WP1: Management and Coordination

Workpackage Leader

Charlotte Höhn
Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung
Wiesbaden, Germany

Objectives

Management covers structural, technical, organisational and scientific issues. It encompasses project coordination work, technical management and scientific coordination in view of achieving smooth implementation and completion of all tasks, and production of all deliverables in due time and according to high standards of excellence.

Description of Work

Quality Assurance

The project will operate within determined administrative procedures which will be defined at the very early stage covering management, reporting, document standards, collaborative specification and development, review, configuration and general quality assurance. The quality reviewing functions are important to make sure that all contributions and conclusions are consistent to meet the requirements of the deliverables.
A common format will be agreed upon for the preparation of all documents and deliverables.
The management of the project will be implemented through regular meetings and correspondence among the consortium members, with monthly updates sent to the consortium members through the coordinator.

Decision Structure

The decision structure is organised around work package leadership. Each work package leader will be in charge of the specific tasks and deliverables for each work package. Each work package will be under the direct responsibility of the work package leader who will also draw guidelines for the work package-specific deliverables. This is expected to greatly assist partner No. 1 in the overall coordinator of the project.

Meetings

A total of six meetings are planned to discuss the progress of the work with all partners. The coordinator will be responsible for setting up of agendas at meetings. Partners will meet twice a year and the meetings will be scheduled so that they take place shortly prior to the submission of deliverables to the Commission. The end of each project meeting will be kept for a management meeting among the coordinator and work package leaders. The consortium meetings will take place at locations of partner institutions, namely, Wiesbaden, Rome, Zurich, Ljubljana, Vienna and Brussels.
In the phase of harmonisation of the data base the work package leader will visit some of the partners at their location site. In the phase of coordination of the Delphi survey the work package leader will visit some of the partners at their location site.

Communication Flow

The communication between partners will be facilitated by the six meetings. At each of the meeting partners will discuss results of accomplished tasks, jointly develop a strategy for the next research step, and exchange general information regarding scientific work and management.
A website as project sharing tool will be established by the coordinator. Partners will post all project relevant information, working documents, data, periodic reports and project deliverables which may be internally shared. Access to the project sharing tool will be limited to partners and scientific officer of the Commission. General public access will be reserved for selected public deliverables only. At the end of the project limitation to access will be lifted and all project deliverables intended for public dissemination will become available on an open project website.
Several mailing lists will be established for the benefit of all partners in view of communication with other organisations and projects and policy actors. The scientific officer of the project at Commission level will be included in all mailing lists and will be informed of all major events.