Strategies for Successful Management of INTERREG Projects

UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESSFUL MANAGEMENT OF INTERREG PROJECTS

Thesis report

Prepared by Izabela Kacprzak

European Funds Management

Bachelor Degree

JUNE, 2010

Strategies for successful management of INTERREG projects

Preface

This thesis is written for use as final report for the graduation at CAH Dronten.

As from April 14, till June 30 2010, within the framework of my studies in Dronten University

of Applied Sciences study programme European Funds Management I had my placement in

Province of Flevoland in Lelystad. Since my responsibilities were directly connected with

INTERREG projects, I soon discovered that creating a successful projects is very difficult.

Therefore the purpose of this report was to answering the question what makes the

INTERREG projects successful in aim to formulate the ‘Strategies for successful management

of INTERREG projects’. To do this I tried to combine general project management theory

with the experiences gained from the INTERREG project which were undertaken by the

Province of Flevoland.

As this report consists of current theories and experiences gained in the practice, it can

be useful tool for the managers of European Programmes from the Province of Flevoland,

managers from other regions dealing with this European projects. But also very helpful for

young people like me who are just starting their careers in as INTERREG managers.


Acknowledgements

I have to acknowledge the Province of Flevoland that ensured me the opportunity for spending my placement-period at the organization.

I would like thank to Karin Maatje and Bob Pels for being my company coaches and for the enthusiastic support during the whole period of placement. Thank you both for your time and sharing with me your knowledge and experiences.

Special thanks to Cleopatra Pavlović for her support, advices and showing me how to reach my dream future.

Thanks to all the employees of Program Management Europe department for friendly atmosphere and for letting me use their desks and offices.

Special thanks to Taco Medema who was always kind to help and solve all of my problems and being supportive in hard moments, I feel lucky with him being my coach.

Table of Content


1. European Territorial Co-operation...........................................................................................2

1.1. Cross-border co-operation................................................................................................2

1.2. Transnational co-operation..............................................................................................4

1.3. Interregional cooperation................................................................................................6

2. Project Life Cycle.....................................................................................................................9

2.1. Project Preparation Activities.........................................................................................10

2.1.1. The project idea..........................................................................................................10

2.1.2. Building the partnership.............................................................................................12

3. Developing The Application...................................................................................................20

3.1. Preparing the Budget.....................................................................................................22

3.2. Awareness of Partners’ Circumstances...........................................................................28

3.3. Demonstrating Added Value in the Application..............................................................28

3.4. Selection procedure.......................................................................................................29

4. Project Implemmentation......................................................................................................31

4.1. Establishing Ground Rules for Implementation...............................................................32

4.2. Starting Implementation................................................................................................33

4.3. Support Mechanisms......................................................................................................34

5. Dissemination & Legacy.........................................................................................................36

5.1. Communication Plan......................................................................................................36

6. Monitoring & Evaluation........................................................................................................39

6.1. Monitoring Tools............................................................................................................39

6.2. Selecting Indicators........................................................................................................40

6.3. The Evaluation Process...................................................................................................41

7. Dealing With Cultural Differences..........................................................................................43

7.1. Recognizing and managing culture:................................................................................43

7.2. The project preparation phase.......................................................................................43

7.3. Development of the project...........................................................................................45

7.4. Implementation phase...................................................................................................46

8. Interviews..............................................................................................................................49

9. Conclusion and Recommendations........................................................................................60

Bibliography:.................................................................................................................................64

Appendixes...................................................................................................................................65

Abstract


Prawie 29%, czyli prawie jedna trzecia wszystkich wniosków INTERREG IIIC została zaakceptowana, z wszystkich 4 rund w ramach programu INTERREG IIIC od początku 2003 do połowy 2005 roku. Wskaźnik ten jest podobny do innych programów UE, gdzie regularnie od 60 do 80% zgłoszonych projektów nie może zostać zaakceptowanych, ponieważ nie spełniają podstawowych standardów jakości. Ale także niektóre projekty, które zostały zaakceptowane, dobrze wyglądają tylko na papierze. Działanie zgodnie ze wszystkimi instrukcjami zawartymi w dostępnych podręcznikach wcale nie musi zapewnić sukcesu. Konfrontacji teorii z rzeczywistością może doprowadzić do wielu niespodziewanych problemów w dziedzinie zarządzania, wzajemnego zrozumienia, administracja, finansów. Celem niniejszego raportu była odpowiedź na pytanie, co zapewnia sukces projektom INTERREG? jakie działania należy podjąć? jak zorganizować pracę, aby upewnić się, że projekt w końcu okaże się sukcesem? Co może być przyczyn tych trudności? Istnieje wiele publikacji na temat ogólnego zarządzanie projektem. Ale jest też wiedza, która jest nie można znaleźć w każdym podręczniku, zdobyć ją można jedynie w praktyce. Dlatego też niniejsze sprawozdanie ma na celu połączyć ogólną teorię zarządzania projektami z doświadczeń zdobytymi w ramach projektu INTERREG, które zostały przeprowadzone przez prowincje Flevoland.

Metodologia pracy obejmuje analizę dostępnych z zakresie zarządzania projektem informacji, analizę wniosków i sprawozdań dotyczących projektów, dokumentacji, podręczników. Autor przeprowadził również rozmowy z menadżerami projektów INTERREG z prowincji Flevoland. Wśród rozmówców byli: Karin Maatje INTERREG Project Manager, Bob Pels Europejska Współpraca Terytorialna Program Manager, Jan Boerstra Program Manager i Eduard Lenoir Manager finansowy. Listę pytań, które zostały zadane podczas rozmowy, można znaleźć w załączniku. Rozmowy były oparte na rzeczywistych projektach, które zostały przeprowadzone w przeszłości oraz które są wdrażane w tym momencie. Wśród projektów były: SAWA, More4nrg, ELLABO, MiniEurope, e-Citizen I i II. Opis tych projektów można znaleźć w załącznikach

Sprawozdanie nawiązuje do cyklu projektu, udzielając informacji na temat każdego z etapów realizacji projektu od pomysłu, budowania partnerstwa, stosowanie i rozwój budżetu, poprzez realizację, komunikacji i rozpowszechniania, monitorowanie i ocena do zamknięcia. Sprawozdanie zawiera także rozdział dotyczące radzenia sobie z różnicami kulturowymi w ramach projektów INTERREG. Ostatni rozdział zawiera wnioski i zalecenia w sprawie skutecznego zarządzania projektem.


INTRODUCTION

Nearly 29% or nearly one third of all INTERREG IIIC applications were successful in the 4 application rounds run by the INTERREG IIIC programme from early 2003 to mid 2005. This ratio is similar to other EU programmes, where regularly 60 to 80% of projects submitted cannot be recommended because they do not meet basic quality standards. But also some projects which were accepted look good just on paper. Following all the requirements form the manuals does not necessarily assure success. Confrontation of the theory with the reality can cause many unexpected problem, in field of management, understanding, administration, finances.

The purpose of this report was to answer the question What makes the INTERREG projects successful? what kind of action should be taken? how to organize the work to make sure the project in the end will be a success? What could be the reasons of those difficulties? There are lots of publications already available on general project management. But there is also knowledge which is can’t be find in any manual, it is possible to gain only in practice. Therefore, this report aims to combine general project management theory with the experiences gained from the INTERREG project which were undertaken by the Province of Flevoland.

The methodologies for the evaluation of the theories applied in project management involve analysis of project applications and reports, documentation, manuals. The researcher also interviewed the manager of the INTERREG project from Province of Flevoland. Among the interviewed persons there were: Karin Maatje the INTERREG Project Manager, Bob Pels the European Territorial Cooperation Programme Manager, Mr. Jan Boerstra the Programme Manager and Eduard Lenoir the Financial Manager. The checklist for the interviews can be found in appendix.

The interview were based on real examples of the current and past projects like SAWA, More4nrg, ELLABO, MiniEurope, e-Citizen I and II. The description of those projects can be found in the appendixes

The report follows the project life cycle providing information on every stage of the project from idea generation, partnership, application and budget development, through implementation, communication and dissemination, monitoring and evaluation to closure. The report contains also a chapter about dealing with cultural differences in the INTERREG projects. The next chapter contains very valuable information, the summary and conclusions from the interviews with the project managers.

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The final chapter consists of conclusions and recommendations on successful project management.

1. European Territorial Co-operation

European Cohesion policy aims to encourage regions and cities from different EU Member States to jointly work and learn from each other, by creating common programmes, projects and networks. In the period 2007-13 the European Territorial Co-operation objective (formerly under the period 2000-2006 the INTERREG Community Initiative) covers three types of programmes:

INTERREG A - 52 cross-border co-operation programmes along internal EU borders. INTERREG B 13 transnational co-operation programmes cover larger areas of co-

operation such as the Baltic Sea, Alpine and Mediterranean regions. INTERREG C The interregional co-operation programme and 3 networking programmes

(Urbact II, Interact II and ESPON) cover all 27 Member States of the EU. They provide a framework for exchanging experience between regional and local bodies in different countries.1

1.1. Cross-border co-operation

It can be said that the Cross-border cooperation is mainly about "filling the gaps". To make this happen each of the 52 cross-border programmes agreed cross-border 'analysis and response' strategies. Programme covers a wide range of topics, including:

1. Encouraging entrepreneurship, especially the development of SMEs, tourism, culture and cross-border trade;

2. Improving joint management of natural resources;

3. Supporting links between urban and rural areas;

4. Improving access to transport and communication networks;

5. Developing joint use of infrastructure;

6. Administrative, employment and equal opportunities work.

The regional and local partners, on both sides of the border, have to identify their common needs and define actions which are the best, the most suitable for their local situation. All

1 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/cooperation/index_en.htm

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participating in programme countries jointly select local or national authorities to which they should entrust the management of the programme.

To fully balanced partnership between the participating countries, regions on both sides of the EU's border, share one single budget, common management structures, a common legal framework and implementation rules.

Illustration 1http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas2007/eu/crossborder/index_en.htm

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1.2. Transnational co-operation

The transnational programmes give an added value to regional development. It creates a chance, for regions from several Member States, for cooperation on common issues, such as communication corridors, flood management, international business and research linkages, and the development of more viable and sustainable markets. Programme covers:- Innovation, especially networks of universities, research institutions, SMEs;- Environment, especially water resources, rivers, lakes, sea;- Accessibility, including telecommunications, and in particular the completion of networks;- Sustainable urban development, especially polycentric development.At this moment there are 13 transnational co-operation programmes.

Co-operation may take different forms:

Model 1: Exchange of information and experienceThis model has often the characteristics of preliminary phase of international co-operation. At this phase, partners don't have to define specific targets of their co-operation; they exchange information on their strategies and context of activity.Model 2: Parallel development of innovative approach In this model, partners define a specific common target, acting independently. Exchange of experiences in this model is less general and more related to reaching mutual target than the first model. Model 3: Import, export and adaptation of new solutions to the situation This model is usually a variant of the continuation of parallel development (Model 2). It exists when two or more partners exchange the outcomes of their work. Each of the partners use exchange of experience for the improvement of its own situation.Model 4: Common product or work system – distribution of tasks within the implementation of a common targetIn this model the partnerships are created for a specific period and because of solving a given problem. Partnerships is based on identical approach to the problem, and to solving it with a the best use of their advantages. Such partnership is not open to achieving multilateral benefits.Model 5: Additional activity: exchange of teachers, students, main actors and othersThese activities, an exchange of trainers, trainees and employees are quite often take place in parallel of the four former models. Those activities are used as tools for checking the common product, checking the created system, etc.

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Illustration 2 http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/cooperation/transnational/index_en.htm

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1.3. Interregional cooperation

The aim of interregional cooperation is to improve the effectiveness of regional development policies and contribute to economic modernisation and increased competitiveness of Europe, by:

1. Enabling local and regional actors across the EU to exchange their experiences and knowledge;

2. Matching regions less experienced in a certain policy field with more advanced regions;

3. Ensuring the transfer of good practices into Structural Funds mainstream programmes. 2

The idea of the project is that the authorities of cooperating regions exchange and transfer their experiences and jointly develop approaches and instruments which can improve the effectiveness of regional development policies and contribute to economic modernisation.

In the context of Community Strategic Guidelines for Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, the programme is designed to contribute to the Union's strategy for growth and jobs. In this case the programme can be called one of the most important instruments for the implementation of the EU initiative Regions for Economic Change (RFEC).

RFEC aims to support regional and urban networking, discover good practice in economic improvement and to spread this best practice to all regions in order to help stimulate their sustainable growth and reduce economic disparities.

Definition of the Good practice according to Programme Manual:In the context of the INTERREG IVC programme, a good practice is defined as an initiative (e.g. methodologies, projects, processes, and techniques) undertaken in one of the programme’s thematic priorities which has already proved successful and which has the potential to be transferred to a different geographic area. Proved successful is where the good practice has already provided tangible and measurable results in achieving a specific objective.3

The Interregional Cooperation Programme makes possible cooperation among regional and local authorities from different countries in the EU27, Norway and Switzerland. Partners from other countries can participate at their own costs.

