The Grant

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'The lump sum budget principle is slowly being implemented in more and more calls in especially Horizon Europe, but also in other of the European Commission administered funding schemes. In other words, it is a principle that has come to stay, hence it is a good idea to get better and better acquainted with it.

The Grant will of course do it’s best to keep you my dear listener updated and informed on lump sum. In this weeks episode I have invited EU Funding Manager John Stian Haukeland from the private research organisation Danish Technological Institute into the virtual podcast studio. John has been involved in a good handful of lump sum proposals and projects when supporting research teams throughout his organisation the last couple of years and have acquired a lot of knowledge and understanding of how to work with it.

He shares with us how to work with the lump sum principle in all practicality both in the organisation dealing with the administrative side of it and of course in relation to shaping proposals under this principle. In other words, in this episode you have lots of nice reflections and tips based on experience.

Time codes:

00:01:38 Introduction

00:08:51 Fly in on lump sum

00:13:58 Key elements and principles

00:21:06 The administration

00:35:48 The content

01:03:59 Examples

01:09:48 Do's and don't's

01:14:13 The toughest challenge

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The kick off meeting is on the list of things that has to be taken care of when the EU project has been funded.

Here in the third episode in The Implementation Series The Grant zooms in on this special event exercise and how to attack it.

With me I have Senior Project Manager Nicole Schmidt from EUTEMA. She is the colleague of good old Georg Melzer-Venturi, who has been our guide in the first two programmes of this series. Nicole has planned and conducted many of kick off meetings and share with us the important steps in setting up the event and shares some nice tips, tricks, do’s and don’t’s based on her experience

This episode contains an endless amount of guidance and heads-up’s for professionals who will ever have to plan and execute a kick off meeting

Time codes:

00:01:33 Introduction

00:05:07 Fly in on kick off meetings

00:07:26 Main aim of kick off meeting

00:21:05 Team and group

00:35:20 The content programme

01:11:09 Organisation

01:23:26 The end of the meeting

01:31:58 Learnings, do's and don't's

01:38:09 The toughest challenge

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This week’s episode is something I have been looking forward to a lot to share with you. And it is a rather exotic topic. During my formative years I went to New Zealand hitchhiking alone around the whole country. Hence, the country on the other side of the planet has always had a special place in my heart.

Recently New Zealand and the EU Commission signed an Association Agreement attaching New Zealand to the Horizon Europe Pillar II programme on same conditions as EU countries. Well, needless to say, I am thrilled and first thing on my mind was to somehow secure a New Zealand representative for a podcast episode covering this great agreement.

I am proud to say that I managed to get the Programme Manager for Horizon Europe John Creech from the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment into the virtual podcast studio to share with us all the background of the agreement, the history of collaboration between New Zealand and EU, a little bit about the New Zealand R&D landscape and not least how the country has built up their NCP structure dealing with all the regular NCP responsibilities, but also the ubiquitous issue of distance in time and space.

Time codes:

00:01:58 Introduction

00:07:29 Fly in on the New Zealand relationship to EU

00:10:35 A little bit of history

00:17:07 A photograph of New Zealand R&D&I landscape

00:34:09 New Zealand and EU - how is it organised

01:02:51 The New Zealand NCP function

01:26:34 The toughest challenge

This is the third release of episodes under my short format The Grant Shorts. This is the second out of the two episodes where I zoom in on my 3rd job within this sector: Head of Funding in Offshoreenergy.dk – the official Danish energy innovation cluster (now Energy Cluster Denmark).

In this episode I elaborate on four core elements to be aware of when supporting SMEs towards funding from Brussels: 1) Understand your target group, 2) Learn how to translate the EU language, 3) Communication and 4) Eliminating the disctance.

Several of the key points also apply to other stakeholder groups so the episode gives inspiration to many organisation supporting stakeholders from Brussels towards funding.

Time codes:

00:01:52 Introduction

00:04:07 Understanding your target group

00:11:10 Learn how to translate EU language

00:14:46 Communication

00:17:55 Eliminating the distance

This is the third release of episodes under my short format The Grant Shorts. This is the first out of two episodes where I zoom in on my 3rd job within this sector: Head of Funding in Offshoreenergy.dk – the official Danish energy innovation cluster (now Energy Cluster Denmark).

In this episode I elaborate on how I slowly moved into the area of preparing proposals for cluster members and the cluster itself as well as, learning how to cope with an organisational merger and also getting deeper into the Brussels bubble.

Time codes:

00:01:35 Introduction

00:02:28 Fly in on my work for the cluster

00:09:26 Writing proposals for members

00:11:39 Merging two organisations and change

00:17:44 Getting closer to the Brussels eco-system

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The tide is turning. Regulars of this podcast know that I detest the call deadline policy applied especially for Horizon Europe. With no shame call deadlines are scheduled right after the summer and Christmas holidays with administrators knowing very well that thousands of professionals preparing proposals for these calls will have their holidays and much-needed downtime with family destroyed by heavy work-intensive days and nights. I know, because I have been there myself.

