ACTION 1: Project management and monitoring of project progress

The establishment of a solid management foundation is a precondition for the successful implementation of any project. The primary goal of Project Management is to establish professional project management structures and processes in order to ensure the quality and timely submission of the project results and furthermore, to establish indicators for measuring project progress and impact. Project Management represents an essential horizontal activity, running throughout the duration of the project in support of all other activities.

The Strategy for this Activity is to:

• Establish high professional standards for project execution: Ensure that the Technical Assistance Team establishes and maintains the highest standards of project management and implementation.
• Produce state-of-the-art project deliverables: Install and apply project co-ordination and consultation procedures, in order to ensure the timely production of high-quality deliverables.
• Introduce project planning and control mechanisms: Define indicators for monitoring and independently assessing the project’s progress.
• Create a safe project environment: Develop appropriate quality and risk management mechanisms.
• Maximize project output for the partners and the audience
• Create awareness and visibility of project results

The overall responsible of this Action will be TUC. A list of the key staff needed for the implementation of the project has already been determined. The Technical University of Crete and the partners will provide the necessary staff for the fulfilment of the activities of the project. In addition, the role and responsibilities of the coordinating beneficiary and the partner will be clearly determined. More specifically, the attainment of the project’s objective depends on the successful and timely completion of all the actions by all participants. The coordinating beneficiary will be the manager – coordinator of the project and will have the supervision of all the activities. To this respect, 2 persons of the TUC (1 will be the overall Project Manager) as well as 1 person from each partner will constitute the Project Steering Committee (PSC) and will be responsible:

• To prevent any malfunctions and problems
• To have at any time a global view on the project and on the main problems raised
• To ascertain the overall progress of the work
• To manage the different priorities during the development of each task (smoothly running of project activities)
• To secure the optimum flow of information through the partners
• To manage the dissemination of activities
• To ensure the smooth completion of each task and the on time submission of all deliverables
• To ensure the high quality of the produced reports
• To ensure the eligibility of the expenses
• Project leadership through chairmanship of technical meetings, workshops, etc
• To maintain effective communication and flow of information as required for the efficient implementation of the project
• To take all management decisions

In addition, the Project Manager will be responsible (in consultation with the PSC) for:

• the representation of the team on all contractual matters;
• the overall budget management, financial control and financial responsibility;
• the initial coordination of all teams
• the establishment and maintenance of good working relations with the LIFE+ Committee and the LIFE+ External Monitoring Team
• the establishment and maintenance of good working relations with all  the stakeholders
• the submission of all reports

Each partner will allocate the necessary personnel in order to establish the Technical Team. The purpose of the team is to achieve the objectives of the project and produce the expected deliverables and results. TUC will coordinate the input of all partners in the various fields of activities and will monitor activities of other projects to avoid duplication. In the TUC technical team, the Technical Director of the project will be included. Moreover, in each Action, an Action Manager, will be allocated coming from the responsible beneficiary who will be the overall responsible for the implementation of each Action.

A Managing Committee is suggested to be created which could help the lead partner and develop a role of management and coordination of the project. The Committee could take action for bringing urgent decisions about possible difficulties in the realization of the foreseen actions and to help the lead partner in relevant to management subjects, if it is necessary.

The main activities of each budgeted manager are the following:

• Overall project manager (from TUC):
  • Chairman of steering committee
  • Overall technical and financial monitoring of the project
  • Communication with the LIFE+ Committee and the LIFE+ External Monitoring Team
  • Monitoring of timetable – timely submission of deliverables
  • Coordination of the partners – Monitoring of the contribution of each partner in the project
  • Organization of the preparation of framework reports (inception, progress, interim, final)
  • Resolution of problems and issues that may arise
  • Organization of management meetings
• Technical director (from TUC with the support of partners’ technical responsibles) :
  • Technical responsible for the deliverables
  • Coordinator of all tasks teams
  • Allocation of technical work – Responsible for key technical decisions
  • Collaboration with task managers during the task implementation
  • Collaboration with the project manager for the preparation of reports and resolving of problems
  • Organization of technical meetings
  • Monitoring of overall timetable (especially in relation to task deliverables)
• Action manager (from responsible beneficiary):
  • Responsible for action implementation
  • Organization of action working team
  • Preparation of action deliverables
  • Resolution of action related problems (if necessary with the contribution of the technical director or project manager)
  • Monitoring of action timetable

More specifically the management structure presented in the figure below will be implemented for the project’s efficient management

During this Action, the preparation of reports and statements will take place (progress reports, final reports, financial statements, etc). This means that via the project steering committee the European Commission will be informed about the progress of the project. All partners will be involved in the preparation of the reports, under the coordination of TUC with the support of partners MOH and AVINOIL.

Malfunctions and problems during the Task will not be expected since the applicant (TUC) and the partners have a great experience in the participation in European projects as well as in the management of research programmes.

The Technical Director will have regular meetings with the Action Managers in order to assess the project progress. Then the Technical Director will regularly inform the members of the PSC about the progress of the project. The PSC will have the opportunity to comment on the results of the projects implementation process and based on the information provided by the Technical Director it will make recommendations for adjustments whenever required.

Meetings between the Technical Director, the Action Managers and the PSC will be hosted regularly, whenever necessary for a good monitoring of the implementation of the project.

The Technical Director will utilize progress monitoring indicators in order to facilitate the evaluation of the project’s implementation. These indicators will include:

• The indicators identified in every task (see in action description)
• The minutes of the meetings
• The number and significance of problems identified
• The management reports
• The comments of LIFE+ Committee and other stakeholders
• The respect of the timetable in terms of project deliverables

It is also mentioned that the number of technical and organizational meetings in each actions are considered as progress indicators.

TUC will be responsible for this action.

The coordinating beneficiary will employ an external auditor for the verification of the financial statements that will accompany the final project report. The aim of this external audit is to verify the respect of national legislation and accounting rules as well as the LIFE+ Common Provisions.

TUC will be responsible for this action.

This action refers to the elaboration of an action plan for the further communication of the project results and knowledge after its end. This action plan will include:

• The communication and dissemination of critical information included in REACH requirements to all Greek market oriented stakeholders
• Promotion of the resulting Protocol(s) to higher percentage of target groups, including environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and relevant rating systems for REACH implementation.
• Pilot implementation of the functional tools of an Information Centre in the framework of project proposed as a continuation of this one.

It should be noted at this point that the TUC and MOH working teams has implemented successfully other Life projects a few years ago.

TUC and MOH having implemented other previous LIFE projects, as well as other projects of similar nature, have already developed great experience in communicating the project results after a project’s end life. Such activities include presentations in conferences, preparation of papers in scientific journals, constant updating of the project’s website, etc

The main outcome of this action will be the After – Life Communication action plan, as part of the final report.

TUC will be the overall responsible beneficiary designated to this Action, while all other partners will contribute in the preparation and implementation of the action plan.

For discussing the progress of the project activities, a designated number of general project meetings are foreseen in the framework of the project. These meetings will be complementary to the ad hoc meetings that the Technical Director will have with the Action Managers to monitor the progress of the actions.

In the project meetings, at least one representative from each partner of the project will participate, in addition to the Technical Director and the Task Managers.

It is envisaged that the necessary number of technical meetings will be conducted in order to facilitate the smooth development of the project’s technical actions and other organizational needs (working groups, technical groups, organizational groups, etc.).

TUC will be the designated beneficiary responsible for this action.