2 http://www.interreg4c.net/programme.html#_1113 INTERREG IV, Programme Manual Third Call, November 2009

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Eligible Regions

Illustration 3http://www.regiosuisse.ch/docs/medien-medias-stampa/karte-interreg-ivc3.jpg

The program consists of two thematic priorities, which are grouped in action fields:Priority 1 addresses innovation and the knowledge economy, focusing mainly on the subthemes:innovation, research and technology development, entrepreneurship and SMEs, the information society, employment, human capital and education.Priority 2 targets environment and risk prevention, most notably the subthemes:natural and technological risks;water management;waste prevention and management;biodiversity and preservation of natural heritage, air quality;energy and sustainable transport;cultural heritage and landscape;4

4 http://www.interreg4c.net/load/2007-07-26_INTERREG_IVC_OP_final.pdf7

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The INTERREG IVc programme supports following types of projects:- Regional Initiative Projects (Type 1),- Capitalisation Projects including Fast Track Projects (Type 2).

1. Regional Initiative Projects (Type 1)Regional Initiative Projects allow INTERREG partners to work together on a shared regional policy issue, in the area of two thematic priorities of the programme.The objective is to achieve an improvement in the effectiveness of the regional policies.Therefore a very important element of the partnership is the involvement of policy and decision makers.These projects are build on the experiences already gained by the partners and on the enriching those experiences through interregional cooperation. Therefore all Regional Initiative Projects (including mini-programmes) are obligated to have a strong focus on the exchange of experience and on the identification, analysis and dissemination of good practices in the policy area tackled by the project.2. Capitalisation Projects including Fast Track Projects (Type 2).

These are projects which focused mainly on the transfer of regional development good practices into mainstream EU Structural Funds programmes of the regions participating in the project or represented in the partnership.If projects have been submitted to this second type it means that the regions are already well aware of existing good practices in their field of cooperation and are able to demonstrate that they have good results and transferable tools and approaches, as well as good management skills and knowledge of the theme in question.Among the expected outcomes of the project is to create a concrete action plan by each participating region, which has to present how the identified practices will be implemented in the region. This means that the implementation itself of the good practices has to be financed by the Structural Funds programmes of the respective region (e.g. after the project’s lifetime) and not by INTERREG IVC itself.3. Fast Track ProjectsFast Track projects are Capitalisation Projects which benefit from additional expertise from the European Commission in order to contribute to the Regions for Economic Change initiative. The Commission will provide this additional expertise at its own costs.5

5INTERREG IV Programme Manual Third Call, November 2009

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2. Project Life CycleUndertaking any project is a complicated process involving such matters as background

context, planning, resources, schedules, administration, implementation and follow-up. Among the key tasks which need to be completed are: identifying a relevant and achievable project idea, recruiting and directing suitable staff, fostering a sense of shared understanding, visualising and planning the scope of the project’s activities, accurately outlining the results that can be expected, and allocating the appropriate financial resources.Embarking on a transnational or interregional project is all the more complex because cooperation across frontiers can bring additional factors into play, such as:

1. cultural differences between regions:2. different languages:3. different levels of administrative competences and resources between regions:4. physical distance between players:5. difficulties in defining the mutual objectives of the cooperation and common

working methods.The setting up of a typical cooperation project is a process made up of the following general stages (some of which run concurrently):

1. Preparation2. Building the partnership3. Developing the application and the budget4. Implementation5. Monitoring and evaluation6. Dissemination and legacy

Illustration 4Territorial Cooperation Project Management Handbook

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2.1. Project Preparation Activities

In this moment the project exist just as an idea or a need in minds of initiators. The idea comes from the feeling that there is a need to change or improve current situation. What also has been done at this stage is look for the right partners. Than meetings with partners to determinate common the objectives and desired results of the project in aim to complete the application form.

So the activities during the preparation phase could be as follow:

1. development of the project idea 2. partners search,3. meetings with project partners,4. completion of the application form.

Performing this sort of preparatory ground work can help projects to avoid some of the key reasons for the failure of projects which are usually due to reasons such as: the project irrelevance in a given context; i.e. cooperation at an international level alone

is not a suitable way of dealing with the issues or solving the problem; a poor formulation of the issue to be addressed, inappropriate or poorly defied

objectives, or a mistaken identification of the opportunities to be seized; Different level of commitment and stakes among the partners; A poor timeframe for the project’s activities; Lack of realism, overly ambitious expectations base on an unachievable action plan; Inadequate funding; Employing a strictly utilitarian rather than a strategic vision in the presentation and

management of the project.

2.1.1. The project idea

Every project has to began somewhere – with an idea. At this stage, the project exists only as a problem or an idea in the minds of those who have thought it up.6 This can occur through the regional planning initiatives or arise from community, legislative, or citizen input. But often this is inspire by the ambition of one organization to address its own requirement (as perhaps set out in a plan or policy document) by attempting to look at the issues in a new and innovative way – through the benefits of international cooperation. As problems, needs, opportunities or issue for improvements arise this leads the organization to seek out partners who either share their problem or can offer the expertise to help. Sometimes the idea emerges from more organically mutual experiences. The prior sharing of different perspectives – particularly through membership of a network (either external and formally established or naturally stemming from participation in previous collaborative

6 Project management, practical approach,200810


projects) – can be effective in stimulating an interest in exploring new approaches and pooling resources and is liable to point informed participants toward the funding solutions offered by cooperation programmes. This facilitated ‘meeting of mind’ can perhaps be seen as delivering a more balanced partnership in that it is less likely to be dominated by one organization (it will instead have a number of core partners who “elect” a Lead).There are also cases of ‘consultant-led’ project ideas which are effectively ‘sold’ to a range of public organization better suited to deliver the results. This creates a natural partnership of interests which may or may not retain the consultants as project staff. The potential downside of this approach is that the original idea may not take sufficient account of the realities of the partner organizations’ particular circumstances and may not allow those who will have to implement the project plan (and its outcomes) ‘on the ground’ to have sufficient input into its development.

Every project should reflect the specific needs of the target groups. Every project initiator, in the phase of idea, should ask himself whether the proposal is what the region really needs.In many cases project developers have a specific knowledge about the needs of target groups (since it is their daily jobs). In some cases it is necessary to carry out further research in order to define the specific needs of the target groups and clarified the project proposal.

No matter how an initial project idea makes its way from the drawing board to the development phase, the Lead Partner Principle as set out in the ERDF regulation requires a single organization from within the consortium to assume the overall coordination and management role, to drive project development and to provide a bridge between all project partners and the programme bodies.In attempting to turn idea into a viable project, it is important to develop a set of realizable actions within a relevant area of focus: Political-level support is useful and important for the credibility of projects and to make

proper use of their results. Make sure your chosen theme addresses policy-makes’ priorities to ensure their backing.

Approach the general theme under examination from an open-minded viewpoint and with an willingness to embrace other perspective and possible solutions. Do not presume that your own stance is entirely appropriate or that your knowledge will be sufficient.

Do your research to determinate how applicable the wider issues you with to address actually is in other countries and other circumstances.

Take account not only of how the issue may be viewed in your region but also what are the possible issues as experienced in other regions and the wider context (international trends, EU policy, etc.) Build compatible synergies with other policies and objectives.

2.1.2. Building the partnership

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The partnership composition should be well thought. Generally speaking the partnership should facilitate efficient implementation and reflect the objectives of the project.The initiators shouldn't under-estimate the role of a wide partnership. Also the amount of partners involved in the project should closely reflect the intensity of cooperation. The higher the level of intensity is, the lower the number of partners should be.

In determining whether partners are likely to be suitable, the Lead needs to sketch potential linkages (potential areas of communality, interdependence or beneficial transferability of experiences/ techniques) which can exploited to copper-fasten the ‘cooperative’ aspects of the theme – thereby providing added value.To justify relevance of specific partner organizations involvement in project, and to be accordingly realistic in your aims, the partnership should be able to clearly illustrate (in the application form) not only each member’s respective areas of defined expertise and experience but also the areas for improvement and the projected practical impacts to be derived (economic, social, scientific/technological and environmental) in relation to the topic to be addressed. A relevant partnership of suitable actors is the most important quality. To put in place a balanced partnership it is advised to take in to consideration the benefits of involving the right type and number of partners.

The idea defines the partnership or the partnership defines the idea?

In some cases the scope, content and partnership structure of the project are clearly visible and directly develop out of the needs identified. In other situations, the precise scope and content of cooperation are not so clearly visible at baseline and need to be worked out during the development phase. This is often happening with projects responding for common needs where partner regions realize the challenges they have to face but often they do not know what action should they take (and this is what they hope to get to know form their partners). This kind of project requires more preparation work.

Choosing partners with the right specialisation

One of the most essential issues in choosing the partners is the specialization of the partner organization. Project partners should have the adequate expertise and knowledge to be able to contribute to project development and after that to contribute also to implementation of the project. When the project reflects the strategic goal of partner organization it keeps the partners motivated and encourages them to take an active part in project's development and implementation.What is also valuable for partnership is the similarities and complementarity in expertise

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When partners have similar expertise it can ensure that they have a similar point of view of key issues and will aim to address similar problems and therefore will be motivated to take an active part in the project. The key motivation in case of large partnership, like in INTERREG B and C projects, is the interest in the theme of the project and in common needs of partners.

Complementarity just means that the skills which one partner has exactly match the needs of the other partner. It is of course very hard to find a perfect match. But trying to look for complementarity between partner specialisations can ensure the successful exchange of experience between partners (learning from each other) which is one of the key INTERREG benefits.

Geographical matchFor partners for broaden their experience and confront their practices with other

cultures it is significant that the partnership covers a wide EU area. The partnership of which the geographical coverage will go much beyond the normal cross-border and transnational programme areas will be considered as added-value by the Monitoring Committee.

The balanced geographical coverage should also be reflected in financial terms. The budget allocation should in principle be balanced between countries, including between a group of geographically close countries and the other represented countries. It is clear that the budget of a partner has also to be in line with the level of costs in its specific country.7

The project applicants, during building up the partnership, shouldn't also forget about one of the main program objectives, which is to match less experienced regions with more advanced regions.The following map presents an overview of the present state of the EU’s progress towards the Lisbon goals in the field of innovation and the knowledge economy at the regional level.Division presented on the map is based on 5 aggregated indicators:– Productivity (GDP/person employed; 2002)– Employment rate (Employed population /population aged 15-64; 2003)– R&D Expenditure (% of total GDP; 2001)– R&D Business Enterprise Sector (BES R&D personnel/1.000 active persons; 2001)– Highly educated population (% total population; 2002)It gives an overview of less experienced and more advanced regions.

7 INTERREG IV Programme Manual Third Call, November 200913


Illustration 5 EuroGeographics Association for administrative bounderies, Epson Database

The benefits of a good partnership mix14


A good partnership mix (geography, type - e.g. public/private/NGO - and sector) can be seen as one of the main advantages of partnerships. In many situations the partners are really similar to each other. This can ensure that they will share common interests, an ability to perform similar operations in each country and big chances for importing the results of other partners. But also ‘unusual’ partners can, however, bring new insights.Regardless of the final structure of partnerships, responsebilities and tasks should be assigned in a way that maximises the chances of successfully implementing the project and brings benefits to all partners involved.8

The right partnership mix can also be helpful in preparing of the project proposal. The right partners can can create an added value to the project in many ways: financially (i.e. to the level of co-financing), technically (contribution to content of the proposal, and project implementation in the partner country) and with networks and links to key agencies which can ensure that the support the project by important stakeholders and decision-makers.

The partnership mix is often related to the terms ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ coordination. The vertical coordination relates to the need to consultancy and involvment of different levels of administration and government. The aim of this coordination is avoiding of overlaps and conflicts and ensure a high level of harmonisation of activities carried out at different levels.Horizontal coordination relates to the necessity of involvement of wide range of stakeholders at all the levels – and especially at the level where the action of the take place (i.e. if project activities have a strong connexion to local issues, the best choice will be to involve local rather than regional partners). This structure can help to reflect on the efficiency of the existing partnership. And also answer a question if there is a need of offering a partnership to another organization or need for consultation.

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Illustration 6 Territorial Cooperation Project Management Handbook

Involving key stakeholdersThe project’s stakeholders (people and organisations implementing the project) can be

positively or negatively affected by the results of the project. But they also may have an essential influence on shaping the idea, gaining support for the project and successful implementation and use of results.

It is recommended to sub-divided each of these groups (politicians for example should be considered at national, regional and local levels) in order to provide useful input to project and avoid generalisation. Effective stakeholder involvement is relevant for project communication, publicity and mainstreaming of results.

