📗 Horizon 2020 Project Coordination Manual

Documentation & Support Collaboration
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This is a track record and template of coordination responsibilities and processes for Edgeryders’ H2020 project coordination so that there is accessible documentation available for re-use and scaling.

This process template was originally started as a spreadsheet but now takes the form of this manual. It is a wiki so accessible for common input and insights.

Bold italics denotes what is currently being addressed on POPREBEL and NGI Forward.

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(image credit: Comrade King ‘“caw” says the crow’)

Content

1. Edgeryders’ project coordination responsibilities

2. Consortium Coordinator responsibilities

3. Grant Agreement preparation

4. Between Grant Agreement and project start

5. During the project

6. References and resources

1. Edgeryders’ project coordination responsibilities

(Preliminary list)

1.1. Formal and strategic

  • Host big picture view of the project’s implementation and strategic positioning (such as with European Commission Policy Officers, relevant sector events and with other consortia responding to the Call).

  • Represent Edgeryders in formal negotiations and with consortium partners.

  • Inform the LSIGN (at this stage @alberto) of necessary tasks and provide sufficient background documentation.

  • Prepare and deliver all necessary administrative and financial reporting to the Consortium Leader.

  • Contribute to other consortium wide project management procedures including budget and timesheet tracking.

  • Keeper of the budget - Devise and manage Edgeryders’ project budget.

  • Liaise between the consortium and Edgeryders’ team leaders to ensure deliverable and milestone requirements are clearly communicated and met.

1.2. Teams to tasks

  • Gauge availability and interest of Edgeryders’ team members and agree on Task Team Leaders.

  • Provide Task Team Leaders with specifications and sufficient background materials and leave them to develop strategies.

  • Provide Teams with key terms for budget management and internal reporting.

  • Collaborate with Task Team Leaders on ensuring deliverables are met and adequate choices are made to do so.

  • Liaise with/between Teams to ensure consistency across the project’s implementation

1.3. Operations

  • Provide a tool for streamlined budgeting and reporting from Team to Project as a whole (more on this in separate post).

  • Provide an accessible and clear project management platform for Teams to plan and document (Eg. augmented and personalised Dynalist, OpenProject).

  • Work out loud with key milestones and discussions documented in the project’s workspace.

  • Post regular (monthly/ quarterly) updates on the platform on the project’s process.

  • Host regular project meetings for the Edgeryders Team and community.

2. Consortium Coordinator responsabilities

These can be different between projects and are laid out in the Consortium Agreement (CA) of each project. The following is an example from the POPREBEL CA.

  • Monitor compliance by the Parties with their obligations.

  • Keep the address list of Members and other contact persons updated and available.

  • Collect, review (to verify consistency) and submit reports, other deliverables (including financial statements and related certifications) and specific requested documents to the Funding Authority.

  • Transmit documents and information connected with the Project to any other Parties concerned.

  • Administer the financial contribution of the Funding Authority and fulfilling the financial tasks described in Section 7.3.

  • Provide, upon request, the Parties with official copies or originals of documents that are in the sole possession of the Coordinator when such copies or originals are necessary for the Parties to present claims.

If one or more of the Parties is late in submission of any project deliverable, the Coordinator may nevertheless submit the other ’Parties’ project deliverables and all other documents required by the Grant Agreement to the Funding Authority in time.

3. Grant Agreement preparation

See here for generic guidance.

  • Update Beneficiary details

    • External
    • EDGE Project Coordinator
    • Participant portal
    • Necessary for Grant Agreement

  • Associate LSIGN to project

    • External
    • EDGE Project Coordinator & EDGE LEAR
    • Participant portal
    • Necessary for Grant Agreement

  • Declaration of Honour

    • External
    • EDGE LSIGN
    • Participant portal (LSIGN receives notification)
    • Necessary for Grant Agreement

  • Confirm team leader availabilities to ensure company capacity to deliver

    • Internal
    • Edgeryders Project Coordinator
    • Platform
      1. Post
      2. Direct team meetings
      3. Tech requirements and budget requests
    • Necessary for EDGE accountability

  • Review H2020 project coordination templates, guidelines and EDGE H2020 project documentation (eg. OPENCARE) to understand scope and details of administrative requirements

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator
    • Online, colleagues in the sector, EDGE files
    • Necessary for EDGE accountability

  • Check Estonian legal “employment or equivalent appointing act” adherence

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator and LSIGN
    • Necessary for EDGE legals

  • Review and amend Part A (document to inform Description of Action addendum to the Grant Agreement)

    • External
    • EDGE Project Coordinator
    • Project documents
    • Necessary for Grant Agreement

  • Ensure consortium partner Tasks within EDGE WP or collaborative Tasks are re-clarified in writing

    • External
    • EDGE Project Coordinator
    • Direct to partner contacts and project coordinator
    • Necessary for EDGE accountability and project cohesion

  • Review and annotate Consortium Agreement

    • External
    • EDGE Project Coordinator and LSIGN
    • Project documents
    • Necessary for Grant Agreement

  • Review Annotated Model of Grant Agreement

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator
      Consider requirement of Joint Ownership Agreement when multiple parties are contributing to SSNA.

