The document provides guidance for project managers on non-scientific aspects to consider during proposal writing for EU funded projects. It recommends carefully planning the project budget and tasks to ensure resources are sufficient. It also stresses the importance of establishing a clear management structure and internal reporting processes to monitor progress and address any issues early. Additionally, it outlines key sections of the proposal like impact, dissemination and ethics that require attention from a project management perspective.

1. best practices
from EU project manager
or
What you should think
the proposal writing?
by Anastasia Walter
Universität Hamburg
Centrum für Erdsystemforschung und Nachhaltigkeit (CEN)
October 2017

2. Introduction
Currently:
Project manager of CERES project
(H2020, Blue Growth)
at UHH CEN / IHF
Relevant experience:
9 years project manager of EU funded big collaborative
Projects in FP6, FP7 and H2020
in Part Societal Challenges (previously: Cooperation)
 type of actions: RIA, IA, CSA/SA
 applied research (mostly), demonstration
 industry involvement (and high commitment)
 consortia with > 20 project partners (and up to 65)
 proposal preparation, coordination and co-writing
 project management and follow-up

3. What you should think about during the
proposal writing from the PM perspective?
• Project planning: Budget vs. Tasks
• Project plan
• Management structure & composition (Section 2.1)
• Internal reporting & performance monitoring
• Other non-scientific aspects of H2020 project
–Ethics
–Impact & Dissemination
–Advisory boards

4. What are non-scientific parts?
Source: http://www.hyperion.ie/templates.htm
Job to be done Responsible
Person
PART A
Form A1: Summary
Form A2: Partner details Each partner
Project Effort form
Form A3: Summary of costs
PART B
1. Scientific and/or technical quality relevant to call
1.1 Concepts and objectives
1.2 Progress beyond the state of the art
1.3 S/T methodology and associated work-plan
1.3 (i) Overall strategy of the work-plan Coordinator
1.3 (ii) Gantt Chart Manager
1.3 (iii) Breakdown of the work
1.3a Work-package List
1.3b Deliverables List
1.3c Description of each work-package WP Leaders
1.3d Summary effort table
1.3e List of Milestones
1.3 (iv) Pert Chart
Risk and Contingency Plans
2. Implementation
2.1 Management Structure and procedures (5 pages)
2.2 Individual Participants (1 page per participant) Each partner
2.3 Consortium as a whole
Third Parties / Subcontractors ?
International Partners?
Future additional partners?
2.4 Resources to be committed
Cost
Other sources of income for the work
3. Impact
3.1 Expected Impacts
3.2 Dissemination of project results
Exploitation of project results
Management of intellectual property
4. Ethical Issues
5. Consideration of gender aspects
Letter of Intent or Consortium Agreement?

5. What are non-scientific parts?
Source: http://www.hyperion.ie/templates.htm
Proposal content Responsible
Person
PART A
Form A1: Summary
Form A2: Partner details Each partner
Project Effort form
Form A3: Summary of costs
PART B
1. Scientific and/or technical quality relevant to call
1.1 Concepts and objectives
1.2 Progress beyond the state of the art
1.3 S/T methodology and associated work-plan
1.3 (i) Overall strategy of the work-plan Coordinator
1.3 (ii) Gantt Chart Manager
1.3 (iii) Breakdown of the work
1.3a Work-package List
1.3b Deliverables List
1.3c Description of each work-package WP Leaders
1.3d Summary effort table
1.3e List of Milestones
1.3 (iv) Pert Chart
Risk and Contingency Plans
2. Implementation
2.1 Management Structure and procedures (5 pages)
2.2 Individual Participants (1 page per participant) Each partner
2.3 Consortium as a whole
Third Parties / Subcontractors ?
International Partners?
Future additional partners?
2.4 Resources to be committed
Cost
Other sources of income for the work
3. Impact
3.1 Expected Impacts
3.2 Dissemination of project results
Exploitation of project results
Management of intellectual property
4. Ethical Issues
5. Consideration of gender aspects
Letter of Intent or Consortium Agreement /