There are many possibilities of involving stakeholder but it should be carefully considered and how to define the groups and how should they be involve. It is possible to organise consultations in the framework of seminars or conferences in line with the topic of the project. In other situations the steering groups can be set up with the participation of relevant stakeholders later on in the process of project. Views obtained from the key

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stakeholders can contribute to development of the ideas, project. Organisations may contribute in many ways: technical contributions (specialized knowledge), links to target groups (through their existing activities), or in-kind support (access to facilities).Defining Partners’ rolesIt is vital to achieve the correct mix within the partnership. Cooperation is a two-way (or more) process of give-and-take with all partners contributing towards joint project development by identifying overall objectives, activities and outcomes, a system to fulfil them and a budget to accomplish this.In order to ensure a balance of activity there should be an appropriate allocation of responsibilities across the overall work plan (i.e. different coordinators for each component/ work package to ensure that interim activities are carried out and targets are met). This should not just amount to a theoretical exercise designed to get the project approved but a real attempt to distribute the tasks appropriately in the interests of healthy cooperation across frontiers and mutual benefits.The process of role allocation may have more than 1 stage:1. The original formation of core set of partners:5. have a broad role for each potential partner in mind in advance – this will allow those you

will approach to fit into the wider jigsaw by appreciating what they can bring to the table as well as what is in it for them

6. be conscious that there are plusses (e.g. different perspective) to be gained from combining organizations of different scale and function (i.e. large, well-resourced ones along with smaller, more poorly-funded ones) together under a single umbrella and that this relationship and the project’s ambitions must be properly managed to reflect this.

7. As the partnership progresses, prior to application, develop a more defined SWOT matrix based on what that partners collectively offer in order to logically define precisely how the in which activities and to which extent and the level of interaction between partners)

2. The involvement of possible additional partners:8. Approach emerging partner in good time with a draft proposal. Bear in mind they may not

be immediately familiar with concept of Cooperation Programmes, the requirements involved or the benefits to be drawn

9. Recognise gaps which remain in the evolving partnership’s abilities and try to fill these by recruiting suitable new partners before the application deadline (without causing unnecessary upheaval – granting observer or sub-partners to latecomers can be a useful approach, if allowed by the programme)

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Negotiating the PartnershipAllow more than enough time to see the entire application process through. A rushed

application is liable to fall apart for lack of secure foundations. Even if it reaches the submission phase its inherent weaknesses are highly likely to be exposed.

Planning matters of management, coordination and exchange merit adequate time and financial allocation in order to ensure the overall aims of the project are adhered to by all concerned without any partners engage in solo activities or duplication occurring.

Preparing all partners for the application process by setting deadlines by which milestones must be reached right up to the submission date.

After a period of initial contact and consultation, and well in advance of the deadline for submitting the project application, arrange to meet with those organizations consider to be prospective partners in order to develop personal understanding and to ensure commitment to the cause. The costs are liable to be eligible for reimbursement as ‘preparation costs’.

Foster a sense of joint ownership among all partners whereby their input is recognize and valued.

Prepare for cultural differences and complications – particularly due to language barriers.

Be sympathetic to the various abilities and ambitions of potential partners – the project must be right for them too if they are to proceed.

Allow time for internal discussion in partners’ organizations and provide prompt replies to facilitate the understanding of more complex documents and programme issues (such as eligible costs).

Use the services of useful agents such as nationally-based Programme Contact Points to act as intermediaries in negotiating the partnership and keep them informed of the idea and of its progress.

Once the shape of partnership is settled it need to be prepare to be reasonably flexible and ready for changes if the original idea does not correspond to the partners’ realities.

It is necessary to be realistic about the time it will take to accomplish the various elements of the work plan (particularly where external factors such as planning come into play during the implementation phase). Failure to see the big picture could have ramifications for the budget if badly handle. The ERDF regulations will henceforth make it easier for organizations in adjacent areas and in some cases, areas beyond the EU to be financed to take part in INTERREG projects within certain limits of overall programme spending. The administrative complications (including lack of potential lack of familiarity with funding and administrative requirements) that accompany this move need to be factored into such negotiations at a very early stage.

Payments are retrospective – based on prior costs incurred. Further delays in repayment results from unavoidable administrative delays (claim verification etc.) It is

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significant that partners understand the importance of adequate human and financial resources being available to support the project – particularly before and during its launch phase.

Many partners’ organizations nominate a single staff member to look after their day-to-day involvement. However, it is vital to ensure that other key staffs who are not expressly involved at such a level – particularly decision makers such as Financial Managers and auditors – are kept briefed from the beginning as to the bureaucratic commitments entailed by the organisasions being grant-aided under INTERREG.

This is especially important where such administrative requirements are evidently not the forte of a staff member whose main focus is on the project theme and its implementation. Establishing an audit trail at an early stage is vital.

For matters (either local or overall) where one or all partners organisations are not entirely competent (e.g. technical work) it shouldn’t be assume that the project will be able to deliver results without first carefully verifying the existence, availability and willingness to get involved of those better placed to assist – otherwise the project risks hitting a head end at a crucial point.

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3. Developing The ApplicationThe idea of project needs to be developed into coherent application. This need to be

done with total respect for the directions as set out in the Operational Programme and any official guidelines. Even a logical and well put together application which fails to meet certain key requirement and directions (e.g. eligibility and selection) will not succeed.

It almost goes without saying that establishing an appropriate timeframe for the preparation phase is vital: do not wait for the Programme’s calls for proposal before starting to define the project’s idea and objectives: get acquainted with the Operational Programme to know in advance what are the main priorities to be addressed.

Scheduling and programming Project Activities

Poor definition and scheduling of activities are two of the principle of failure of INTERREG projects. The design phase is obviously crucial because it provides the guidelines for the subsequent implementation phase and for project monitoring. So it is vital to set out just ‘how’ and ‘when’ the project will be fulfilled.

This phase should identify the basic activities of the project and analyse them from the point of view of their contents, the calendar and the means of implementation by:

1. The identification and detailed description of the activities, their respective contents, their duration and their conditions for completion;

2. Logical programming of activities based Gantt Chart9 or the PERT method10, so as to guarantee the best pathway for their implementation;

3. Distribution of the responsibilities and tasks among partners (including definition of each component’s co-coordinator’s role), paying particular attention to the contributions that, from the partners’ point of view appear to be the most pertinent for the successful implementation of the project

Questions that may help in evaluating the consistency (coherence between the different internal elements of the project) and possibility of implementing the plan:

9 A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart developed as a production control tool in 1917 by Henry L. Gantt, an American engineer and social scientist. Frequently used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project.10 In 1957 the Critical Path Method (CPM) was developed as a network model for project management. CPM is a deterministic method that uses a fixed time estimate for each activityhe PERT method is a technique that allows you to manage the scheduling of a project. The PERT method consists of graphically representing a network of tasks, which, when placed in a chain, can lead to the achievement of the objectives of a project.

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Is the proposed planning appropriate given the timescale allowed to reach the objectives? Are completion dates properly defined for the key activities of the project? Is the time allocated for the implementation of each activity sufficient and realistic? Is it possible to complete certain activities simultaneously? Have the time chart with activities detailed been prepared in chronological order? Have the diagram illustrating the distribution of the different tasks between the partners

been designed according to the calendar? A good application can be use as a key reference document during the process of project implementation. It should be also the main reference against which the project and programme can measure the progress of project. That is why the application have to contains a clear overview of the project’s aims, objectives, activities and outcomes, the work schedule which is highlighted by main project milestones as well as partner and budget allocation for the work. The programme application pack and any fact sheets available should be carefully study, well in advance. This will allow discussing answers for all questions with the rest of the partnership.It is essential to find out the roles of all programme management bodies and how they cooperate. For example, contact points can provide advice on technical issues like eligibility. All the contacts should be established before application submission.

One of the options is hiring a consultant to prepare the application. But it does not guarantee a successful application. The best experts can contribute specialist know-how and take on the administrative burden for organisations that are uninterested in developing Structural Funds management capacity.11 However, involving an external consultant should be careful consideration. It has been found that external consultants could be costly but at the same time did not take any responsibility for the project’s success. The involvement of external consultants cannot replace the involvement of partners in the process of project preparation. The consultant should have a role of a moderator. The consultant should be like glue, by providing support to the process and knowledge of INTERREG procedures and requirements, should stick the partner and their ideas together.

Good project applications should be a result of teamwork between all partners and detailed preparation. Although it is essential that one person (mostly the Lead Partner) coordinates application preparation (also contact with programme management). And the best would be if the same person later would be later responsible for managing the project. But still partner organisations have an important role to play. They should provide specific


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technical and other inputs for the proposal and define responsibilities, etc. Partners are regularly consulted by the Lead Partner during the process of development of the application.

Completing the application is the last chance to make sure that the partnership is well balanced with suitable allocation of responsibilities; that there is an overall understanding of each partner’s role(s) and those clashes of interests on regional and/ or interregional levels will be avoided. Everyone has to be clear exactly about what they are committing to.

3.1. Preparing the Budget

The preparation of the budget is critical in the process of developing the project. It is often the case that a badly calculated budget which does not account for the realities of the situation is responsible for failure or problems in the implementation phase.

Financial issues and the project budget should to consider from the very beginning. Programme advice should be requested on the possible budget available as a way of defining the scope of the project – there is no point planning activities that you will not be able to afford to implement. 12

When planning phase move from outlining general objectives and top specific objectives and defining of the activities needed to meet them, each of the activity have to be budgeted.

Illustration 7 Territorial Cooperation Project Management Handbook, March 2007

All partners should be involved in process of creating budget in an equal way. If Lead Partners develop projects in isolation it can generates resentment in the partnership and results in unrealistic proposals. Each partner need to take responsibility for its budget which should reflect the figures and price levels in its own country. Of course this approach


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requires a lot of preparatory work and planning meetings. But the time invested here will result in strong partnerships with good allocation of responsibilities and well-balanced budget.

While preparing the budget it is important to remember about how different work packages fit together: The work of one partner often depends on delivery of another partner’s work and the outcomes influence the stepping stone of whole project. That is why possible delays should be built into the time plan.

Identify the additional tasks needed for the efficient cooperation of the partnership and give the partners, who will incur these costs, adequate resources (one of the key success factor are regular face-to-face meetings of the partnership).It happens that less experienced partners underestimate the calculation of time necessary for administration and coordination – most of the times this is a full-time job for the Lead Partner (of course it's also depended on the size of the project).The budget estimates should be kept as accurate as possible. Defining a realistic maximum of the prices for all the activities is the best possible approach. Although it is advised to have a small surplus, just to be ready for unexpected problems. This should be a part of the risk assessment for the project. The project managers should add a safety margin to the estimates to ensure a small surplus of funds.

Another important point is to think over is how the budget should be spread over the project lifetime. In the first few months the project is always quite slow. The first meetings are more focus on completing the detailed planning. So the costs in this period are low and it should be reflected in the budget. If the budget for the first year is too big and it will not be used by the end of the year it can cause a reduction of the overall budget by the programme.

The dangers of over-budgetingPreparing the budget is very complicated and time-consuming. But to this task it is

necessary to invest a lot of time to avoid over-budgeting. This is strongly connected to the ‘de-commitment’ rules. This rule, called also n+2, was introduced in the programme, as a tool encouraging to efficient financial management.

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Illustration 8Territorial Cooperation Project Management Handbook, March 2007

This rule helps to prevent situation when large amounts of funds become inactive in programme accounts for many years. The Commission allocates or ‘commits’ funds to each programme at the beginning of each year (year N). This money should be spent within three years (by the end of n+2). If the funds haven't been spent they are ‘de-committed’ from the programme or returned to the Commission.

Fine-tuning the budget

During the preparation of budget it is important to have in mind that some types of costs in the programme are limited and/or have to meet special requirements; it can happens that some of the costs the project has planned will have to be reduced or even remove.The rules can varied, because of influence of national rules, but these are some main points:

1. Staff costsThe calculation of fulltime staff cost working on the project shouldn't be hard. It should be done based on standard salaries for the types of positions involved (mostly determined by partner organisations). Most programmes treat also the ‘staff overheads’, such as pension contributions and social security costs, as part of the staff costs. Of course if they are really paid by the partner organisation. But there are also many potentially complicating factors. Should the project pay overtime rates and time off work for sickness and holidays? In some programmes there are rules for that kind of cases. In others these costs should be transparently and proportionally split between the project and other employers.That is why it is absolutely necessary to find out the right rules of the programme for staff costs and make sure all partners keep documentation of how staff rates are calculated.

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2. External experts and consultantsIt is often that projects require expertise which is not available in partner organisations. But when any experts are hired, the projects need to be aware of public procurement rules. Under these rules, in order to get the best value offer, all the contracts for external services must be tendered.Full public tender and limited tender, are the two basic types of tender. The rules of tender, which have to be followed depend on the type and value of contract offered and They are decided by national rules. But every Member State has ‘threshold values’. The full public tender must be used in cases when the value of the contract is larger than this amount. To ensure value for money even smaller amounts generally require that three offers are collected. So it is impossible to identify contractors and also firmly set the amount for a contract before approving of the project. Therefore the budgets should be estimated based on maximum contract amounts.That is why it is essential to find out the national procurement thresholds in participating countries before project start (of course if the project requires the external services). It shouldn't be assumed that these rules will not apply: Some countries have extremely low threshold values, which should be taken into account by the financial managers while preparing the budget.

3. Travel and accommodationTravel and accommodation costs have to be based on estimates due to price changes. Many programmes and Member States have rules about these costs. But there are things like first class air travel and five star hotels, which are generally never allowed. Travel allowances for staff can be more difficult. There are often limits set by national rules and they may differ from those used in some partner organisations. Problems occur also in cases of traveling outside the programme area. Almost always the programme has to approve that kind of journey before it takes place or the costs will not be accepted, and it will be approved only if it has a direct benefit for the project’s objectives.It is absolutely necessary to check rules for travel and accommodation costs and particularly rules for calculating daily allowances for staff.

