Abstract

In a world where projects are increasingly complex and proposals required to have a societal impact on society for the whole planet, pragmatism is often ignored. MSCA projects are executed and MSCA proposals are written, but the lessons learned are easily forgotten. Therefore in this session the authors will address the following question: “How to nudge Principle Investigators minds to be pragmatic while remain innovative?”.
Under the alliance of the European Consortium of Innovative Universities, ECIU, a simple request for collaboration has led to the strengthening of knowledge, community, nations and people. ECIU is a network of universities united by a common profile of shared beliefs, interests and mutual trust that brought these project managers together to learn and share. ECIU wants to be frontrunners in innovation and sharing. Now we are going to share our priceless experiences. Two dedicated project managers, one from the University of Tampere, Finland, and one from the University of Twente, the Netherlands, will share how they have implemented strategies to shape the minds of the Principle Investigators (cq. Professors, Assistant Professors, postdoctoral researchers or others).
The strategies will be revealed in a dynamic and interactive way. A lot of interaction is foreseen in this session to show the simple techniques that were implemented in the universities. As Principle Investigators were told in one session: ”Purpose is to trigger your brain to think wisely and smartly when writing your proposal, also on practical implementations! In an interactive workshop we go through section 3. quality and efficiency of the implementation of MSCA Doctoral Networks. During this EARMA session, the objective is that all participants share their point of view and learn from others on best practical implementation. Our ambition is that participants leave with new knowledge; new ideas and new energy.
The focus on the MSCA Doctoral Networks is not accidental but this program has an intrinsic motivation for both project managers. Jan Beerens (UT): “Seeing young people grow and develop gives enormous energy, especially after experiencing the difficulties of mobility between countries”. Salla Kotakorva (TAU): "There are many different ways to reach the goal, but the attitude is that counts”. Furthermore, an MSCA project should not only be an experimental place for the researchers, but also for the research managers to experiment with topics such as team and network building; development of coaching and leadership skills; storytelling and presentation techniques.
In projects, the steps are usually linear: from the crazy ideas of the Principle Investigators towards proposal building, hopefully in collaboration with the pre-award teams. And if the proposal is awarded it moves into the project implementation, again hopefully with the post-award team until the project is closed. But often forgotten is the important step of evaluation, or as one of the core principles in PRINCE2 “Learn from Experience”. Therefore lets share and combine knowledge, experience and expertise so that research managers don’t have to reinvent the wheel, let’s bridge between Pre- and Post award in joint collaborations to become more anti-fragile and KISS.