6. Project plan:
Budget vs. Tasks
– Check if your partner have assigned sufficient resources vs. Tasks planned
Tip: plan your resources (person-month) internally per task  WP leaders & coordinator
have a good overview on efforts planned and responsibilities
– In WP description describe clearly the contribution of each WP partner
– The allocation of the resources must be clear in Section B3.1 Work plan
– Consumables must be sufficient justified

7. Project plan:
Budget vs. Tasks
Goal:
– Create clear responsibilities (less discussions afterwards) and a good impression
for the evaluators (you have a detailed plan)
Benefits:
- It helps coordinator and WP and Task (!) leaders for partners’ performance
monitoring & Reporting
– You still keep full flexibility
• Invest few more hours during the proposal preparation to save time for later
discussions and clarification during the project, which delay the project progress and
cause conflicts
(=consume more resources , cause more risks)

8. Person-month per WP are plan for the proposal/contract (stays flexible!)

9. Planned person-months per Task immensely help project coordinator, WP and task leaders!

10. Don’t forget
to plan the budget for:
 Efficient number of project meetings
– annual/bi-annual project assembly
– SSC and other management bodies
– review meetings with EC/Agency
– conferences, workshops, field studies…
 Internal PM-tool
 CFS (for partners with >325 k€ funding)
 Subcontracting/ services
(if any minor task cannot be performed by a consortium, e.g.
development of an user interface for the software )
 Sufficient coordination costs
(+2 month after the project end)
 Dissemination
– Open access
– Conference fees
– IT-/Web tools
– Printed materials
– Video films
– Web/Graphic designer
 Gender tasks
 Summer schools /training activities
 costs for external advisors / experts

11. Project plan
• Check carefully the project plan
• Timing of WP and Tasks and dependencies
WWW - WHO delivers WHAT and WHEN
• WP and tasks should be checked and agreed with consortium
• Deadline for Deliverable Reports 1 month later than Result
(time for writing and internal check & approval)
• Define Milestones in more detail (don’t mix with deliverables)
• Milestone = Event – planned on the overall project level (cross-WP)
WP)
• Deliverable = Result (mostly reports) – can be output of a WP or Task

12. Section 2.1 Project
Management
• Put Management WP 
• Define different WP and Task Leaders for other WPs
(check  they must have enough resources planned to be able to manage their WP and Tasks)
• Decide about management structure. Describe why this structure is appropriate to the complexity and
scale of the project
• Elaborate and describe the methodology for progress monitoring and reporting
• Describe the conflict resolution and decision making mechanisms
• Make visible the experience in the leadership of EU-projects of the coordination team
• Provide a sufficient risk management plan (Table 3.2 B critical risks).
Risks could be:
– Technical
– Scientific
– Economic
– Rules & Legislation
– Ethical etc [1].
[1] McMarty, Seán, “How to write a competitive proposal for Horizon 2020”, November 2013, Co Cork

13. Consortium structure and
management bodies
• Check if your PM part is inline with (future) contracts:
• Consortium Agreement - Model CA (DESCA)
• EC Annotated Model Grant Agreement
• Who will compose the steering group?
• What groups should be established to perform in best
way the proposed work, e.g.
– Dissemination/Exploitation Group
– Industry stakeholders
– Lead User Group (users of results)
– Expert groups
• Any external groups (non-beneficiaries)? e.g.
– Reference user group
– Scientific advisors
– Governmental authorities and NGOs
– Associations
Source: ‘CERES’, EC Grant Agreement Nr 678193

14. Internal reporting and
progress monitoring
• Normally reporting to EC are on annual basis or every 18 months
Too late, if issues come up
•  You have to identify problems & issues as early as possible:
– low partner performance
– unclear tasks or results or
– working approach / detailed requirements / isn’t agreed / defined
– delays in finalising of task result in delay of deliverables and milestones
– low quality of expected results
– changes in resourced planned needed

