Data e-Infrastructure Initiative for Fisheries Management and Conservation of Marine Living Resources iMarine

1.4Networking Activities and associated work plan

Overall strategy

The objective of the Networking Activities (NAs) is to provide the overall project governance mechanism and to promote the emergence of a sustainable data e-Infrastructure. This will be achieved by articulating the “classic” project bodies taking care of project managerial, technical and administrative aspects with the forerunner of what should eventually become the principal governing body of a sustainable data e-Infrastructure.

The NAs will place an emphasis on gaining support and trust by the EA-CoP through constant liaison, awareness raising, training, and design and demonstration of effective solutions which can meet its expectations. While achieving so, it will progressively develop and formalize a governance model and the policies which will enable sharing of the infrastructure resources. To achieve this objective a set of activities are planned and organised into a number of interacting work packages:

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  NA1 – Administrative and Financial Management will be dedicated to the overall project administration and finance, with a particular focus on quality assurance;
  
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  NA2 – Project Management is designed to create the temporary management environment in which the iMarine components will be met. It will coordinate the overall scientific and technical management of the project across all activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment, monitoring execution of tasks and performing risks analyses;
  
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  NA3 - Governance and Policy Development will aim at developing the key Governance and Policies assets for long term sustainability of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure. This will be stimulated by active liaison with the EA-CoP, notably through the iMarine Board, and by the conception and validation of concrete applications serving the business cases;
  
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  NA4 – Communication, Dissemination and Training will support broad awareness raising and actual use of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure by the EA-CoP through an effective communication and training strategy which will include an innovative, integrated communication system and e-training programme, as well as a final event.
  

GANTT Diagram

Detailed work description

Work package list

Work package No	Work package title	Type of activity	Lead participant No	Lead participant short name	Person-months	Start month	End month
NA1	Administrative and Financial Management	MGT	1	ERCIM	33	1	30
NA2	Project Management	COORD	2	CNR	27	1	30
NA3	Governance and Policy Development	COORD	10	FAO	156	1	30
NA4	Communication, Dissemination and Training	COORD	9	Trust-IT	74	1	30
		TOTAL			290

NA1 – Administrative and Financial Management

The first of the work packages under Networking Activities will ensure the overall project administration, while guaranteeing that the level of quality meets the expectations raised by the project. It includes the work of the project Coordinator, or Administrative and Financial Director (AFD), and the Quality Assurance Task Force. Scientific and technical coordination activities are presented in a separate dedicated work package (NA2).

GEIE ERCIM will serve the role of Coordinator, interfacing with the European Commission and the iMarine consortium members and iMarine Board. The Coordinator is responsible administering the Grant Agreement and ensuring the fulfilment of contractual obligations and reporting, and carefully monitoring resources and expenditures. Task NA1.1 is concerned with translating the project’s governing mechanisms into clear and efficient administrative procedures that allow the project participants to focus on their main objectives. Task NA1.2 is for the administering the European Union financial contribution and monitoring the effective use of human and financial resources. The primary outputs of these two tasks are DNA1.2-4 for the production of the Periodic and Final Reports of the project. Additionally, quarterly budget reports will be submitted to the Project Executive Board for highlighting the effort declarations made by the beneficiaries across work packages as well as monitoring the use of resources assigned for the development of the Ecosystem Approach Community of Practice. Operation of the project’s Governing Board, which is responsible for decision-making on matters having a direct legal or financial impact on project beneficiaries, falls under TNA1.1. The establishment of the Governing Board will be the project’s first milestone to reach in month 1 (MNA1.1).

Quality assurance is an essential element of NA1. The objective of this task includes the operation of a Quality Assurance Task Force to ensure that the project delivers the results as expected from the various stakeholders. A task leader will coordinate the Quality Assurance Task Force (QATF) to ensure the delivery and adherence to a Quality Plan that will define the project’s main quality processes, such as deliverable preparation and internal review; periodic review preparation and post-review follow-up; activity-specific process; basic rules for iMarine publications; practicalities concerning the functioning of the management boards; licensing issues; etc.; as well as the tools and metrics that will be applied in many of these processes. Thus, the task dedicated to Quality Assurance (TNA1.3) will measure the project’s progresses across activity areas (i.e., networking, service, joint research) through a set of pre-defined quality indicators. As indicated, the QATF will be formed (MNA1.2) in month 1 of the project and will begin activities by defining the Quality Plan (DNA1.1).