4. Meetings, conferences, seminars + promotion and publicationsThese costs are of course strongly dependent on the number of participants or number of copies printed etc. They are also estimated using the same value for money procedures as other costs.

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In the application should be included a detailed description of working methods in the project and the number of needed meetings of the partnership, professional working groups, steering groups, etc.

5. Investments in equipment and infrastructureOne of the issues that should be resolved is whether the programme allows projects to include only depreciation over the project’s lifetime or full purchase costs. And here the rules vary between programmes and Member States. Secondly, only equipment which is essential to the implementation of the project is allowed. The questions that need to be answered in this topic are:Whether the programme allows purchase cost or depreciation cost?Does this vary depending on the type of equipment concerned? Is it possible to claim depreciation for items bought before project start while they are being used for the project?

6. Overheads / General costsThe most frequent causes for reductions to project payments are overhead calculations. That is why it is important that all costs paid by the project are well-documented and based on the real costs for the organisation of hosting the project. The documentation of all the partners should be all the time available.Costs that are generally included if they are paid directly by the host organisation include:

1. Office supplies and photocopies2. Office furniture3. Electricity4. Heating5. Other utilities (water etc)6. Charges for phone, fax and internet services7. Cleaning8. IT support for computers / printers etc.9. Rent if the building is not owned by the host organisation10. Taxes on the building11. Insurance for the building12. Administrative support (maintenance of archives etc)

Costs that are most of the time rejected:1. Costs for snacks, drinks, meals etc2. Social events3. Works of art

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7. VATEligible for payment is only irrecoverable VAT. The calculation should be based on the amount of VAT that is expected to be reclaimed and this amount should be deducted from the project budget.

8. In-kind contributionsThe project budget consists not only of the ERDF funds but also of the co-financing. Part of the budget constitute of the ‘in-kind’ costs, like unpaid work or materials provided to the project (paid staff hours in partner organisations count as cash rather than in-kind contributions). The rule here is to use a fair and transparent calculation of the value of these contributions. But many programmes and Member States have their own rules on how to calculate it and /or limits for the value of in-kind contributions.It is important to find out if any of partners is planning to use in-kind contributions and what kind of rules they follow in calculating the value of these contributions.

9. RevenuesThe outcomes of some projects are products or services which later, for a charge, are offered to the public (although in some programmes it is impossible, because they require free public access to all project outputs). All the incomes form charges have to be counted as revenues regardless to the fact whether they only cover costs or also generate a profit. The revenues generated during the project’s lifetime and also estimation of the revenues generated for 3 years after project closure have to be deducted from the budget of the project.So it is necessary to check if the programme has any rules regarding generating revenue by the project. Are there any activities in the project expected to generate revenues? Has the expected amount of revenues been deducted from the budget? In some programmes there are very strict rules in the topic of revenues generating and not checking these rules properly may lead to serious problems at a later stage.

10. Ineligible costsUnder the Territorial Cooperation programmes there are various costs which are not funded and in this case cannot be included in the budget (like: payment of interest on debts or fines). There are rules which are defined by Europe but most of them are included in national rules. There are programmes which require additional information before they allow certain costs (like investment into infrastructure) or they put limits for certain type of costs (like, maximum 50% of total budget for staff costs).All the partners should be aware of all rules applicable in their country and make sure that their budget does not include ineligible expenditure.

3.2. Awareness of Partners’ Circumstances27


Bringing range of organizations from different countries under the umbrella of single project means contend with many complications.Not only does the Lead Partner need to familiarize itself at an early stage with all partner organisations’ structures, working practices and internal decision-making time-frames – it may take longer than expected for them to give agreement on key decision of change in direction or to deliver a singed ‘Letter of Intent’ – but it will also need to appreciate the various national systems, rules and procedures.Informed partners are prepared partners. Individual partners must themselves be aware (or be made aware) of exactly what applies to them, e.g. “Is co-financing available and if so, to what level?”; or “what assurances are required for the involvement of privet partners?”To aid efficiency both, Lead Partner and project partners, must ensure a familiarity with the various national audit mechanisms and systems (the process is sometimes undertaken by specific nominated privet bodies; sometimes by national structures) and their complexities and timeframes in order to avoid problems and delays in submitting financial claims. Equally, so as not to delay payment, all concerned should be clear as to the details of national financial flows as sometimes National Paying Authorities are involved as intermediaries in dispersing the claim reimbursement

3.3. Demonstrating Added Value in the Application

The application is the document which aims to convince the Programme Steering Committee that the proposal is worthy of support. As well as being properly and fully filled-in, factually correct, realistically budgeted in as much detailed as possible and persuasive in its arguments, the application should justify and make clear just what the project will offer by:

1. Detailing what the proposal’s objectives are by reference to the current situation and potential for improvement and how this will be achieved through action.

2. Making obvious what it is that is different/groundbreaking about what the proposal is carrying out why is this worthy supporting?

3. Explaining clearly why working with a cross-border of transnational partnership is particularly useful or essential to realize the project idea (and why this will be much more than a series of local actions/investments package together under the façade of cooperation) and how necessary joint cooperative strategy will function.

4. Demonstrating that your idea fits in which the programme’s general and specific goals.

Underlining any previous EU/international cooperation experience the partnership or its members have on similar/relevant themes and explaining how this new proposal builds upon it.

5. Integrating the project with other relevant projects having an impact on the same regions/territory while avoiding unnecessary overlaps.

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6. Demonstrating how the project is appropriate and will impact positively on the various local, regional, national and European policy circumstances and strategies.

Projects which are well-thought-out and able to portray the quality of clear added value tend to reflect more strategic outcomes, reduce duplication and do a great deal to promote the credibility of EU funding and to overcome perceptions of ‘subsidy shopping’ by participants.

3.4. Selection procedure

After the application has been submitted, it will go through a two-step selection procedure. To confirm that project fulfill the programme's technical requirements it will be checked against the eligibility criteria. The assessment eligibility criteria are performed by the Joint Technical Secretariat. Projects which meet the eligibility criteria will be checked against the quality criteria. The possibility of submitting corrected documents after the deadline for submission does not exist.The quality assessment is carried out based on a scoring system. The results in a ranked list of all the applications submitted are also taken into account. The assessment will be performed by the Joint Technical Secretariat in collaboration with external experts.

Eligibility criteriaThere is no flexibility allowed in the way the criteria are applied in the eligibility assessment, that is why it is a ‘yes or no’ process.Examples of eligibility criteria:- is the Lead Beneficiary an organization from eligible area?- is the Lead Beneficiary a public organisation?- are all of the partners from eligible area?- will the project activities be carried out in two or more of the participating countries?- completed application form (Is it signed, stamped, dated, fully completed, in English?)- evidence of matching funding

Selection criteriaThe selection criteria will be checked out only if projects have fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Example of selection criteria (can vary; depend on the type of project):

1. Contribution to transnational regional development2. contribution to joint transnational strategy3. Relevant and viable partnership4. Delivery towards Gothenburg and/or Lisbon agenda5. Project will demonstrate added value and deliver tangible and measurable results6. Project will demonstrate value for money

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7. Description of a problem to be tackled and the solution8. Involvement of public privet partnership and/or SMEs and leverage of extra

investment9. Promoting/ transnational approach10. Transnational partnership11. Publication and communication strategy and public ownership12. Environmental information 13

Illustration 9 Assessment Procedure and Project Selection

After the assessment the results and the applications are then sent to the members of the Monitoring and Steering Committee (MSC). They are also considered by national / regional sub-committees. The members of the MSC take the final decision on whether the project will be approved or not. After the MSC meeting projects are receiving a letter with the decision. After the application is successful approved by the Monitoring Committee the project can go through the next stages.

4. Project Implemmentation

13 Assessment Procedure and Project Selection

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This is the stage in t he project cycle when partners stop being just partners and start to contribute actual content in terms of activities and results according to approved terms, schedule and budget (including any further conditions attached by the programming authorities).


Now, the role of the Lead Partner extend form beyond that of the facilitator (communicating and building the application) into acting as the control mechanism over a living, breathing project. Good project management ensures that agreed procedures are adhered to, provides realism to frame creativity within the project’s parameters (schedule, budget, etc.) and emphasize the delivery of concrete outputs within reasonable degrees of flexibility.The day-to-day activity of the project is collectively ensured by the partners (individually and through delivery-oriented Working/Technical Groups on which all partners are represented) but the Lead Partner will oversee the delivery of project activities, their financial aspects, the organization of formal and informal meetings and compliance with the reporting requirements to ensure technical and financial co-ordination.In order to do this the project manager requires the joint support of all project bodies including Steering Committee to evaluate the effectiveness of the project activity according to the information provided by the project (reports and requested information) and to monitor and revise strategic priorities.

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The document which is very helpful for the mangers to track the progress is the original work plan. The work plan, the objectives and tasks that were initially defined for the application should remain unchanged. All together it should be used as a baseline, serving the project manager as a tool allowing to check what have been actually done and achieved during implementation process. There will always be some deviation from the original plan during implementation, no matter how good the original plan is. The project management should aim to track this deviation, make sure that the implementation will stay within the scope of the project and if necessary redirect activities to get back on track. It is also important to realize that many changes will actually be improvements. Project management always will have this dynamic aspect and the ability to adapt to change is likely to ensure ultimate success.

4.1. Establishing Ground Rules for Implementation

Administrative StructureFrom an administrative point of view, each partner organization needs to understand that it is responsible for the collection and storing of documents relating to its own activities within the project. Each partner has to collect the documentation in an oraganised way in order to provide it, if requested, together with official documents that will be produced in form of specific outputs or ongoing reports.

Financial StructureFrom the financial point of view, each partner organization needs to understand that it will be responsible for its own expenses – according to its budget and related activities – and for its financial reporting by providing the Lead Partner with necessary information for

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subsequent verification and consolidated project financial reporting (progress and final) to the Programme Authorities at agreed intervals.

Internal Project ManualProducing a project’s own functional ‘bible’ at an early stage after approval condenses all matters of programme requirements and set out a roadmap for project implementation by the partners (structures, procedures, action plans, responsibilities, deadlines, communication norms, decision-making processes, etc.). This ensures ready and definitive resources for partner consultation and a shared understanding across the partnership.

Formal Partnership AgreementThe mandatory imposition of the Lead Partner Principle across all programmes (ERDF regulation) places a burden of responsibilities on all Leads to maintain very good two-way communication and relationship with all the project partners. Partnership conventions, although not always mandatory are strongly recommended to establish ‘ground rules’ for the functioning of the partnership and the security of its members by setting out prior agreement upon procedural matters and formalizing (and further clarifying) the individual responsibility of each partner. The terms of the convention are sometimes freely adaptable from a template offered by the programme.The convention should set out straightforward processes to deal with budget modifications (as per the subsidy contract), disputes (e.g. penalties for financial mismanagement); the process for the official removal of errant partners from the partnership.Another key element of this agreement is to ensure that the Lead is in a position to satisfactorily monitor the quality of activities carried out (i.e. that they are strictly and solely for the purpose of implementing the agreed operation) and, where this is the Lead’s prerogative, their proper auditing before including them as part of the overall claim process.

4.2. Starting Implementation

Kick-off Meeting. Start means to really go on! A well-organized kick-off meeting to officially begin project activities is vital. As well as creating a sense of cohesiveness it also serves to ‘refresh’ partners on: Expected outputs Programme and project indicators Activity timeframe How to carry out activities Human resource issues Financial flows Procedures and deadlines for reporting

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Project Bodies

The formal appointment of membership of the Steering Committee and other project bodies such as suitable Working/Technical Groups based on activities listed in the application form should take place at the earliest possible opportunity. Post-approval communication should make clear the role of each body to be established, the limits of its functions and how it will interact with other elements of the project.

Meetings and Events

Transnational and interregional meetings involve a lot of partners’ time, effort and expense to organize and attend. As well as the more obvious aspects of information provision and task completion, project meetings and the opportunities provided by project events for external stakeholders should be used for general discussion, exchange of experiences and to look beyond the project at related external developments (e.g. inviting observers to take part).Arrange for public project events to be held in each participating region – possibly allowing the host region to use the occasion as a promotional instrument (e.g. of its involvement in EU programmes).The number of representatives per partner at meetings should be relatively standardised across the partnership (and accommodation in the budget as ‘travel’ or ‘meetings’ costs) or at least justified in relation to the workload.

4.3. Support Mechanisms

Advice & AssistanceMaximum use should be made of such information and support services along the lines of nationally-based Programme Contact Points and designated JTS project and finance officers as are made available to individual project by each programme. These resources – often located quite close to potential partners – can provide promoters with accessible direction and interpretation of technical EU/programme-level regulations and clarification where necessary. Their role is not restricted to initial project development, sourcing suitable partners, or acting as intermediaries in facilitating the partnership – they also perform a role, where requested, in ensuring that the implementation stage runs smoothly.

Information Point (IP) Geographical Area

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Katowice (Poland) Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania

Lille (France) Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Switzerland

Rostock (Germany) Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Norway

Valencia (Spain) Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain

TrainingApproved projects are typically able to avail of special programme-level training on matters of project management from finances to communication (organized and delivered by the JTS). For logistical reasons this is usually only offered to the Lead Partner. In the absence of suitable training being made available to a representative of each participating oraganisation, the formalized passing on new knowledge acquired to all other partners is important in ensuring that key messages reach the appropriate targets at the all levels of project management. Adequate budgeting and time should be set aside for this purpose.

