6th Consortium meeting, Aveiro, 8-9 November, 2005 Project Status Update Carlos Díaz, FIMIM

6th Consortium meeting, Aveiro, 8-9 November, 2005

Project Status Update

Carlos Díaz, FIMIM

6th Consortium meeting, Aveiro, 8-9 November, 20055th CM

Status as of last meeting

Coord. & manag.Pilot evaluation guidelines

Development/extension of tools

Implementation of Action Plan


Publication ofSOA

Publication ofSOA

Implementation of Work plans

Selected developments


D11

D14

D13

D10 D12 D15

D18

D19

D16

D17

Validation of conclusions

by all

Specific actions for gender equity, links with other NoEs, indicators

Reinforced cooperation within and

between pilots

Outreach plan

Multilingual thesauri?


Current project status





Publication ofSOA

Publication ofSOA




D11

D14

D13

D10 D12 D15

D18

D19

D16

D17


by all



between pilots

Outreach plan



Regarding deliverables...

Del. no. 1

Deliverable name WP no.

Lead participant

Estimated indicative person months

Nature2

Dissemi-nation level3

Delivery date4

(proj. month)

D10 Quarterly Management Report #4

1 FIMIM 8,0 R CO 15

D11 State of the art on data interoperability and management

4 UPM 54,6 R PU 16


1 FIMIM 8,0 R CO 18

D13 State of the art on systems for data analysis, information retrieval and decision support

5 FORTH 69,5 R PU 19

D14 First report on pilot applications

6 ISCIII 188,9 R RE 19


1 FIMIM 8,0 R CO 21

D16 First report on dissemination activities

2 ISCIII 41,2 R PU 24

D17 First report on training and mobility activities

3 IMIM 54,1 R PU 24

D18 Periodic activity report #2 1 FIMIM 8,5 R RE 24

D19 Management report #2 1 FIMIM 8,5 R CO 24

1 Deliverable numbers in order of delivery dates: D1 – Dn 2 Please indicate the nature of the deliverable using one of the following codes: R = Report P = Prototype D = Demonstrator O = Other 3 Please indicate the dissemination level using one of the following codes: PU = Public PP = Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services). RE = Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services). CO = Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services). 4 Month in which the deliverables will be available. Month 1 marking the start of the project, and all delivery dates being relative to this start date.


Annual Technical Review #1: Brussels, 16 March, 2005

Recommendations:

o Ensure a more balanced participation of partners in the Network in strategic planning (WP2 & WP3 biased towards Spain, unbalanced participation in surveys thorough validation process needed to ensure endorsement by all participants).

o Indicate explicitly progress on every individual milestone of the DoW.

o Provide explicit networking progress assessment in the next reporting period based on benchmarking indicators, particularly on collaborative activities (and integration).

Provide due justification of any deviations in costs and efforts and assure that the intensity of participation for the remaining period will be sustained.

o Propose specific actions in favour of gender equity and assess their impact.

Establish links with other FP6 relevant projects, like SEMANTICMINING and BIOPATTERN.

o Develop an outreach plan to ensure that future results will target important audiences, like clinicians, regulatory authorities and the public.

o Consider multilingual approach to the different thesauri developed in the consortium

o Pilots acknowledged as ‘cornerstone’, but no specific comments made and not mentioned in achievements. “Reinforcement of collaboration in and between pilots requires special attention”.

Regarding review recommendations...


Results officially delivered:

• D10: Quarterly management report (without efforts)

Other results (visible):

• First INFOBIOMED Training Challenge

• Web site, BMI gateway - continuously updated

• MBS prototype

• Final versions of SoA reports for WP4 and WP5

• Several dissemination activities, initial concertation activities with other NoEs

Other results, visibility/completion pending:

• Prototype of training database & thesaurus

• Newsletter

• Generic developments by individual partners for WP4, WP5

• Progress on pilots

• Specific contributions from WP4 and WP5 to pilots

Project status update: Results in period


All of this indicates a low level of activity during the last 6 months

• Failure to deliver results

• Failure to make results visible

• Failure to consider review recommendations

• Failure to communicate

• Problems in reporting work and estimating efforts

BUT:

• The most difficult, initial phase has been overcome - teams are ‘normalised’• There is a huge potential for the project to make a difference in the BMI area• There is a huge potential for meaningful scientific results• There are specific work plans for most activities • Cash-flow problems will now be solved (payment from EC has arrived!)

The project needs now a strong push to recover delays and be on track again

Current situation


Problems in reporting efforts

• Effort figures may not correspond to work reported

• Trend towards overestimation due to finances

• Trend towards overestimation for some academic organisations

• Lack of visibility of results, lack of details in reporting

• Lack of experience in estimating efforts: errors in reporting

• Create delays in management reports

• Create huge distortions at the Consortium level

• Create distortions at the financial level345 pm reported in year 1


Financial status

DO WE NEED A CHANGE OF PARADIGM?

• Two options:

• Continue with dependency of effort figures reported and planned

• Depends on correct and timely effort estimation, both for actual and

planned figures

• May lead to temporarily uneven budget distribution among partners

• Theoretically makes work and money received more correlated

• Difficult to follow-up, generates overhead

• Return to calculation based on original funding

• Depends on commitment to intensively work for project

• Effort figures would only serve as basis for justification

• Eases cash-flow for partners, helps avoid vicious circles

• Danger of generating ‘passive’ behaviour

• Requires stronger internal audit


Financial management: new option

• Paid so far: A

• Complete payment year 1: A’

• Complementary payment up to 70%

of original funding: B

• Reduction for non-justification of A

+ A’: C

Total payments: A+ A’ + B - C

B

A’

Year 1:

accepted

budget

(effort)

A

Original

budget

whole

project

70%

budget

C

Justified

year 1


Financial management: new option


Current project status reminder





Publication ofSOA

Publication ofSOA




D11

D14

D13

D10 D12 D15

D18

D19

D16

D17


by all



between pilots

Outreach plan


• Need to work intensively to recover delays

• There are solid grounds for great results, essential for network survival

• Forthcoming review in March is deemed crucial for the project

• Presentations to clarify:

A) Brief reminder of the WP objectives and work done during the first year (5

minutes). This is especially useful to orientate the members of the Scientific

Advisory Board (SAB) attending the meeting.

B) Work done and results obtained during the second year (2005), up to now,

with special emphasis on the progress obtained since the last meeting in

Sweden (15 minutes).

C) SPECIFIC and TANGIBLE results (prototypes, scientific papers, databases,

tools, etc.) that are foreseen to be available and presented at the Commission

review next March 2006 (10 minutes).

D) Prospects of work and proposals for the period March - December 2006 (5

minutes).

E) Discussion (15 minutes). Please note that you can address questions to the SAB

and take advantage of their expertise.

Documents

6th Consortium meeting, Aveiro, 8-9 November, 2005 Project Status Update Carlos Díaz, FIMIM