The Grant

I have reached the end of the line. The Timeline, that is, naturally. And it is of course the submission episode that you are about to listen to. Submitting the Horizon Europe proposal is the last intense stretch in a marathon that has lasted for months. And it IS intense. And there are many things you need to deal with that you didn’t realize you had to pay attention to. Together with the things that you INDEED knew you had to pay attention to…

I have invited Miguel Gallardo Linacero from the Spanish grants consultancy company Sustainable Innovations into the virtual podcast studio to help me run through the cacophony of things you need to be aware of when you are submitting a proposal. On top of that we also share with you our experience on the process and give you a reality check in relation to what you can expect of chaos and stress.

It became a long talk as you can imagine, so I have divided the episode into two episodes. In this second half we continue going through the rest of the proposal forms including ethics and security, before ending up with the validation check and the actually pressing the red submission button.

You need to listen to this episode if you are submitting proposals!

I have reached the end of the line. The Timeline, that is, naturally. And it is of course the submission episode that you are about to listen to. Submitting the Horizon Europe proposal is the last intense stretch in a marathon that has lasted for months. And it IS intense. And there are many things you need to deal with that you didn’t realize you had to pay attention to. Together with the things that you INDEED knew you had to pay attention to.

I have invited Miguel Gallardo Linacero from the Spanish grants consultancy company Sustainable Innovations into the virtual podcast studio to help me run through the cacophony of things you need to be aware of when you are submitting a proposal. On top of that we also share with you our experience on the process and give you a reality check in relation to what you can expect of chaos and stress.

It became a long talk as you can imagine, so I have divided the episode into two episodes. In this first half we cover registration and PIC number, partner registration for the proposal in the portal and the first handful of proposal forms including Form B (proposal), Declarations, Role of participating organisations, Gender Equality Plan and the Budget section.

Facilitating networking within EU R&D funding is an animal with many heads. It is quite complex to structure the internet interface or platform. The best solutions are often sector specific which secures that the facilitator can zoom in on the stakeholders and the community within that specific sector. The EU Commission is the only organization that has made a broad platform covering all sectors – however then it tends to water out with too many dead and inactive profiles.

Michael Browne, founder of the platform Crowdhelix, has given it a try. With a background in research he developed a private fee-based platform that is giving it a shot to cover sectors broadly in the networking for EU R&D funding. I invited him into the virtual podcast studio to dig into the concept, how he managed to built it up and finally having a talk in general on privately developed networking tools for EU R&D funding.

This is a wonderful talk that sheds light on how a long experience on research can generate an idea that can suddenly help a lot of people.

I am moving slowly towards the end of The Timeline Series. In the last episode in theseries we went through the budget template itself and how to fill it in. However, when preparing the budget the smallest part of it is knowing the budget categories and terms – the biggest part of the work is related to collecting

I invited my old colleague and friend Jonas Hansen who is Senior Funding Manager in the Danish ICT cluster Digitallead to go through all the little and big things that makes finalizing the budget a big challenge for anyone – no matter the organizational talent. It became a double episode. In this second part we are sharing the experience of the strategic jerk partners  that will dileberately try to cheat or blackmail themselves to higher budget and then we are digging into the horror of budget negotiations and re-negotiations that can take the air out of any proposal writer.

We share with you all our combined experience from years of working practically with this which will give you an excellent idea of what you can expect when

I am moving slowly towards the end of The Timeline Series. In the last episode in the series we went through the budget template itself and how to fill it in. However, when preparing the budget the smallest part of it is knowing the budget categories and terms – the biggest part of the work is related to collecting the information, correcting this information, negotiating the budget levels for the partners and all in all dealing with inconsistencies in communication and difficult budget fights in-between in the partners. 

I invited my old colleague and friend Jonas Hansen who is Senior Funding Manager in the Danish ICT cluster Digitallead to go through all the little and big things that makes finalizing the budget a big challenge for anyone – no matter the organizational talent.

It became a double episode. In this first episode we talk about how you can help yourself in the months up to the final two weeks when things heat up and then we take step-by-step the things that are most like to give anyone problems including late budget input from partners, wrong figures from partners and too high figures. We share with you all our combined experience from years of working practically with this which will give you an excellent idea of what you can expect when preparing the budget in the final phase.

Back in the summer of 2022 I had one of my first guests on the show, Marie Latour, who gave us all a broad introduction to the European Partnerships. An immediate realization was that I wanted to explore these partnerships in more detail to give you, dear listeners, an idea of what these organisations do, what role they play in the whole EU R&D funding programme framework and how they interact with their members, stakeholders and not least the EU Commission.

I reached out to one of the partnerships that I know best, A:Spire – the partnership covering sustainable process industry. I have been connected to the organization on and off over the last 7 years and have been involved in some of their stakeholder activities collecting input for work programme priorities. The European Partnership arm of this work is now labelled Processes4Planet. I am honored that I managed to get Director Angels Orduna and Chair of the advisory structure Ludo Diels onboard for a thematic double-episode on Processes4Planet.

This is part 2 of this thematic episode on Processes4Planet. Here the talk moves into the coordination with the EU Commission and thereafter we dig into the operational level of how Processes4Planet works with their members securing that the stakeholders get their message through. And not least how you manage all this as a small secretariat of a European Partnership.

Back in the summer of 2022 I had one of my first guests on the show, Marie Latour, who gave us all a broad introduction to the European Partnerships. An immediate realization was that I wanted to explore these partnerships in more detail to give you, dear listeners, an idea of what these organisations do, what role they play in the whole EU R&D funding programme framework and how they interact with their members, stakeholders and not least the EU Commission.

I reached out to one of the partnerships that I know best, A:Spire – the partnership covering sustainable process industry. I have been connected to the organization on and off over the last 7 years and have been involved in some of their stakeholder activities collecting input for work programme priorities. The European Partnership arm of this work is now labelled Processes4Planet. I am honored that I managed to get Director Angels Orduna and Chair of the advisory structure Ludo Diels onboard for a thematic double-episode on Processes4Planet.

This is a very strong episode with a view into the machine room of a partnership and insights from the horses mouth on collaboration with the Commission, juggling with the cacophony of stakeholders, coordination with other complementary partnerships and securing strong content for their members.

I am myself an old private grants consultant and it is a sector and people I care about. That’s why I have allocated a specific corner of The Grant to this sector under the label Consultants Corner. Here, I give the sector a voice and dig into all kinds of issues relevant for this shadow sector like business models, the work as a grants consultant, how they develop business concepts, how they deal with insane work pressure and so on and so forth.

This weeks guest reached out to me and requested to join the show. Nikolaos Floratos has more than 20 years of experience most pf the time as a grants consultant. He has developed a novel approach to grants consultancy based on a platform with different services with remuneration based on subscription. And it does not include the actual writing of the proposals for the clients, but on solid supportive services.

It became an interesting talk about this platform and the conditions for the grants consultancy sector in general when it comes to grants consultancy business model development.

Networking is one of the most important elements of working within this field. The ability to navigate in this big ocean is vital for success with grants proposals.

There are many layers to be aware of and to work with. In the autumn I reached out to Lara Valentín Carrera from FUNDITEC in Spain to get her involved in The Grant. We have known each other for a long time and our conversation moved into the issue of networking because that was how we met.

So, we carved out an episode digging into networking both from a practical perspective but even more important from a phycological and inter-human perspective. This is a strong episode.

As usual it became a long talk and I have divided the recording into two.

In this second half  we continue the talk about brokerage events and thereafter move into the subject of which social skills you need to practice. Finally, we uncover how years of networking efforts can influence both your professional and personal life.