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5. Dissemination & Legacy

External communication and dissemination are key factors for a successful project – in terms of gaining the participation of relevant target groups and informing the general public about activities and the value of INTERREG and EU funding.On other level, a good project should ensure that it is establishes a strategy to disseminate its achievements so as to maximize the advantage of the momentum (‘snowball effect’) it generates. This will create a basis whereby the results whish emerge and their impacts can be put to further and wider use.

5.1. Communication Plan

Before beginning any kind of communication activities it is important to develop a Communication Plan that will serve as the reference tool as to how the project’s messages and activities can be disseminate. Suggested contents of the Plan should include:

1. Clearly stated objectives of the project by reference to target groups, expected results and massages to be communicated

2. Overall timeframe for communication activities3. Overall and partner-level dissemination responsibilities

Activities:1. Defining a project image (logo, editorial line)2. Creating a web site3. Publishing a set of promotional materials (leaflets, brochures)4. Publishing a regular newsletter5. Organizing a programme of workshops, seminars and events6. Cultivating media relations (articles, press releases)

Human resources (internal or external experts, communication agencies)1. Communication budget4. Communication Plan evaluation criteria

Communication Activities Tips:Communication should be considered as a core element of the project. That is why sufficient time and funds should be allocated to cover these requirements.It is good to encourage the partners to contribute to drafting the Communication PlanThe Plan should be submitted to Steering Committee for a formal approval. This is a massage to the partners that Communication activities are very important part of the project.It is important to remember that the communication should be active as well as informative.Research out to the project’s target audience; do not wait for them to find the project on the web.

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Investigate all the Media suitable to reach the target group (partners’ internal media, local and national newspaper, magazines, specialist press, TV, radio…). When dealing with the Media it is important:

1. to make ensure that the news is actually newsworthy;2. to use simple sentences, short and clear messages, no jargon;3. to provide people stories, they are more appealing;4. to provide the necessary documentation (survey, data, press kits, photos…) to any

journalist who might write an article on the project;Websites: more innovative use should be made of websites as interactive tools to involve external stakeholders and beneficiaries rather than as static billboards or intra-partnership communication forums.Factor in a bigger replicability (to other regions and circumstances) of results and outcomes and hoe their dissemination can best be assisted (networks, etc.).For continuity sake websites should also remain available to the public for a minimum period of at least 2 years after the project has formally concluded.Always take as reference the Commission’s Regulation for Communication activities related to ERDF funds and possible Programmes’ specific Manuals on the subject.Human and financial resources: Partners, (especially Lead Partners) should try to avail themselves of communication experts either by allowing adequate funds to hire them (i.e. communication agencies, journalists, etc.) or by working with existing internal structures (press offices). In recent Seminar organized by DG Regio on Communication activities related to Structural Funds, officers have suggested encouraging part-time internship contracts with student journalists whenever possible: working in a PR capacity for EU funding is to their benefit as well as to projects. Part of the bigger picture is that this should also help a new generation of journalists to become more sensitive and knowledgeable about European issues.

Wider Impacts

Pre-planning to Influence PolicyEvery project (depending on its duration and ambition) will deliver something in the form of output, results and/or perhaps even impact. These are, after all, the promised fruits of the objectives which made the application sufficiently credible to get the go-ahead in the first place. Results are not intended as more findings in a final report on a dusty shelf – rather, they should be designed to be transferable so as to be put to wider effect.Innovative and genuinely useful outputs – e.g. pioneering new approaches which have built-in efficiencies or uniquely integrate different perspectives – owe it to themselves to be replicated in other settings. The best way to achieve this is to see them ‘mainstreamed’ through policy instrument.

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1. Do the groundwork in advance to design the project so that its results and outcomes can be easily integrated into the economic and territorial planning of each of the administrations involved. Achieve this by either involving the policy-makers directly as partners or as fully-briefed observers.

2. Establish who the appropriate stakeholders and target groups to be engaged are.3. Factor in the wider replicability of results and outcomes (other areas of the EU and

beyond) and how their dissemination can best be assisted (networks, etc.)Bear in mind that putting new learning (e.g. techniques) onto the policy agenda or into practice can only reflects favorably on the foresight of the organizations involved.

Further DevelopmentNo project is going to solve all of the problems associated with the given issues. From the point of view of the partner organizations themselves, any project upon its completion should lay the groundwork of potential for subsequent follow-up activities where the participating actors (and/or others) can continue their work by logically building upon what was already funded.This might entail leading to the undertaking of a brand new project (possible a direct sequel) or the setting-up of a more permanent structure to formalise whatever was pioneered by the existing initiative – allowing the project to ‘stand on its own feet’ one EU financial support has ended.If further investment from other (ideally private sector) non-EU sources can be leveraged to achieve this, the self-sufficiency of the project’s approaches will be ensured.

Public Ownership of OutputsPublic access to and ownership of the outputs and materials generated by the project including Intellectual Property Rights – even through the engagement of external third parties such as consultants – should be assured by participants prior to application.

Synergetic Among ProjectsSuccessful project should embody the benefits of the concept of international cooperation. Creating more formalized networking and clustering opportunities among ongoing projects in liked fields would also assist in avoiding duplication and achieving useful synergies (particularly across programmes and strands and geographical areas which are not linked by programme spaces).

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6. Monitoring & Evaluation

A project can be define as “a series of activities aimed at bringing about clearly specified objectives within a defined time-period and with a defined budget” or as a way of clearly defining and managing investments and change processesIt should involve not only a hierarchy of objectives (input, activities results, purpose and overall objectives) plus a set of defined assumptions but also a framework for verifying and evaluating project achievements – namely a monitoring system.A well-design monitoring system for cooperation projects contributes to helping the management process; validating and enhancing the credibility of the project; motivating the stakeholders; and transferring and reproducing the benefits of the project. To do so it must meet a number of conditions: it must be designed at the beginning of the project; It must be structured around a group of indicators that can be checked in an objective

manner; It must be organized around critical moments of the roll-out phase of the project in

order to make its monitoring possible; It must guarantee the participation of the different project stakeholders.

6.1. Monitoring Tools

Given the range of elements and the complexities involved, the appropriate tools need to e identified in order to guarantee that all the necessary conditions are met for the monitoring process to be established in relation to the actions, the results expected and budget cost control.

1. Documenting Tools and Results/OutputsFile and record the content, relevance and location of all documentation and correspondence serving the entire partnership using a single and shared step-by-step document management system.As a quality control, maximum transparency is necessary in reporting terms to highlight and communicate the contribution of each partner towards achieving tangible results. An inventory of each partner’s tools and outputs should be kept, updated and made accessible.

2. Internal Monitoring SystemDesigning ongoing of highly regularized web-based internal communication system serves to keep all the partners informed of progress. This should operate along a shared responsibility basis rather than as a ‘top down’ exercise reliant on the Lead.

3. ReportingAn efficient and well-maintained project communication system as outlines above can easily system serves as the basis for a semi-formal internal reporting structure. Such reports are not a programme requirement and may be shares with the JTS or maintained as a purely

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internal tool to keep a very close check on progress and spending schedule in particular. However, with extra development, a system along these lines can be employed to make the task of formal financial management and official reporting (usually 6 monthly) much easier and less time-consuming.The feedback provided by the JTS on previous activity reports should be taken on board and shared among the partnership so that useful elements can be integrated into future reporting requirements.

4. ChangesIt is expected that the implementation phase will adhere to the terms of the application as approved. Where deviations (including partner non-compliance and understand) unavoidably occur it is prudent to be responsive to the need to change and to alert the JTS so that some form of solution can be found. Allowing a hidden problem to feaster until it is too late to carry out remedial actions is likely to have far more seriously negative impact in the long-term including automatic decommitment of approved funds or exclusion from possible involvement in the future calls (e.g. for extensions, etc.).

6.2. Selecting Indicators

Indicators are measurement tools that provide useful project management data to allow for the monitoring of progress and efficiency – thereby allowing for better decision-making, improved effectiveness and more relevant results.Indicators must be directly related to the project’s most important objectives and give an accurate picture of what a project is setting out to achieve. Yet because they can only provide a partial ‘snapshot’ of the status of some of the work being done, the first decision in this regard is to decide what to measure; i.e. what are the interesting and important parts of the project?The challenge in selecting indicators is to find measurables that can meaningfully capture key changes, combining what is practically realistic in terms of actually collecting and managing data.A range of indicators is normally provided in the Operational Programme and each partner needs to adapt this as appropriate and incorporate it into its application as a means to assess and justify the benefits that will be derived from the project.From the beginning, the partnership must understand and agree upon the kind of (unit-based) indicators by which the project will be assessed; take a base-line from which to work; introduce the target to aim for; and set up mechanisms and milestones to collect data in order to be able to measure progress.Some of the key problems with monitoring and evaluation can be eradicted at sources by allocating a suitable and ample range of indicators which clearly capture the purpose of the project’s objectives and activities:

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output indicators measure what is produced by the activities; results indicators measure the immediate effects on the targeted beneficiaries; impact indicators measure the long-term contribution to the overall objective.

There is a need for logical connections between these 3 categories. For example: An analysis/report (output indicator) on particular theme of relevance to the shared territory of the partner organizations should contribute to increase awareness (result indicator) among target groups including the general public on the issues of the report which should in turn lead to improved policies (impact indicator) based on this new knowledge. A key feature of indicators is the ability to describe and verify the project’s objective in operationally measurable terms such as quality, quantity and time in order to answer the questions:- how would we know whether what was planned is actually happening?- how do we verify success?So that each element of actual project performance (results, budgetary efficiency etc.) can be assessed it is strongly recommended to define specific and relevant indicators which are actually achievable and can be measured according to the project’s information needs and schedule (various milestones when targets will be achieved). For example, the project might be founded on the understanding that it is realistic for each partner to design and deliver 10km of dedicated cycle track within 3 years and 10% of local commuters using this facility within 5 years and design indicators to tally rather than unrealistically purporting to provide a solution to urban traffic congestion and vehicle pollution throughout Europe.It is important to remember that indicators are only the fuel of monitoring/evaluation; they do not encompass the entire process.

6.3. The Evaluation Process

Evaluation is the comprehensive, critical and detached examination of the appropriateness of the objectives and the quality of the interventions employed according to the results, impacts and needs they aim to satisfy.Evaluation is a process - not just a technique – and its various stages needs to be phased over the project lifecycle with differing areas of focus:- ex-ante – planning rationale (design and resources allocation including cost benefits

analysis) - interim/ongoing – implementation relevance and effectiveness (programme

management; objectives being reached; control of external factors)- ex-post – outcomes efficiency and impact (achievements; added value)

It should combine both summative (accountability; achievements; value) and formative (development or learning focus; improving performance and delivery) approaches.

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Evaluation TasksEvaluation requires a careful balancing of time and resources; research and analysis; team management; relationship building (stakeholder involvement etc.). To see the process through in an efficient manner: establish and understand the project content (actors and beneficiaries; activites;

evaluation type required); prepare and agree clear Evaluation Terms of Reference; design an Evaluation Work Plan proposal (overall approach; logical analytical

framework; methodology/techniques; work programme of which information and how to collect it);

plan and budget resources for Evaluation (no. of people/person days; type of people; necessary expertise);

perform the Evaluation (implement method/work programme; cultivate relations; manage team; deal with unexpected issues);

design an Output Schedule (plan meeting frequency; plan milestones); define the nature and style of report.

Practical Evaluation Tips: Ensure project planning includes monitoring and evaluation from outset. Early understanding and agreement on importance of evaluation is necessary – as is an

appreciation of different partners’ national attitudes towards the process. In trying to establish if intervention will make a difference include such aspects as

“expert” opinion and views of stakeholders. In assessing the eventual effects a contrast ‘before and after’ (time-series) or ‘with and

without’ (location and contexts) may be worthwhile. ‘soft’ interventions have less obvious effects and are harder to evaluate. International evaluation teams are needed to accurately reflect the partnership’s

activities.

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7. Dealing With Cultural DifferencesRising the awareness of the cultural differences among the participants of INTERREG projects is very important.The conscious cultural management can facilitate every phase of the project management. To deal with culture effectively, it is necessary to take a bigger picture into account. To do that culture should be seen as a resource instead of an obstacle and the cultural differences as productive.

7.1. Recognizing and managing culture:

In view of the fact that cultural differences are inevitable, it is necessary to encourage people to recognize these differences and to learn how deal with them. These differences can bring opportunities for innovation and can broaden the scope of the implementation of initiatives.Of course it is difficult to formulate concrete instructions regard to the successful management of projects, mainly because every project is different. The suggestions which are introduced are grouped according to the three most essential phases of every project: project preparation, development of the project and the implementation phase.

7.2. The project preparation phase

This phase is focusing on generation of the project idea and involvement of the project partners. Most of the times finding partners is limited to use old networks, for example colleagues from earlier cooperation or other personal contacts. But, one should pay attention to minimizing the cultural imbalance in processing the project idea and in the composition of the partnership.

