Abstract

As in most EU countries, where the basic government contribution makes up the largest part of the research budget, international research projects have become a crucial element of the revenue sources of Slovenian higher education institutions. At the same time, externally funded research has become more complex in recent years and HEIs now have to meet a greater number of obligations and requirements from funders in the area of reporting, regulation and demonstrating the impact of funded research. These changes have resulted in the need for more researcher time and more administrative and operational support.
In our presentation we show a case study of the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS) in managing EU projects. The FSS is a member of the University of Ljubljana (UL), the oldest and largest higher education and scientific research institution in Slovenia. We will present a whole range of activities, from project initiation to project evaluation and closure. These activities together form the project management processes. We would like to develop an understanding of how international project management is carried out in HEIs, explore the engagement of different people and units, how stakeholders communicate and where there are opportunities for process improvement. The latter is also the main objective of the ongoing E+ project entitled NUTSHELL, in which the FSS is a partner.
The experts who support the FSS researchers are organized in the International Research Projects Office. In our presentation, we will outline their involvement in the management of EU research projects and their communication relationships with different people and units involved in project management, such as HR, the finance department, R&D centers and individual researchers. We will present our research approach where we identified, modeled and analyzed communication processes and also our findings.
Learning outcomes: In our presentation, we expand on the traditional concept of project management, which focuses on methods for aligning plans and budgets with outcomes. Practice shows that projects suffer from the same kind of 'dysfunctions' as most organizations (Packendorff, 1995), such as deviations from plans, cost overruns, missed targets and conflicts.
This means that we need to broaden our traditional focus, which is on structure, by considering the activities of individuals as the fundamental elements. For this reason, we consider the projects as relationships between the researchers and the research administrators involved in project management. Based on this approach, we analyze the processes and explore the possibilities for their improvement. We contribute to the understanding and deepening of knowledge about research management and administration.