Competitive and sustainable growth
Management and Administration
Yüklə 0,78 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Organisational structure
- Communication flows and methods
- Decision mechanisms and other matters
- MILESTONES DUE BY MIDTERM REVIEW
9 Management and AdministrationManagement capability of the project coordinator The National Physical Laboratory (NPL, UK) presented the original Expression of Interest to EC to form the VI for Thermal Metrology and is particularly well placed to be the EVITherM project coordinator. NPL has managed national and international scientific projects for decades and, as a national measurement institute, knowledge transfer is one of its primary functions, to which it devotes between 10% and 15% of its science budget. Last year alone NPL ran some 150 research projects for non-government customers, and it operates 26 industrial awareness clubs, in different technical areas providing a platform to enable organisations sharing common technical interests to benefit from shared expertise and advances in metrology. Particularly relevant to this proposal, 8 years ago NPL established the UK’s Temperature & Thermophysical Properties Awareness Club (http://www.npl.co.uk/npl/clubs/tpac/) that links the temperature and thermophysics interests of academia and industry. NPL’s clubs span a broad range of activities from information exchange through to full technical collaborations, involving joint research or measurement intercomparisons. These clubs have an important role to play in helping to formulate new programmes at NPL to ensure that user needs and interests are represented. NPL also runs training courses aimed at levels ranging from technicians to senior engineers, giving trainees access to NPL expertise and scientific facilities. Organisational structure The project has five Principal Contractors (CRs) – NPL, ARC, CNR-IMGC,LNE and PTB and a further 29 identified Members. Provision has also been made to recruit a further 15 new members, mainly from industry, during the course of the project. Each of the CRs is responsible for 5 or 6 of the identified members and each of the CRs is also a leader of at least one of the nine work packages in the project. The table below shows which members are linked to which CRs and also lists the WP leaders.
A steering committee will be set up during the first few months of the project in order to ensure that the VI meets user needs as well as providing a mechanism for resolving technical and financial issues and harmonising/coordinating activities across all work packages. This committee will be populated with CRs, Work Package (WP) leaders, selected key Members and industry user group representatives Each work package has a WP leader and team of currently 5 to 15 members, all of whom are assigned specific tasks (Section 3 lists all the work packages and their leaders and members). Work packages WP1 to WP3 are concerned with ensuring good communication with and take-up of the VI by the user community, identifying user needs and issues, training and knowledge transfer activities, developing the website and establishing the VI early in the EC-funded phase as a viable business. Work packages WP4 to WP9, the technical work packages, are concerned with creation of information and activities that will be available via the website. The outputs of these WPs will be crucial in establishing the technical reputation of EVITherM and attracting and retaining its members. Communication flows and methods It is important for the future commercial success of the VI that it is run cost-effectively and yet manages to recruit and enthuse supporters and contributors. Most of the day-to-day management of the VI will be conducted by members electronically or by phone but some of the most effective and valuable communication e.g. with contractors or providers of original website content, such as e-learning and best practice documentation, will be achieved through face-to-face meetings. There will be regular meetings of the Steering Committee (SC), Work package teams and selected meetings with sub-contractors and would-be user group representatives. The SC and workpackage teams will meet most often in the first year, prior to establishment of the VI as a business, and thereafter meet biannually to review progress, agree future work, tackle issues arising and respond to user feedback. Wherever possible such meetings will be organised for the same time and place to facilitate interaction between the Steering Committee and work package teams. Attendance by an EC representative at these meetings is optional - apart from the mid-term review meeting, where it is essential. The EC will receive 6-monthly project progress reports from the project coordinator (in months 6, 12, 18, 24 and 30), annual cost statements in months 12 and 24, and a final project cost statement with report and conclusions in month 36. There will also be opportunities to hold VI meetings that engage the users or potential users of the VI. These include clubs (the UK, Germany and Italy all have national thermal metrology clubs), meetings, exhibitions and trade fairs and conferences; for instance, an introductory profile-raising meeting for EVITherM has already been held at this year’s European Thermophysical Properties Conference (ECTP 2002) in London. Apart from the direct links that will be established on the web the VI will also be publicised in printed form via articles and press notices in industrial research journals, trade journals, magazines and so on, which reach potential VI users. Visitors to the open area of the VI website will see selected reports, newsletters and meeting summaries that will give them a taster of the benefits of membership. Summaries of developments within the VI that are important to users will also be posted on the website. The EVITherM website will be the primary mechanism for communicating with the user. Take-up in use of the worldwide web is rapid and becoming an everyday means of communication and source of information for people everywhere. Much of the communication will be one-way, with the user learning to use the VI as a rapid and natural means of gaining access to information and services but there must also be feedback and interaction with the user and so a Helpline and discussion forum facilities will also be featured. It will also be possible to input measurement data for review by the VI and subsequent access by other users. Decision mechanisms and other matters The Principal Contractors are jointly responsible for delivering the project. In aiming to deliver the mission of the VI, the Steering Committee will strive to operate fairly and democratically, in the interest of its users, and with decisions arrived at through majority voting. (The VI will need to formulate a constitution based on democratic principles.) The WP leaders and their teams will similarly aim for a democratic process when formulating and documenting recommended actions such as providing training and new website content for consideration by the steering committee. WP leaders and many of the members have already met to discuss formulation of this proposal ― and have previously co-operated successfully on international scientific and other projects ― and conducted correspondence about EVITherM by email and phone. The spirit of constructive and intelligent discussions conducted so far bode well for the future operation of the VI and is one we would strive to retain. A legal advisor will be contracted in WP1 to address the necessary legal and IPR issues that will need to be resolved to set up EVITherM as a legal entity having trust or charitable status. The aim is to set up the EVITherM legal entity by month 13 of the project and to establish EVITherM as an independent and fully self-financing organisation within 3 years (See Section 3.1.4 for the business plan). To this end the steering committee will, during the first 6 months of the project, nominate candidates for and select a manager, most probably from the ranks of the existing CRs and Members, to take on the role of running the VI throughout the project and beyond. There will be a mid-term assessment at month 18 of the project, to which all project members and the EC’s representative will be invited. The assessment will review the progress made to complete the following project milestone items due by month 18 (see table below). It will also review the performance of the EVITherM business entity against its original business plan targets for income and membership etc (see Section 3.1.4) and any additional targets defined in the project manual produced in WP1. The business plan will then be updated as required and then reviewed/revised at 6-monthly intervals thereafter. As a result of these business reviews, changes may be made to the activities and priorities in the project where necessary to ensure that EVITherM achieves its business targets by the end of year 3.
Yüklə 0,78 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||