But the tide is turning. I have just recently recording the episode you are about to listen to. Alice Barbaglio, Rita Gil Mata and I discussed the mental health issues connected with working in this field. Last week Rita shared the results of a poll made by another former guest of this podcast, Isabel Burdallo. It showed 61% are planning their holidays after EU R&D funding call deadlines. It is stunning. On top Rita had counted that there are 40 topic calls during the first 15 days of September. 40. And estimated around 8.000 people would be working on those calls….having their holidays destroyed.

The tide is turning. The post took off. Flooded with comments about how sick people are of this. And how the EU Commission is hiding behind weak arguments of planning of the evaluation regime.

It’s enough. So action will now be taken. We will gather people and start changing this. It has to end. This episode is an appetizer.

Time codes:

00:02:39 Introduction

00:07:12 Fly in

00:15:48 Challenges and Stressors in Research Management

01:01:56 The toughest challenge

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The series I start they never really stop - there will always be something to add as I move along. This week’s release is adding another episode to The Timeline Series.

The visual element in proposals is much underestimated. Or at least for my part when I was preparing proposals, I considered it a luxury to actually have the time to make nice graphics and layouts. Many of you out there know the importance of a nice looking proposal to improve the impression it will have with evaluators. Pictures tell more than a 1000 words.

Co-founder Olaf-Gerd Gemein of Impact Funding Europe has taken visuals into a next level. Story-telling, colour coding and a conceptual approach using storyboards, Lego bricks all sorts of other creative tactual elements in the proposal preparation is at the core of the way Impact Funding Europe works with proposals for clients.

I got him into the virtual podcast studio to share with you and me about how they practically work with this approach to make their proposals truly standing out.

Time codes:

00:01:50 Introduction

00:05:19 Fly in on visuals in proposals

00:10:43 The function of visuals

00:18:16 How to approach it

00:42:07 The graphical elements

00:53:39 Some tools

01:01:27 The toughest challenge

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Finally, after 120 episodes of this initiative I managed to get a Programme Committee representative into the virtual podcast studio. And why is that important? Because the Programme Committees are core parts of the formal structure in relation to the EU framework programmes for research and development. Or Horizon2020, Horizon Europe and FP10 as they are more commonly known.

The Programme Committees are where the EU Commission and the framework programme participants sit in the same room and formally process and finally decide the whole structure and individual call content of all the framework programme. For anyone applying for funding it is important to understand how the work programmes come to life, how the process between governments and the EU is structured and not less how you can get your own voice heard in relation to work programme content.

I managed to get Maltese NCP and Programme Committee member Ian Gauci Borda into the virtual podcast studio to record the official The Grant introduction to the Programme Committee system and how it works.

Time codes:

00:01:57 Introduction

00:07:07 Fly in Programme Committees

00:13:05 Setting the scene

00:18:23 Function of the Programme Committees

00:47:15 Working procedures

01:19:42 Get your voice heard

01:32:03 The toughest challenge

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It is time for yet another introduction to a funding scheme in The Grant. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions is a very popular funding scheme among the European research community. The funding scheme focus is on exchange of researchers and it offers fairly accessible funding for the research activities to do abroad as well as covering cost of transferring and living.

Of course The Grant is also going to offer an official introduction to this funding scheme. For this I have invited my good old podcast colleague and independent grants consultant Ilaria Rudisi into the virtual podcast studio to take us all through what you need to know to approach this funding scheme including structure of the programme, how to apply and evaluation regime.

In other words: researchers of Europe – pay attention!

Time codes:

00:01:41 Introduction

00:03:44 Fly in on MSCA and place in the funding value chain

00:10:49 Structure of programme

00:26:39 Target group stakeholders

00:31:29 How to apply

00:58:24 Evaluation regime

01:08:15 When funding is received

01:12:28 Do's & don't's

01:16:51 The toughest challenge

The relationship between the R&D funding system and the research community is a paradox. The funding system has been established to support the research community and the research community is a happy receiver of the funding. However, the research community is often struggling to approach the funding. Why? Because it is complex, because it requires investing time in understanding procedures, because it is difficult to get an overview of the fitting funding sources and because, simply, researchers are very busy professionals.

I pulled the two ladies into the virtual podcast studio for a talk about their services and for a talk about the research community and the difficulties approaching funding. It became a nice talk about the conditions of the research community and how to improve access to funding.

Time codes:

00:02:14 Introduction

00:07:18 Fly in on scientifyRESEARCH

00:13:49 Understanding scientifyRESEARCH

00:19:42 The database and how it works

00:45:34 The challenges of the researcher and the research offices

01:13:26 The research funders

01:24:26 Practical examples

01:27:34 Future

01:34:48 The toughest challenge