  • Review Horizon2020 Rules for Participation

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator

  • Provide CTO/ Tech team with Tech dev specs

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator

  • Upload Financial Assessment documents to the participant portal upon request. The Edgeryders OÜ annual report includes the necessary parts (profit & loss, balance sheet, notes, excluding audit information as at this stage we are too small for this.)

    • External
    • EDGE LSIGN and Project Coordinator

  • Prepare timeline, process and infrastructure for managing multiple projects concurrently, open for contribution and feedback (includes process, planning tool/s, reporting tool/s, resources)

    • Internal
    • EDGE Project Coordinator

4. Between Grant Agreement and project start

[TODO]

5. During the project

  • Financial reporting. This is covered in its own topic: Financial reporting for a Horizon 2020 project

  • Non-financial reporting. Also called “continuous reporting”. This is covered in its own topic: Non-financial reporting for a Horizon 2020 project

  • Rules for avoiding conflicts of interest. According to the rules for purchasing goods, works or services (article 10 of the Grant Agreement):

    The beneficiaries must make such purchases ensuring the best value for money or, if appropriate, the lowest price. In doing so, they must avoid any conflict of interests.

As a project coordinator, make sure that the team leaders and the team members respect the rules when buying services as explained under this topic: Financial reporting for a Horizon 2020 project. & in the Procurement Policy.

Preparing and/or extending staff members’ contracts. Most of the staff contracts are made for one calendar year based on the available budget. At the end of the year, the project coordinator in collaboration with the team leaders prepares the contracts for the following year. This is done by making sure the allocated budget to all staff whose contracts are getting extended corresponds to the available budget for the specific task.

  • Calculating parameters. The parameters are introduced in this monitoring spreadsheet which provides the overview of the hired staff during projects as well as their reported time and amounts invoiced. The project coordinator makes the initial calculation based on the existing budget and our usual rates for all collaborators.
    • The annual productive hours applied are calculated in accordance with the following method: 1720 annual productive hours (pro-rata for persons not working full-time). Find out more HERE.
    • How to calculate hourly personnel rates? In Horizon2020 projects we apply the Option I: the unit costs are calculated by dividing the total amount of personnel costs by the number of FTE and the annual total productive hours. Our PM cost is 6,000 eur. The hourly rate is therefore 41,86 eur.

If the contract is being renewed, the team leaders decide on the specific tasks of the collaborator in the following year and adjust the amount and time accordingly.

  • Preparing and signing contracts.
  1. The project coordinator prepares the contract template. The template for collaborators (considered as staff) can be found here. The template for service providers can be found here.
  2. The team leaders copy the template replacing the “Contract template” in the title with the name and surname of the collaborator / service provider. They fill-in the fields marked in yellow. Note that the difference from the contracts in 2019 is that the two projects (NGI Forward and POPREBEL) are described seperately, with the duties and the parameters to be introduced seperately as indicated. When writing the contracts under “duties” please pay attention that service providers CANNOT work on the implementation of the action described in the Annex 1 (Workpackage description). In the collaborators’ contracts add ONLY duties related to the project in question.
  3. The billing parameters as indicated in the monitoring spreadsheet should be introduced under “terms, duration and compensation”.
  4. The team leader informs the project coordinator once the contract is finalized. The project coordinator shares the contract with the collaborator for revision.
  5. Once the collaborator accepts the contract, the project coordinator invites both the team leader and the collaborator to sign the contract digitally via Signrequest.

Note that the collaborators cannot start working without first having signed the contract. This entails the obligation to start reporting the time not earlier than from the day the contract is signed.

6. References and resources

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@anique.yael, a lot depends on what you use the document for.

In the interest of transferability, I guess I would propose a proper instructable. Spreadsheet (i.e. database-like) documentation encodes the world view of the person designing the database (i.e. creating an naming the columns). “Internal/external” and “how to/materials” may seem obvious to you, but obscure to someone else. The instructable format assumes that the reader has no idea what the writer is talking about, so the latter needs to make an effort to take no prior knowledge for granted. The additional advantage of a good instructable is that it becomes another part of the digital commons: people outside ER can use it too.

I like your idea of dividing the work into phases, it’s quite natural. So, the phase “from successful application to grant agreement” could become a wiki. “First: update beneficiary details. To do this, do the following: […]”. So could other phases, etc.

This for the documentation. For the project management side, we could even imagine a Dynalist: every time we win a project, we duplicate a whole set of tasks. But, again, Dynalist will only be viable if and when we have email notifs.

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