It is advised to involve all the partners, especially ‘new’ partners in an open and substantial way. It is good to seek for developing a culturally balanced partnership which involves each of the partners in a substantial way. It is happening that only familiar partners are involved effectively and adding new partners is only to increase the chances of funding. In these cases new partners are not playing considerable role, sometimes because of financial constraints but also due to the fact that the newcomers are representing other cultural perspectives. Depending on the topic of the project, it might be very advantageous to develop a strategy of involving different cultures. Cultural differences can spill in different perspectives on the central idea of the project; this can enable to take full advantage of the variety of knowledge and experiences. An example of alternative approach of building partnership can be founding partners through a kind of contest. Although in this way a strong hierarchy in the partner network (leaders/ pioneers vs. followers) might be established, that is why it is necessary to balanced with good involvement and a partnership approach.

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The richness of INTERREG lies in the variety of viewpoints and usage of advantages of otherness. For not to ‘stewing in our own juice’, it is essential to seek partners with different professional backgrounds and from different geographical zones.

The richness of INTERREG lies in the variety of viewpoints and usage of advantages of otherness. For not to ‘stewing in our own juice’, it is essential to seek partners with different professional backgrounds and from different geographical zones.

These differences among the partners should be seen as offering new potential to the project, as a possibility to consider different aspects as important, and different political and administrative ways of handling problems.

Regardless to how project partners are found and how the partnership is build, there are certain things which should be clarified between participants. One of those things, which might have influence on the future smoother project cooperation, is to involve partners to reflect on the project application explicitly from their own cultural perspective. This approach may help to avoid misunderstandings in the project application by providing clues about framing differences and the relevant cultural dispositions with respect to practices.

Connections between project and local context partners should be investigated. It is good to be aware of how the ideas of the project interfere with the regional, political and institutional cultures of the partners. It may be beneficial to organize a workshop about project application to investigate this aspect, although it might be not eligible for refunding.

The individual actions and joint actions should be connected in an integrated methodology. The idea of the INTERREG is also to stress the added value of the process itself, meaning: Learning from working together is a valuable by-product. That is why it is important to connect interactivity (joint actions) and the cognitive approach (individual actions) into one integrated methodology. It should be avoid organization of the work in closed working groups and only exchange ideas and results at the end of a project. Instead, it is recommended to design work in an integrated processes. This interactive approach should be also visible in the workload and work packages.

The project partners should be aware that differences are valuable by-products in the process. In INTERREG projects, the internal cross-cultural process should be treated as important as the content orientation. Also in the interests of innovation, these two orientations should be more connected.

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7.3. Development of the project

This phase starts after project is approved of the project. The key issue at this stage, is that partners have to be awareness of the fact that cultural differences affects: frames, perceptions, expectations of the project and also political-administrative traditions. It is wise to be aware of stereotypes among the partners, right from the beginning of the project. This enables to avoid the manifestation of negative stereotypes. Knowledge of different organizational styles can influence interaction. For good cooperation it is also important to know different institutional mandates and discretionary competences of partners.

Partners should be aware of different mandates. This knowledge can help in assigning of the range of competences and responsibilities for the partners. It also can give a view of how partners want to deal with project issues at their own discretion - especially funding and commitment. It also emphasized that to reach a profound level of understanding one start-up event is not enough. Absolutely crucial parts of team building are meetings. During the process of development of the project, issues like: working cultures, system cultures and societal cultures should be discussed.

In this phase the number of face-to-face interactions should be intensify. It is also advised to exchange ideas via telephone and video conferences, intensive e-mail exchange etc. But it must be emphasized that the best results are achieved by face-to-face interactions. Partners should get to know each other, as well as the project objectives; this is why an interactive dialogue should be established right from the beginning.

It is advised to invite partners to exchange their opinions on ‘good partnership’ from the point of view of their local cooperation traditions and their perceptions of international settings. To follow the interactive approach, it is good to discuss potential dissonances between these culturally rooted perspectives.

It is advice to exchange partners’ expectations and the cultural background of them in the start-up meeting. These questions can be helpful in doing this:

- What do you aim to achieve with this project?- For whom is this important?- Why is it important in your (cultural) context?

A good idea can be organizing an informal event where partners may exchange information about institutions, systems and societies in their regions. Also observing local practice during a study visit may provide information about partners. Partners can

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be encouraged to bring some sources of information about their regions (these can give some clues about how problems are formulated in their cultural context).

7.4. Implementation phase

During the implementation of the project, all the partners should be careful and sensitive to the culture and its role in the process.

Keep in mind trust while dealing with differences in language skills. Serious lack of language skills can cause complications in every interaction. If that kind of problem occur in the process of the project, it is better to not to solve it by sending a third party to attending all meetings. It would be prefer, to look for a person within the project team to solve the language barrier, in order not to disturb the building of trust. It is also better to try to enable face-to-face contact.

Conflicts may be treated in a different way by different cultures. Gathering adequate information about specific culture can provide clues about how the conflicts are perceived and might bring idea how to solve it.

If conflicts are solved in sincere interactions, they can be very productive in projects. But the practice shows that, conflicts can be very problematic. Trying to solve the problems just by sending e-mails and official letters will not bring success. It is advised to meet face to face and discuss points of view. One of the possibilities can be involving a third party; this can prevent ‘loss of face’.

That commitment of partners to the project declines when decisions are taken by project managers or steering groups. Managers may think the problem lies within the partnership, and does not take into account cultural differences. One should look beyond the ordinary staff involved in the partnership and try to see a bigger picture. Maybe the importance of the project has changed for some institution or region, and it requires making some improvements in the project.

All the partners should be aware of cultural dynamics during the process of project. It means that projects management style might need a different approach in different

phases of the project. For example balance between: result-oriented and exchange-oriented working sessions, decision-making sessions or exchange sessions, etc.

The lead partner not only should be aware of this dynamic but also should try to anticipate these needs.

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When signs of a loss of enthusiasm start to be visible, one should of course ask if there are any problems in the relationship between project partner and the project leader. But one should also think about if maybe there is something wrong in the relation between the actor, his institute(s) and the project.

Always try to look for deeper reasons of dissonance. If there is a discussion on 'who is right and who is wrong' do not allow get it out of hand. One should not forget to look for the deeper reasons of appearing dissonance. In that kind of cases not only fundamental knowledge about cultural aspects is necessary but also openness and willingness of people to realize and accept cultural differences. Only that kind of approach can contribute to the international collaboration.

If there are misunderstandings appearing, one should analysis the practical consequences of dissonance, in order to determine whether the misunderstanding came out from language and communication problems or from different cultural frames. Talking about real, practical situations helps to clear up misunderstandings.

Most of the project starts with a body of formal academic knowledge. It means that different knowledge conceptions can meet in projects. One should try to give a fair hearing to different kinds of knowledge because it should be adopted by all the partners. Allowing different, practical knowledge to enter the project is giving a chance of using it as valuable ingredient in creating an interactive project.

If any administrative mistakes have been done, a project manager should make all partners aware of it and keep them informed, and also clarify his administration culture and his plan of retrieval.

It is advise to exchange concepts, practices and strategies of local implementation as well as discuss the cultural embedding in the course of the project. The local context is influencing whole project and vice versa. It is wise to involve most important, local stakeholders in the project to improve implementation locally but also of the project as a whole. The Lead Partner should be aware of the political changes in the regions of the partners during the project and also possible repercussions of those changes for the results of project implementation.

The approaches to external communication can be different in different regions and countries. Communication and relations which are typical in one region can be completely unsuccessful or can even hamper the dissemination of the project in another

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region. The best solution is joint discussion, where each of the partners can make others aware of different ‘rules of the game’ in their regions, e.g. in dealing with politicians.In most of the cases partners are very enthusiastic about study visits, excursions, twinnings, practical labs, etc. This shows that these kinds of events are necessity. The possibilities for informal exchange motivates people and lead to building social relationship within the team, increasing of trust and helps to free from the stereotypes. This enable to create stabile project and strong partnership.

For constructive dealing with project the adequate recognition of cultural variety is necessary from the very first phases of a project. The relevance of culture and the benefits of the recognition the cultural differences is very important. Managing cultural differences requires intelligence and an open mind, rather than instructions.14

Of course any suggestions about raising cultural awareness in INTERREG cooperation can only be seen as some inspiration not strict instructions. The most important suggestions is to become aware of the cultural varieties among the partners. It is essential that all the participants will be aware of their own culture and its peculiarities, that they are willing to recognize cultural differences between the other and that they are open to dealing with those differences during the project.The recognition of culture is not restricted to the project objectives, but is also applied to the way project management. The project management is a joint effort, and it should be about sense making instead of decision making when it deals with differences between cultures. One should remember that cultural differences can produce positive benefits, if the partners are able to have critical detachment and to see differences as resources not obstacles.

14 Cultural Differences In European Cooperation, Learning from INTERREG Programme, 2007

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8. Interviews

The researcher interviewed managers of the INTERREG projects. The aim of the interview was to gain the knowledge about their experiences with managing projects, to gain information which is not described in project manuals. What kind of problems the manager had to tackle during the managing projects. How does the project life cycle look like in the real life. What contributes to the success of the project and what can cause troubles or even failure. On what particularly pay the attention? What to not to overlook? What makes a successful INTERREG project?

The checklist of the questions used during the interviews can found in the Appendix nr 1.

1. The first interview was done on 21 May 2010, with Mr. Bob Pels the European Territorial Cooperation Programme Manager. Interview focused on two projects SAWA and MORE4NRG.

The checklist used during the interview can be found in the Appendix nr 1.

SAWA, an INTERREG IVB project, makes a sustainable contribution to the recently adopted Flood Directive (FD). This directive strongly focuses on integrated flood risk management on a river basin level in a close link to the Water Framework Directive. Both of these directives demand an integrated water management approach.Within the partnership of 5 riparian North Sea Regions SAWA is working on meeting these challenges. The aim of the project is to develop a common adaptive implementation strategy which would meet FD and WFD requirements. SAWA creates innovative flood risk management solutions and flood protection measures which are adaptive and transferable tools also for other regions and next generations.

More detailed description of the project can be found in the Appendix nr2.

MORE4NRGEurope is responsible for reducing the effects of climate change and preparing regions for decline of the oil-age. To help solve the energy issues European regions have to promote, develop and implement energy efficiency strategies and renewable energy sources (RES).The MORE4NRG aims to bring these issues to interregional level. The partnership includes 12 partners from all over the Europe: 11 regions and the Assembly of European Regions (AER). The regions involve in the project represent different level of advanced strategies, action plans and variety of approach. The exchange of good practices in frame of the project

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enables all the regions to improve their strategies on sustainable energy. The project also allow to speed up the development in the less advanced regions.

More detailed description of the project can be found in the Appendix nr 5.

Conclusion from the interview:

What makes the project successful?

Best way to develop the project is to start with an overall idea, what you want to solve, what you want to do.

SAWA from the beginning was is difficult and complicated project. In strand B of INTERREG you are allowed to experience with small pilots, and these pilots are part of the project. So everybody were preparing pilots, but the problem with it is that if you don't have an overall idea it is very hard to put it all together. It takes 6 months maybe a year before you it is possible to finalize the pilots and just then you can disseminated the gained information. That is why this project needs more time. Waiting for results takes more time but they can be very impressive

SAWA bring together 22 partners, so it is a lot, and it is hard to manage. So partners decided there should be an International Steering Group but not with 22 members. So we had an International Advisory Board and every country have one person who coordinates the things within the Member State. So the national problems are discussed on the level of Member State. It means that to manage the project successfully the structure has to be well organized.

It is very important that organizations involved in the project would be able to well cooperate together, that they understand each other, they are able to work together, that they speak to each other.

The Lead Partner can organize common meeting couple of times a year, stimulate them to work together but it is them who have to do it, and they have to communicate with each other.

In More4nrg the idea came from group of politicians on the level of regional ministries. They are all the Member of AER. They all saw a need of taking care of the environment and energy efficiency strategies and renewable energy sources. So they sign a declaration and decided they need and international project, like INTERREG. They used a network and the experts of AER and also partners from other projects and they create a group of regions interested in the project.

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The communication was perfect in this project. All the partner were very enthusiastic and very active they done an excellent job. For example: the expected number of copies of brochures 1000, disseminated number of copies 3000, expected hits on the projects website 250, during the project it was 18000

The fact that the AER was the partner in the project, and it has 270 members, the dissemination was very wide. So if there was a newsletter send it reached 270 regions via email and hard copies few times a year. So having as a partner organization like AER, with so strong network was one of the elements of such a big success of the More4nrg. But also very active project manager who will pull and push the project partners. The right person on the right place and with adequate skills.

Though out the project the financial issues are always a big thing, one of the hardest elements that needs a lot of energy and time. And because of that sometimes it can hard to balance focus on finances and the really intention of the project. There is always a risk that the attention for the financial issues is that big that partners can forget about the importance of the content of the project. People always afraid about the money. The advice from Mr. Pels was to forehead if there are any financial issues and think about it earlier to come out with some propositions for solutions to the Monitoring Board. This allows to solve all the problem during the meeting.

