project results
so that the general public will be made aware of the results that the
project has achieved.
Conclusions:
Because at the beginning certain difficulties turned up, the activity
of the coordinating group was an invaluable help towards ensuring the
agile and successful development of the project which was, in fact,
achieved. It was observed that holding monthly –or in some cases,
bi-monthly meetings—was a vital element to ensure that the aims
of the project were fulfilled as these regular meetings helped to create
team spirit among the partners to the point where a real feeling of
participation developed and produced a stronger commitment on the part
of all parties involved. Notwithstanding, it was sometimes necessary
to hold bi-lateral meeting with some project participants in order to
iron out administrative or implementation difficulties. At present Committee
meeting are held as needed since the project has almost been finished.
The main aim of this action, to coordinate all partners and achieve
agile communication among them in order to execute all the previewed
tasks, has not been easy. In spite of the great effort required, the
satisfaction of all parties involved has amply compensated.
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