NA2 – Project Management

This work package will coordinate the overall scientific and technical management of the project across all activities by developing strategy, promoting an efficient collaboration environment, monitoring execution of tasks and performing risks analyses. Qualified scientific and technical coordination will be one of the key success factors of the iMarine Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I3) given the inherent diversity of the project’s stakeholders. As such, the activity performed in this work package will build on experience gained in the framework of the D4Science projects. The tasks are split between high-level scientific coordination (TNA2.1), strategy formulation (TNA2.2) and executive management (TNA2.3).

Within TNA2.3 lies the technical risks analysis and contingency planning. A report will be produced in month 9 of the project lifespan, documenting the methodology defined to identify, evaluate and classify the actual and potential risks of the iMarine consortium and related activities (DNA2.4). Risks will be reported according to the methodology.

NA2 Project Management will be led by the Project Director (PD) whose role is to promote the project’s imperatives, assume ownership of the project on behalf of the project teams, and seek to deliver a viable outcome. She will supervise progress achieved as defined within the Description of Work and create and maintain the necessary conditions for successful and effective collaboration among all partners (be they beneficiaries or external collaborators). The Project Director will chair the iMarine Steering Board.

Within the project management structure are two managerial boards; one focusing on project strategy and the other focusing on project execution. Working in tandem, the boards will guide the project toward the accomplishment of common objectives. The Steering Board will formulate and lead the implementation of the overarching iMarine strategy, including the creation of synergies and long-term sustainability within the iMarine launched Initiative. The Project Executive Board will lead the diverse networking and technologically-oriented activities encompassing the development and implementation of an iMarine data infrastructure. The formation of the PEB with a schedule of anticipated meetings for the first half of the project (MNA2.1) is an important milestone to be achieved in month 1.

The Project Director will be Dr. Donatella Castelli (Scientific Coordinator of the DILIGENT, D4Science and D4Science-II projects). She will be strongly supported by a Technical Coordinator charged with the responsibility of monitoring the day-by-day progress of the project’s technical activities (i.e., technical aspects across the networking, service and joint research activities, including collaboration with the iMarine Board). The role of Technical Coordinator is assigned to Dr. Pasquale Pagano (Technical Director of the DILIGENT, D4Science and D4Science-II projects). Both Dr. Castelli and Dr. Pagano represent CNR (their research interests and backgrounds are provided in Section ).

This work package will produce six-monthly Management Reports (DNA2.1-3) to provide a snapshot of the state of the project’s implementation across all activities. Additionally, report on the interaction with other projects and programmes (DNA2.5) will be produced at the project’s half-way mark, and it will be updated on a regular basis for reference by the consortium members and the collaborating scientific user communities.

NA3 – Governance and Policy Development

This work package’s primary objective will be to develop the data e-infrastructure governance mechanism, and formulate a set of organizational and technological policy recommendations regulating the resource sharing and services provided by the new e-infrastructure towards its sustainability. The achievement of this objective will be stimulated by active liaison with the EA-CoP, notably through the iMarine Board, to built trust and support for the long term sustainable exploitation of the data infrastructure, and by the conception and validation of concrete applications serving the business cases. The work package includes the following tasks:

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  TNA3.1: User Community mediation
  

iMarine Board organization; Invite members, define tasks and strategic planning

iMarine Board operation; Manage meetings, reporting and other secretariat activities;

EA-CoP liaison including attending its workshops, to raise awareness and gather feedback

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  TNA3.2: Data e-infrastructure Governance mechanism, Policies and Guidelines
  

Development of Governance mechanism recommendations

Development and adoption of organizational and technological Policies

Development of implementation guidelines and best practices

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  TNA3.3: Harmonisation of Metadata, semantics, and technologies
  

Analyse data modeling for storage and exchange, and test their efficiency;

Facilitate the use of data in a e-infrastructure by adopting standard schemas;

Liaise with standardization bodies as required;

Identify Task specific requirements with EA-CoP representatives;

Identify existing software that serve a requirement, and their usability in a data e-infrastructure;

Assess implementation costs to serve a requirement through the data infrastructure;

Negotiate the assignment of implementation and/or development tasks among partners;

Validate completeness of the assembled solutions.