First organize your network with stakeholders, organisations in your region, that you will need with the performance of the project. Do that from the start. For example, if it is an economic project involve Chamber of Commerce, Development Agency, etc, what you have in your region. See who and how can be really involved, so that if you want move on you can easily ask them. Because otherwise you will lose time if you want to organize it after the project is already approved So don't do it within 2 or 3 months after kick-off, than you will lose time you will be lacking behind. That is important that the regional authorities took part in the project. They are also a strong network in all region should they know about what you're doing.

And the policy makers, it is very important to involve them. Because if you talk about important issues like energy issues or economic issues it is absolutely necessary to involve your politicians. Because in the end they will decide about the money, they will decide if you can change policies. So in the time when you apply involve them. It is maybe not for every INTERREG project, it is not always the major importance. But for example MORE4NRG wouldn't be so successful if the politicians wouldn't be involved in it. Especially that the idea came from the political wheel, from the politicians within the AER.

With In More4nrg apart from exchange the good practices which enable exchange very concrete project or initiatives from one region to another. But the exerts were also developing the strategies, especially for the less developed countries in the renewable

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energy. The good practices implementation creates a kind of immediate effect and by influencing the strategic and political level there is a long term effect.

2. The second interview was done on 25 May 2010, with Mr. Jan Boerstra the Programme Manager. Interview focused on projects e-citizen I and II.


e-Citizen is a INTERREG IVC project. e-Citizen is designed to support European cities and regions in their joint efforts to accelerate eGovernment through exploiting established networks, gained experiences and good practices.15

This project was created to improve the relations of citizens of European cities and regions and public authorities and also improve the involvement of citizens in decisions-making process. The added-value which the project brings to interregional eGovernment cooperation is transferring, between the more and less advanced regions of Europe, the gained knowledge, experiences, best practices. e-Citizen project aims to stimulate new approaches, bigger understanding and engaging citizens in city and regional administrations and creating citizen-centred eServices. The project will involve decision- and policy-makers, demonstrate benefits of the eGovernment and the best eParticipation practices in different public sectors and identify future prospects to ensure support to further acceleration of eGovernment.16




Too much Baltic countries in the project, 2 of finish partner were of the project

In e-citizen II wants to make a link to social media, social portals, like Facebook, Hyves, to use social media for the governmental activities. The aim is to keep the society closer to the government by using powerful and common media like internet.From 12 partner one, the Finish partner, is the Lead partner, mainly taking care of the project management, 3 other partners: English, Estonian and Dutch are mainly responsible

15 eCitizen II project overview16 eCitizen II project overview

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for the content of the component 3 and it is because of their knowledge and experience in the topic. JTS was very satisfy with the goal and the programme of the project and asked to involve the region were internet and digital world are not so advanced. It was a reason to invite countries like: Hungary, Greece, Ireland…The Finish partner as an inventor of the idea become a Lead Partner. In Mr. Jan Boerstra opinion the problem for them can be that they don’t have the right knowledge about the topic of the project. If one don’t know the subject, one also don’t know the organization in Europe which are working on social media and internet. They can be very good project manager in timekeeping, in making schedules, in making reports but the fact that they don’t have any substantial knowledge of the topic of the project makes them very dependent on other partners, and also forces a lot of trust between the partners. In this case the Finish partner is very dependent on English partner. It can be said that the English partner is a lead partner for component 3 .The Lead Partner ask the English partner also for help in building the partnership because of they have a lot of experience in the topic and in international projects, but also because of their network. The possible problem which occur in partnership can be ineligibility of some partner and that they will not deliver to the project. Sometimes from the beginning it is visible that there are partner from who one cannot expecting too much. It can be caused by lack of knowledge and experience. But it also happens that there are partner which are in the project for the wrong reasons like money and exchanging meetings not only because of the content of the project. Hopefully those partner can learn from others but the expectation from them are not the highest. It is very usual that when the project team is formed there are always 2-3 partners who take the lead, there is a group that follows, and there is a group in the end that walks with you.But it is not only about people, their mentality, knowledge or involvement. Sometimes the external circumstances, like economic crisis, can cause that the partners even have to leave the project.At this moment the e-Ctizen II is in the stage of define the real project targets that the project wants to realize. The project partners are exploring and discussing what specific targets they want to realize, what exactly they want to do.Starting an INTERREG project is like make a promise to Europe that partner will deliver some results, make some improvements. And if the partner have to realize that if they will not keep that promise they will not be eligible, reliable for the JTS in next projects and their proposal will not be accepted.

Flevoland has whole department working on European projects, there are around 20 people involve. This allows to financial managers to have time to control the budget not only from behind the desk but also by doing control visits. And this was a bit unusual for all the other

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partners. The Lead Partner involve two people to manage the project. Budget management of the project is based just on trust. With such a small team the Lead Partner is not in the circumstances to do control visits and check if they can trust their partners. And that is a very big risk. Because one can never know if you can trust to all the partners in the same level. But on the other hand partners have to trust each other to work together. Even if there is a possibility of control visits, the cooperation is between countries which are often very far away from each other, and it takes time and money. That is why partners have to give each other a credit of trust.

Dissemination and communication The communication and dissemination plan of the e-Citizen II to is just being done, but the results from the e-Citizen I can be already evaluated. Among those were: brochure, website, DVD and a manual But Mr. Jan Boerstra had some doubts about what was the real impact of those materials. He think the brochure are not the best way to get people attention, the website was not often visited, mainly because people didn’t know about existence of the project or the website. The same with the manual. It was posted on websites of EU but in the end it disappear between thousands of other available in the internet information.This is an important issue for the European projects. Some of the solution can be that the Lead partner should put a really big emphasis on strong regional dissemination and communication of the results. For example Mr. Jan Boerstra planned a Regional Conference about the e-participation and social media. He planned to invite councils from 6 municipalities, members from Regional Council from the province. He is also planning to invite Lady who was involve in Barack Obama team in election, where he used internet and Facebook for his campaign Summarizing the substantial and indispensable elements of successful project are: Knowledge of the subject because otherwise you cannot keep up with the progress

of the project Trust, it is important because for the project management and also for the realizing

the goals, partners have to trust that they cooperate with people and organizations who will do the best of the project

Building the regional network for successful dissemination. It is about how you see the world. When you see it to narrow and you don’t spread the network it will not bring big results.

Experience of the project partners in doing international projects. Helps to build the right structure, solve the unexpected problems

the right people with adequate skills on the right place

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3. The third interview was done on 26 May 2010, Mrs. Karin Maatje the INTEREG Project Manager. Interview focused on projects: ELLABO and MiniEurope. In both of the project Province of Flevoland was the Lead Partner.


ELLABO was an INTERREG IIIC project under the Hanse Passage programme. Project aimed to improve the participation of elderly people in the labour market. The main reason of inventing this programme was creating international networks for exchanging experiences.Regions which were participating in ELLABO were: Groningen (NL), Fryslân (NL),Drenthe (NL), Overijssel (NL), Bremen (D), Niedersachsen (D), Dolnoslaskie (Pl), Haute Normandie (F), Yorkshire and the Humber (UK), and Flevoland (NL). The Lead Partner who was running the project management was the Provincial Platform Labour Market Flevoland.

The objective of the project was to improve the participation of the elderly on the labour market (the Lisbon goals anticipated that half of the 55+ people must be working in 2010). Partners planned to exchange knowledge, supporting systems and measures which could enable the elderly people again enter the work market, working as an employee or self employed.


The aim of project MINI EUROPE is exchanging and improving the regional policies in developing SME's. Project mainly focus is to provide infrastructure for innovation to SMEs and to promote entrepreneurship. It is especially directed to increase involvement of under-represented groups in entrepreneurship, like minorities, disabled people, women. Most of the activities in this project are carried out through networking: bringing together and capitalising their methods and experiences, all partners can strongly improve their performance in this field.17

Mini Europe planned collect existing good practice in field of SME support. The good practices come from the partner regions but also from other Interreg projects with the relevant topics. The MINI EUROPE partnership combines the experience of 9 organisations in 8 regions:Province of Flevoland (Netherlands)Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (North West of England - UK)

17 MiniEurope Broschure

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Észak-Alföld Regional Development Agency (Hungary)Maramureş County Council (Romania)Almi Företagspartner Mitt AB (Sweden)Institute for SME Industrial Firms of the Valencian Govt. (Spain)Patras Science Park S.A (Western Greece)Veneto Region and Veneto Innovazione (Italy)




The province of Flevoland had already a project for involving the elderly people on the labour market. They notice that even though older people had a good education and bug experience it was hard for them to find job again. Later Province heard about Hanse Pssage project and they introduce them the problem which occur to be an issue in many European countries. The management of Hanse Passage agreed that it is very interesting project and asked Flevoland to write an application

The management of Hanse Passage helped Flevoland to find partners for the project. The idea was to collect the good practices from partners and exchange them.

The necessity of exchange was not so high, because there was no restrictions about implementing the good practices, the region did not necessary had toimplement them. And this was a kind of weakness of the project in Mrs. Maatje opinion, she thinks it would be better to makes it more practical. If you exchange the information and the knowledge and you will not do anything more with it then it will disappear, without bringing any results. But it was maybe also because of the fact that the INTERREG III project was much less demanding and more result-oriented, it was more about exchanging information and knowledge. INTERREG IV is much more demanding and it is its advantage because it makes the projects closer to people’s lives. That is why Mrs. Maatje is in favour of more practical projects.

Building the partnership was something that Mrs. Maatje would do differently now. The beginning of this project was also the beginning of her work with INTERREG projects. So the German management of Hanssa Passage more or less find the partners for the project and she accepted them. All of them seems to be good and eligible partner, but it was only on paper. There were many very good and active partners in the project but also some who were almost absent. So what Mrs. Maatje would do differently now is that she would check all of the partners credibility, by for example by calling them, talk with them about how did they get to know about the project, what are the reason that they want to be involve in this,

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how are they going to arrange the work, do they have time for it, are they familiar with the topic or have the right experts and so on. Working on INTERREG project takes a lot of time. It is not only time for exchange meetings but there is a lot of work to in between as well. Some of the partners were not aware of it. The lack of time for work on the project can be easily recognize by the level of involvement of the partner into the project. Sometimes when the organization is new in that kind of project they do not realize how much time and energy it takes to do it.

In Flevoland there is a separate department for European projects. And also when they are working on specific project related with for example youth or environment, the experts form that department are working on the content of the project together with INTERREG mangers.

Being the manager of such a project means it is necessary to find the balance between being patient and being strict. Manager can’t remind the partners 5 times to do their job, one just have to trust and accepted that they will do. It is hard, because all the partners work in different organizations and the manger is not in the position to tell them what to do, the manager is not a boss. The Lead partner have to find the way to reach the project goals. But it is not easy because so many cultural differences, which makes the project very interesting, by the way, but it makes it also a bit difficult. For example some practices which are innovative for one country were already been doing for long time in another. On one hand the idea of INTERREG project is connecting less advanced regions with more experienced region so they could speed up. But on the other hand the more developed countries should nave a possibility to learn. Because also for example the Eastern countries have their precious values although sometimes it can be hard to see them for Western countries. But apart from the results, INTERREG by bringing countries together creates one Europe and the ‘European feeling’. By working together partners have a possibility to meet each other, get to know different cultures, be more aware of each other.

Apart from all the difficulties the ELLABO was one of the best project within the Hanse Passage. It was the most concrete and it reaches all the planned goals. The goal was the final report with collection of good practices and recommendations. But Mrs. Maatje thinks it would more successful if it would be even more concrete, beyond the level of exchanging good practices, knowledge and information.

In MiniEurope it is done differently. There is an exchange of the good practices but there is also the implementation of them in the regions. The good practices implementation creates a kind of immediate effect and by influencing the strategic and political level there is a long term effect.

Communication in the projects should really focus on the target group and which type of communication tools or materials would be the most suitable for this group. In the

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progress report to JTS it is necessary to show the number of participant in conferences or events during the project. But is the use of these number. It looks a bit like it would be only about 'the more the better', but what is the real outcome of it.

The philosophy of INTERREG is really wide dissemination of the results of the project. There is a separate component of the project only about communication and dissemination, so there is a very big emphasis put on this part. Which is of course good, but the question is if producing those big amount of material is the right thing to do it. Who is really reading those brochures. Maybe it is better to go with the flow of the modern society and for example produce a shot movie and put on YouTube. At this moment world is changing so fast and the time is the most precious value. Also while producing promotion materials, project managers have think about it. So maybe it is better to do a short 10 minutes movie and put on YouTube than make a 1 hour DVD which will be too long to keep the audience interested.

The people make the project. The project can be perfect on paper but when there aren't right people involve in the project, who will be dedicated and committed than the project won’t work. And also the management of the project have work really hard to get people where they want them to go. So also managers have to be very dedicated.

4. The last interview was done on 2 June 2010, with Eduard Lenoir the Financial Manager. Interview focused on perpetrating the budget of the INTERREG projects. At this moment he Mr. Lenoir is involved in projects: e-citizen, More4nrg and MiniEurope. In last two projects the Province of Flevoland was the Lead Partner.The checklist used during the interview can be found in the Appendix nr 1.

Conclusion from the interview:Budget should be design according to activities not the opposite way. A lot of project

start with the increasing the budget as much as possible and then they start to think about activities that they want to do. But that’s not the right order. First, one should look at the activities and then calculate how much money need to be involve to undertake those activities.

