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Management structure
The various bodies and persons in the management organisation are depicted in the following chart and their roles will be described in the text.
The Steering Committee (SC) is the body where all vital decisions for the Network are taken. Therefore, the SC consists of fully authorised representatives of all Parties, supplemented by one representative of the Young Researchers Council. The SC will meet twice a year and decide according to a one-party-one-vote principle. The decisions of the SC are binding for all parties.
The Advisory Councils: The Young Researchers Council (YRC) consists of all ESR and ER appointed in the Network. The YRC will meet regularly, at least twice annually, and will be a meeting place for the young researchers, as well as an advisory body to the Network. One representative of the YRC is member of the SC with a vote equal to the other Parties. The Industrial Council (IC) consists of representatives of all industrial members of the Network. The IC will provide the Network, invited or uninvited, with advice with respect to industrial training aspects, industrial applications and IPR.
The Executive Board (EB) forms the managerial heart of the Network. It consists of the Network Coordinator, the Science Manager, and the Training and Mobility Manager. They meet four times a year and jointly coordinate the Network. All planning, reporting and archiving is done under their supervision and guidance, although the SC has the deciding power on all main subjects.
- The Coordinator
- Prof J.F.G Vliegenthart, is the formal Contact person and Banker. That includes the tasks to be performed towards the Commission. Furthermore, the Coordinator will chair the SC as well as the EB.
- The Training and Mobility Manager
- Dr. B.R. Leeflang will coordinate all Task Forces related to Training, Mobility and Networking. He will head the Network Support Team and is a member of the EB.
- The Science Manager
- Prof. S. Penades, will keep track of the scientific progress established in the scientific Task Forces. She is a member of the EB. It is the duty of the Science Manager to inform the EB timely on scientific progress and/or difficulties.
The Network Support Team (NST)
will handle most of the administrative burden of the Network on
behalf of the EB. A realistic budget has been made available for the
NST.
The Task Forces perform all real
work within the Network and consist of representatives of all Parties
performing the given Task. In order to ensure good cooperation and
integration the decision basis is one-party-one-vote. Each Task Force
will have a Rapporteur.
Planning and Control
The management of the network will be on the basis of well-established project management procedures. The work plan as included in this proposal, with its tasks, timeline and milestones will form a strong guideline for management of the project. The semi-annual meetings will be used to crosscheck progress with the original objectives. The Task Force Rapporteurs will be asked to submit written progress reports prior to the meetings. Because of the nature of the project, which is aimed at exploring potential new applications and fundamental insights in the area of glyconanoscience, there are no critical paths defined in the project. The aim is to concentrate on the most promising explorations. During the Planning and Control cycle these explorations can be added and/or discontinued. Subsequently, new exploratory tasks can get assigned. At the EB meetings allocation of resources will also be monitored. Timely appointment of qualified personnel is of imminent importance to meet the set objectives. Each partner has made provisions to allocate in-house expertise and personnel to this project. When necessary, resources will be intensified or reallocated in order to maintain the planned delivery of targets.
Communication, Dissemination and IPR
The dissemination of the results during and after the project will be through publications in peer-reviewed journals and in contributions to scientific conferences. Annually, the Network will publish a popular-scientific overview in all languages of the Network. The public face of the Virtual Research Training Centre web site will continuously present the accorded project achievements. In all dissemination activities the European Community will be adequately acknowledged with mention of the Marie Curie programme and the contract number. Proper care will be taken to ensure that potentially exploitable intellectual property rights can be duly protected. The IC has an important advisory function in this area. The IPR aspects will be fully covered by the Consortium Agreement.
Internally, the progress will be visualized on the private Virtual Research Training Centre website. This strategy promotes tight collaboration within the consortium and assures that all Task Forces are aware of progress at the others, at all times during the project.
Financial management procedures
The Network finances will be handled by the NST under the final responsibility of the Coordinator. The general policy is that all Parties should receive an advance payment at the beginning of the Contract, proportional to their envisioned total budget. Later instalments will be distributed on based on the actual reasonable costs incurred in the previous period. In the event that a network partner cannot (for whatever reason) execute his tasks as outlined in the Description of Work of the Contract, the SC can decide to transfer or redistribute the funds. Redistributions larger than 30% require approval of the European Commission. The coordinator will be responsible for the overall auditing and will report to the SC.
The EB will centrally administer the budgets for training and career development. One third of these funds will be transferred directly to the partners for covering local training expenses using the system outlined above. The organisation of network wide training events will be funded from this budget on the basis of actual costs. Furthermore, the development and operation of the on-line learning facilities will be paid from the training budget. The SC will oversee a fair distribution.
The EB will delegate administrative and organizational duties to the NST headed by the Training and Mobility manager paid part-time from the management budget. He will cover financial matters, recruitment matters, and organisation of summer schools, networking, and the reporting to the EC. Furthermore, budget needs to be allocated to the development, installation and maintenance of the advanced Virtual Research Training Centre. This will be spent in a sub-contract with [Infrae]. The remainder of the EC contribution for management will be distributed equally to all partners to cover their network-related management tasks.