15. Internal reporting
Every 3, 4 or 6 months – depends on
• Project complexity
• Risks
• Scope of reporting
Example (CERES project):
Work done
(activities
performed)
Results achieved
(short list)
Issues
Deviations from DoA
and corrective
measures
Upcoming
Activities (next 6
months)
Description of
possible risks and
their impact on
Task / WP
Risk score*
Proposed
mitigation actions
(preventative and
contingency)
L C T
A few bullet points
describing the work
carried out for each
Task you are involved
in during the reporting
period Months 1-18
provide a very short list
of achieved (preliminary)
results
Any issue / concerns
experienced which may
need addressing in the
future.
Explain the reasons for
deviations from the DoA, the
consequences and the
proposed corrective actions.
1) Include explanations for
tasks not fully implemented,
critical objectives not fully
achieved and/or not being on
schedule. Explain also the
impact on other tasks on the
available resources and the
planning.
2) Include explanations on
deviations of the use of
resources between actual
and planned (in Annex1),
especially related to person-
months per work package.
Brief description of
the anticipated
future delivery over
the next 6 months;
Months 19 - 24
Indicate possible
risks and how they
can affect on your
Task and WP
an
asses
sment
of the
likeliho
od a
risk
will
occur
(1-low,
2-
mediu
m, 3-
high)
possibl
e
serious
ness/i
mpact
if the
risk
does
occur
(1-low,
2-
mediu
m, 3-
high)
a total
grade
of
each
risk (L
x C
calcula
ted
autom
atically
)
Propose the
measures for
mitigation of the
possible risks
risk register (PRINCE2)
Source: Anastasia Walter, Project ‘CERES’, EC Grant Agreement Nr 678193

16. Why?
Project time
Degree
beginning end
low
high
cost of changes
stakeholder influence, risk & uncertainty
Changes over the project life time
Reference: Impact on variables based
on project time,
Project Management Institute 2008

17. Contractual reporting to EC &
internal reporting
Project duration
Continuous Reporting
Periodic
reporting
Periodic
reporting
Final
reporting
End of reporting
period 1 (month
12/18)
Project end
(month 36…48)
End of reporting
period 2
(month 24/36)
Internal project interim reporting
 Proposal: Describe short but clear your progress monitoring methods
 During the project:
 try to avoid researcher fatigue
 Check cost-benefit ratio of the reporting Source: Anastasia Walter

18. IMPACT
• A political word
• Section should be written by partner who will use the project impact
• Should be written in the language of the users of the results
• Specific programmes and type of actions have different types of impact with different
TRL
1. Describe the ‘big picture’ (context: value chain, stakeholder diagram)
2. Indicate where the research is focused (in the innovation chain)
3. Describe the TRL of the research
4. Identify your partners in 1.
5. Convert project outputs (deliverables) to outcomes (dissemination & exploitation plans) [1]
[1] McMarty, Seán, “How to write a competitive proposal for Horizon 2020”, November 2013, Co Cork

19. Exploitation &
Dissemination
• Exploitation & Use
– Utilisation of results in
• Future research activities
• Developing, creating and marketing of a new product / process
• Creation and providing a service
• Standardisation activities
E.g. Licence, Manual, Handbook, Pilot site, trial
• Dissemination - public disclosure of results (e.g. scientific publications,
presentations, courses & training) – used to promote the project and the expected
outcomes to the relevant stakeholders

20. Non-scientific aspects:
GENDER ISSUES
Background:
– Equality
– Discrimination
– Equity men/women
Gender issues in H2020 can be summarised as follows:
Research FOR/BY/ABOUT women in science:
FOR: research that is specific for women
BY: number of women involved in the proposed work
ABOUT: it may be possible to introduce a specific gender dimension to the project
If there is NO gender aspects: state it clearly
“the issue was considered and no gender aspect can be introduced to the project” [1]
_____
[1] McMarty, Seán, “How to write a competitive proposal for Horizon 2020”, November 2013, Co Cork

21. Section 5: Ethics
 Tip: BAK Leitfaden zur Beachtung ethischer Aspekte in Horizon 2020
• Usually each project has at least 1 ethical issue: e.g. personal data collection on
website, project newsletter mailing lists, contacts of external stakeholders etc.
• If you have entered any ethics issues in the table (administrative proposal forms) you
must submit an ethics self-assessment
• Provide a documents that you need under national law
• address these issues in the Section 5

22. Thank you for your attention!
Questions?
Anastasia Walter
Project manager
CERES Office at CEN
Universität Hamburg
Grindelberg 5, 20144 Hamburg
anastasia.walter@uni-hamburg.de