The activities of this work package will be described and reported in three deliverables: the first documents the establishment and operation of the iMarine Board (DNA3.1), the second describes the implementation of the Governance, Policies and Guidelines defined by the iMarine Board (DNA3.2), and the last describes the validation of delivered solutions by the iMarine EA-CoP (DNA3.3).

The results of the work package will be assessed in sixteen milestones including milestones for the establishment and operation of the iMarine Board (MNA3.1, MNA3.2, MNA3.3), iMarine Board meetings (MNA3.10-13), milestones for the Governance, Policies and Guidelines (MNA3.4-6 and MNA3.7-8), and milestones for the validation (MNA3.9 and MNA3.14-16).

NA4 – Communication, Dissemination and Training

The main goals of NA4 are to mobilize the EA-CoP as major stakeholders and encourage cohesion across disciplinary and geographical boundaries; foster knowledge exchange and build competences on policy guidelines and best practices; empower user communities by facilitating the uptake of the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and services developed; and communicating main outcomes to policy makers, the press and media and society at large. The ultimate goal is to widely disseminate the three main iMarine outcomes: the Guidelines and Best Practices; the iMarine data e-Infrastructure and its Virtual Research Environments and the enhanced services developed.

Core activities to achieve these goals include:

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  Working with the Consortium to deliver regularly updated Communication, Dissemination and Training Plans (DNA4.1) as the main reference point for iMarine outreach by setting action agendas along six-month time-lines, defining value propositions and core messaging to target groups as the project evolves over time, web content planning, ensuring the timely delivery of communication and promotional material and setting metrics to gauge impact.
  
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  Leveraging and expanding on strong partner networks and forging alliances with pertinent initiatives by working in synergy with the Consortium and especially NA3.
  
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  Developing and deploying an integrated and interactive website - Knowledge Management Channel (MNA4.1) - with tagged multimodal content, enhanced wiki services and discussion forums as trusted, professional environments.
  
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  Delivering an eTraining Environment on the Channel (Virtual Classroom, Meeting and Mini Conference facilities), supporting courses and demos on both policy guidelines and the data infrastructure by working with NA3 and technical lead partners respectively.
  
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  Hosting a Virtual Event (MNA4.2 M15) to connect the iMarine Board with relevant stakeholders irrespective of geographical location, and gather feedback on policy issues, in synergy with NA3.
  
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  Ensuring visibility and community engagement through EU project, EA-CoP, e-Infrastructure and scientific event attendance, including possible joint organization through strategic alliances, in synergy with the Consortium and relevant partners.
  
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  Promoting the project’s goals and achievements underpinned by iMarine Board testimonies, interviews and insights in synergy with NA3. Specific outputs include eNewsletters, Mini eBooks, press releases, articles for ICT and technology media, as well as specialized, peer-reviewed journals, in synergy with relevant partners.
  
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  Designing and distributing regularly updated branded promotional material (pop-up banners; fliers, posters, event giveaways).
  
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  Hosting a Final Event (MNA4.3 M28) bringing together the EA CoP and policy makers to showcase outcomes spanning the iMarine Guidelines and Best Practices; the data infrastructure and Virtual Research Environments and enhanced services deployed. Outcomes will also be convey through the circulation of two eBooks: one on Policy, Resources and Standards, the other on iMarine Board Insights. A dedicated Strategy and Plan for the event, including press and media activities, will be produced as part of DNA4.1. The event programme and structure will be defined with the Consortium as a whole and the Advisory Board.
  

Outcomes will be reported in DNA4.5-6 Communication, Dissemination and Training Report (M15, 30), including impact gauging, as well as in DNA4.2-4 Production of Printed and Multimedia Promotional Material (M10, 20, 30). Delivery of all Channel activities related to design, development, deployment; content planning and provision will be reflected in MNA4.1 iMarine Web Channel.