C.2 Coordinating a Horizon Europe Project – special course for Coordinators (digital)

This one-day course will help coordinators (and coordinators to be) to prepare to successfully coordinate their Horizon Europe proposals and projects. It is built on our direct, hands-on experience gained in coordinating projects under Horizon Europe.

In this course, participants will learn all about the bright and the dark side of being a coordinator. The combination of practical presentations and hands-on tips will introduce all the aspects you need to know about efficiently coordinating your actual cost and lump sum project proposals and funded projects to make sure you achieve your objectives and maximise the impact of your project.   

Agenda

08:45–09:00 Entering the Zoom meeting

09:00–09:15 Event Opening and introduction to the course

09:15–10:15 Coordinating the proposal writing; How to smoothly lead a proposal to submission?

• How to distribute the writing of the proposal amongst the key partners
• How to effectively mobilise your partners to unleash their full potential in terms of their input to the proposal and mobilisation of their resources
• What are the key proposal sections that require input to be gathered and consolidated from all partners?
• How to make sure that your partners provide you with accurate data and input for the budget
• Proposal writing – exercises, tools and templates that help the coordinator
• Step-by-step proposal writing and delegation

(10:15–10:30 Coffee Break)

10:30–12:00 Coordination duties in a HE collaborative project 

In addition to the mandatory administrative duties, such as maintaining good working relation with the PO and providing regular updates, Coordinators have to build easy to use internal systems for supporting the implementation of the project and the proper monitoring. And the coordination may mean so much more. 

Step by step introduction to the duties of the Coordinator during 

• the Grant Agreement (GA) preparation from receiving the Invitation to GAP letter till the signature of your GA.
• Consortium Agreement (CA) preparation - LS and actual cost grant - and highlight the topics to be discussed with the partners at each chapter
• Setting up the project – prepare an implementation plan; agree on communication, internal reporting, decision-making, risk assessment procedures
• Horizontal tasks, such as as ethics, research data management, open science obligations and last but for sure not least:
• exploitation, dissemination and knowledge valorisation tasks.

(12:00–12:45 Lunch Break)

12:45–14:00 Reporting and monitoring – Technical implementation and finances (LS and actual cost grants)   

In this session, we will present the full reporting cycle from the coordinator's perspective. We will go through each and every task and discuss the distribution of the work between the coordinator and the partners. Several useful templates and good practices will be shared to facilitate the coordinator's work.

We will also go through all the financial aspects, from pre-financing to the distribution of the payment of the balance. How do we monitor project spending? How detailed should an internal reporting be? What data and figures does this internal financial report provide? How do we handle budget related requests from partners? What to do with deviations?

(14:00–14:15 Coffee Break)

14:15–15:00 Workshop: Coordination case studies and scenarios

Under the moderation of trainers, participants will analyse and discuss solutions to real-life coordination scenarios such as: Delays and quality problems in results; Overspending and underperforming partners; Conflicts on exploitation and intellectual property rights (IPR) issues such as conflicts between publication vs protection of results; Handling disagreements on ownership, access rights and exploitation pathways; Addressing lack of partner engagement in valorisation activities; Decision-making as coordinator in balancing scientific openness, commercial interests and project obligations.

--- 

About the Horizon Europe courses 

The Research Council of Norway offers a structured series of courses for applicants to Horizon Europe. The courses are organised by topic, project role, and level of experience.  

Introductory courses (Series A and E) are digital and suitable for all roles, while Series B, C, and D are in-person, role-specific courses that typically run over one or two days. 

C. Project Management

Courses in the C-series are suitable for Project Managers and Advisors responsible for planning and implementing Horizon Europe projects. See all the course offerings.

C.1 Research and Innovation Project Management: the first steps 
C.2 Coordinating a Horizon Europe Project – special course for Coordinators 
C.3 Horizon Europe Project Management and Reporting 
C.4 Legal Agreements in Horizon Europe