@hugi the answer we got from Jan is that they will definitely finance a solid portion, perhaps all we have requested. So formally, no approval yet, but @alberto do you think Hugi can go ahead anyway?
No, I am not comfortable with this. It shifts all the risks onto Edgeryders. We can only proceed with an “exit clause”.
Fresh in from Jan: we can count on 40K direct costs at least. “probably something more, but no more than 45K”. Let’s re-prioritize ASAP, @marina @ivan.
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That is 40k + eventual expenses by UCL for selected providers, or 40k fullstop?
Don’t know yet, but asked the question to Jan.
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40K full stop.
Ok, we can discuss i pani and i pesci on Monday in the office with Marina present.
I will prepare the numbers concerning WP7.
Let’s start by disentangling the Graphryder’s situation.
@hugi has:
- A contract to end in June 2022 funded with 5K to him, of which only 2.5K were spent.
- An addendum of 3K (again, to Hugi personally) for 2022, completely unspent.
So, we can confirm that a budget of 5K (actually 5.5K) is already available to cover Hugi’s work.
Additionally, we have 6K in other goods and services, allocated to Ouestware (pending Hugi’s say-so).
From the new amendment, we take 4K EUR. The total amounts to 5 K EUR for Hugi, plus 10K EUR for the third-party developer, which completely funds these activities off development of Graphryder.
For the rest, we are going to
- let go of the extra 20K of communication (OGS), which we don’t try to replace.
- reduce substantially the extra effort on dissemination and data analysis. What is left, I am going to claim myself.
- defend project management and the extra staff budget on communication (for the impact conference).
The new breakdown is:
| Activity | Type | PM | Budget (direct) | Budget (total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data analysis, supplement | staff | 1 | 6000 | 7500 |
| Dissemination: writing and presenting | staff | 1.5 | 9000 | 11250 |
| Tech support: improving Graphryder | OGS | 4000 | 5000 | |
| Project management | staff | 1.5 | 9000 | 11250 |
| Communication | staff | 2 | 12000 | 15000 |
| Total | 6 | 40000 | 50000 |
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Understood! This completely covers my project management, documentation and training for Graphryder until the end of 2022.
I have already opened the discussion with Ouestware, and they are ready to go. Once I get the green light I will have them go through procurement. Do I have the green light?
Yes.
We had to change this slightly, so just as an info to others, this is the final version:
I am fresh from today’s team leaders meeting. It turns out that, after going through the numbers, UCL has 40K extra direct costs total earmarked for going to other partners, not just to fund our activities. This is after funding the salaries of the ethnographers. The latter are funded with some leftover UCL money that is set to stay in UCL.
Bottom line is, the discussion we had with @marina and @ivan above was premature, and even a bit useless. In the meeting, people presented what they wanted to do if they had some extra money. I explained once again what we ourselves would do. At the end of the day Jan will make a decision, and we will accept it. Since money (that, six months ago, looked abundant) is now once again scarce, then UCL will, rightly, take a more proactive approach towards allocating this money: at the end of the day, this is his budget and his decision. At this time, Jan thinks we should invest in communicating more towards non-academic audiences. Will write a new update as he circulates a table with a proposed reallocation.
wow ok. so the phrase from one of Jan’s last e-mails “we are going to be able to put in the revised budget NO LESS THAN 50k (including indirect costs) for Edgeryders” is completely incorrect.
Well, technically they would be able to, but there are competing proposals, so they do not necessarily want to. Which is fine, except I would have liked to save all this extra work allocating nonexistent budgets 
.
I feel you!
Can we understand quickly what the possible and existing budget can be?
Update: meeting with Jan again today. He is looking now at partners’ requests, line by line. We will most likely get “something” instead of “nothing”. That is all I can say for now. Later today or tomorrow we should get final word.
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No news yet?
Ah, yes, that’s settled. Sorry for not updating the thread, in my defense we discussed this at biweeklies. We got 17,625 EUR + indirect costs. @marina can point you to the final allocation, but nothing changes for you.
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Yes, sorry @hugi didn’t post here.
It ended up on this:
The Graphryder part internally is OGS but we are getting it under personnel as it was easier for UCL. We will then reallocate within this budget and report accordingly so there shouldn’t be issues with that.
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Ok great, I will then ask OuestWare to go through procurement for 10k to improve Graphryder this fall.