To prepare the budget one have to calculate how much time is needed per budget line, the time is needed to undertake the project activities, also calculate hourly rate per employee. Each country can have different cost of managing the project, for example staff costs. Financial managers have take that into account from the beginning. It is important to be aware of expenditure level of each partner because the differences are very big. That is why it is good to have some experience in preparing the budget because it takes a lot of time to

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start from the beginning without the knowledge about how to calculate and estimate all the expenditures.

The partners have to discussed the division of activities and budget related with those activities. Then estimate how much money every partner needs for all his activities and then the budget is created. But it can happened that some partners are not allowed to pay some cost because of their national regulations. It can cause some troubles and might needed changes in the budget. So the knowledge about rules and regulations in each of the partners countries is absolutely necessary.

Other problem that can be met is when some partners are not doing as much activities as they should according to the plan and others are very enthusiastic and are undertaking more activities, than it was planned. So these partners who are very active are having over spending and the others under spending. At this point it is necessary to try to reallocate the budget from one partner to another. There is a possibility of shifting the 10 % of budget, from one partner to another, without asking for permission from JTS. It is possible to shift even up to 20% of the budget but then you have to get approval by JTS and it can be done only once during the project. But getting the approval of JTS is not the easiest. The financial officer is asking a lot of questions very detailed. In opinion of Mr. Lenoir JTS should see a bigger picture, JTS should focus more on a total level because at this moment it is too bureaucratic.

In creating the budget it is really necessary to be flexible, to not to make it too tight. When the budget is to low there is no place for flexibility. That is why it is better to have a little bit higher budget, because later on it is very difficult to increase it.

In situation of unplanned expenditures the solution is to look over the budget of all the partners and asked the partners, who are spending less than they planned, if they agree to reduce their budget in favour of partner who is spending more than it is the budget.

But it can also happened that all the partners have overspending then the only solution is to ask the JTS to increase the project budget. But to increase the budget is very difficult because the JTS is very strict.

It is also very important that during the project each partner reports its expenditures in time. And it often happens that the partners are late with it. So the project financial managers have to be sometimes very strict in asking for reports. The delay of each partner cause the delay of the full financial report of the project that the Lead Partner have to send to JTS.

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I those cases cultural differences should be taken into account. Different cultural background can also mean different managing style and it can also influence whole process of the project.

Another problem, that can be met, is when partner is reporting costs which haven’t been paid yet. This is the wrong way, because to claim any costs they have to be paid first, not after they receive the ERDF money.

Managing style especially in financial issues is a bit different in Flevoland comparing to other regions. The financial managers are going for the control visits to project partners, which allows them to keep everything another bigger control. But this way of managing the financial part of the project bring very good results and makes the projects more successful.

9. Conclusion and Recommendations

According to the aim of this final thesis is answering the main question contained in the title. For finalizing the project a long, deep research have been done, by analyzing theory and making several interviews with project managers.

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The researcher have worked step by step, by first collect theories and information about the general project management and then confronting it with the information collected during the interviews about experiences gained in the practice by the project manager from Province of Flevoland.

It has been identify that Province of Flevoland is very successful in creating the INTERREG projects. In last round runs by INTERREG IV there was all together 500 application, only 41 were submitted, in this 19 came from Netherlands. The Province of Flevoland requested for 2 projects and both of the application were submitted.

In Flevoland there is a separate department called Program Management Europe were around 20 employees are dealing with European projects. The manager are cooperating with other department. When they are working on specific project related with for example youth or environment, the experts form that department are supporting the work on the content of the project together with INTERREG mangers. This specific structure has a big influence on the success of the projects.

To answer the questions of the thesis the researcher have collected all the findings, investigated during the analyzing of the problem, in the recommendation which can be found below.

Recommendations

1. Be definite as to where you are coming from and where are you going

Ensure that the general idea meets the main programme objectives. Critically assess the suitability and if the fit is not appropriate (the main focus on activities are outside the programme’s scope), find other outlet. Clearly configure the idea of the project to address a real need and analyse its viability in advance.

Follow the based requirement to make sure you meet all the basic quality standards, so your projects will be submitted.

1. Know your partners

Check all of the partners credibility, by for example by calling them, talk with them about how did they get to know about the project, what are the reason that they want to be involve in this, how are they going to arrange the work, do they have time for it, are they familiar with the topic or have the right experts and so on. The lack of time for work on the project can be easily recognize by the level of involvement of the partner into the project.

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Trust to your partners it is important because for the project management and also for the realizing the goals, partners have to trust that they cooperate with people and organizations who will do the best of the project.

The real partnership needs time to become strong. It is the strongest just at the end of the project. So when the same group of partners is applying for new project or a continuation of one, JTS should consider this as a big advantage and big value for next project and farther cooperation

2. Involving the right parties Be efficient and tactical in focusing the project towards identifiable stakeholders and

direct beneficiaries and plan from the beginning for external dissemination activities to reach them in particular.

First organize your network with stakeholders, organisations in your region, that you will need with the performance of the project. Do that from the start. That is important that the regional authorities took part in the project. They are also a strong network in all region should they know about what you're doing. Involving partners with big network, for example like AER can assure a wide dissemination and big experience.

Involve the policy makers, politicians. When a project raises important issues like energy issues or economic issues it is absolutely necessary to involve your politicians. Because in the end they will decide about the money, they will decide if you can change policies, and make sure of the long term effect of the project.

3. Think and act as one organisation So that all partner understand exactly what is required of them and when, as well as

their means of working together, clearly define partner roles during implementation and provide for balanced involvement in terms of activities and input.

It is very important that organizations involved in the project would be able to well cooperate together, that they understand each other, they are able to work together, that they speak to each other.

5. The right person on the right place and with adequate skills.The people make the project. The project can be perfect on paper but when there

aren't right people involve in the project, who will be dedicated and committed than the project won’t work. And also the management of the project have work really hard to get people where they want them to go. So also managers have to be very dedicated. Partners should have adequate knowledge of the subject because otherwise won’t be able to keep up with the progress of the project.

6. Budget should be design according to activities not the opposite way. A lot of project start with the increasing the budget as much as possible and then they start to think about activities that they want to do. But that’s not the right order. First, one should look at the

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activities and then calculate how much money need to be involve to undertake those activities.

Base your budget on activities by distributing resources according to planned schedule. This will put an emphasis on planning the costing of the budget items in a transparent and value for money manner. Pre-planning accurately will help to avoid frequent and significant budget changes.

In creating the budget it is really necessary to be flexible, to not to make it too tight. When the budget is to low there is no place for flexibility. That is why it is better to have a little bit higher budget, because later on it is very difficult to increase it.

Though out the project the financial issues are always a big thing, one of the hardest elements that needs a lot of energy and time. And because of that sometimes it can hard to balance focus on finances and the really intention of the project. There is always a risk that the attention for the financial issues is that big that partners can forget about the importance of the content of the project. Try to think about possible solution earlier so all the occurred problems would be solve on the meeting

Keep the control under the budget. Use the control visits as tool to do so. Flevoland has whole department working on European projects, there are around 20 people involve. This allows to financial managers to have time to control the budget not only from behind the desk but also by doing control visits. This brings very good results.

7. Build it step-by-step

Construct the project according to a logical format and a sequential schedule focused on a precise and clearly defined objectives (or series of sub-objectives). Break down your detailed activities and outputs into both work packages and six-monthly periods. In Implementing the programme stick to developed the structure. Do not invent the wheel again

8. Try to make the project concrete and practical. Don’t limit yourself just to knowledge and information exchange. The exchange of the good practices should be followed by the implementation of them in the regions. The good practices implementation creates a kind of immediate effect and by influencing the strategic and political level there is a long term effect.

9. Know your target audience

Communication in the projects should really focus on the target group and which type of communication tools or materials would be the most suitable for this group. The JTS should be more focus on the quality of the communication and dissemination rather than on the quantity.

It is advise to go with the flow of the modern society which is using social media like internet every day. At this moment world is changing so fast and the time is the most precious value. The communicates to reach the target groups should attractive, short and concise. But the most essential is to use modern communication channels, for example Youtube, Facebook, Hyves…

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It is advised to the Lead Partner to put a really big emphasis on strong regional dissemination and communication of the results.

10. Think long-term

Place adequate emphasis on the sustainability of the results: the project’s impact has to go on after the project ends. The results you are planning should not only be coherent with the problem description and the partnership organizations but should also link into relevant policy development at the region, national and European level.

If the partnership itself is unable to properly use and/or implement what the project delivers, make sure that the appropriate delivery agencies are involved as observers or will at least have access to the results which emerge.

11. Dealing with Culture

The most important suggestions is to become aware of the cultural varieties among the partners. It is essential that all the participants will be aware of their own culture and its peculiarities, that they are willing to recognize cultural differences between the other and that they are open to dealing with those differences during the project.The recognition of culture is not restricted to the project objectives, but is also applied to the way project management. The project management is a joint effort, and it should be about sense making instead of decision making when it deals with differences between cultures. One should remember that cultural differences can produce positive benefits, if the partners are able to have critical detachment and to see differences as resources not obstacles.

Bibliography:INTERREG IV Programme Manual, November 2009

Territorial Cooperation Project Management Handbook, March 2007

Regions as partners, The European Territorial Cooperation Objective, December2007

Examples of regional innovation Project, March 200764


Interregional Cooperation Programme INTERREG IVC, Contributing to the European Commission Initiative “Regions for Economic Change”, September 2008

Cultural Differences In European Cooperation, Learning from INTERREG Programme,2007

Treaty of Lisbon

Project management, practical approach,2008

Assessment Procedure and Project Selection

The application and reports of the projects: SAWA, More4nrg, ELLABO, MiniEurope, e-Citizen

Promotional materials of the projects: brochures, CDs

Materials form Conference “From Community Initiative INTERREG to European TerritorialCooperation”, Warsaw, Poland - 09-10 November 2006




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AppendixesAppendix 1

Check list

All the interviewed managers were asked about whole process of developing the project. The based for the structure of the interview were the following stages of the project development. The managers were answering the following questions:

Project preparation

1. How did the project preparation activities look like?

2. From where the idea for the project came?

3. What was the biggest problem at this stage?

Building the partnership

4. How did searching for the partners look like?

5. What is important in choosing partners?

6. What is important in building the partnership?

7. How to choose the Lead partner?

8. What was the hardest at this stages, what can be a problem here?

Developing the application

9. How to develop a successful application?

10. Why planning and scheduling is so important?

11. What should be emphasis in the application?

12. Where most mistakes are made in developing the application?

Preparing the budget

13. What is the most important in creating the budget?

14. What about unexpected expenditures?

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Project implementation

15. From what to start the implementation?

16. What is important at this stage?

17. How to manage the project? Management style?

18. What kind of problems can you meet during the project implementation?

Monitoring and Evaluation

19. How to monitor the project which is going on in the same time in so many countries?

20. When to design the monitoring system?

21. What should be monitored? Where to put the emphasis?

22. What kind of tool are used for monitoring?

23. Why the evaluation is called a process not an activity?

24. What does the Evaluation Plan should contain?

25. What is the evaluation for?

Dissemination and Legacy

26. Why is the aim of dissemination and communication? Why is it so important?

27. What does the Communication Plan should contain?

28. Who should be the target group?

29. What kind of communication techniques should be used?

30. What makes a successful project, can you give some golden advices, rules?

The interview with the financial manager Eduard Lenoir was focus on the budget preparation. These where the question which were asked:

1. What is the most important in creating the budget?

2. What about unexpected expenditures?

3. What happened when some partners are lacking behind and the others have overspendings?

4. What about different rates in different countries

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5. What kind of mistakes can be done in budget creating?

Appendix nr 2

What is MORE4NRG?

European regions play a key role in promoting, developing and implementing renewable energy sources (RES) combined with energy efficiency strategies to reduce the effects of climate change and prepare for the decline of the oil-age.

In the wake of the Declaration “European Regions for Energy efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources”, initiated by the Association of European Regions (AER) in 2006 and signed by more than 80 European regions, 11 EU partners joined forces with the AER in this project: Flevoland (NL, lead), Abruzzo (IT), EPF/Gabrovo (BG), Lazio (IT), Maramures(RO), Norrbotten (SE), Noord-Brabant (NL), Prahova (RO), Västernorrland (SE), Valencia (ES) and Western Greece.

The objective of MORE4NRG is to strengthen the delivery of regional strategies for renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by exchanging good practices on sustainable energy policies. In addition, the partners will jointly develop an integrated monitoring tool for measuring the effect of regional sustainable energy strategies.

MORE4NRG addresses the interrelated challenges facing regions developing sustainable energy policies at an interregional level, combining the identification, analysis and processing of best practices in RES and energy efficiency for the benefit of all partners. Specific support is provided to the partner regions with less developed sustainable energy strategies.

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The project places strong emphasis on the dissemination of results to other regions and raising awareness on the sustainable energy issue. All project results will feed into a toolkit for regional sustainable energy strategies including monitoring tools for measuring the effect of regional sustainable energy strategies. This toolkit will be available for all EU regions.

Good practices

Declaration of European Regions

for Energy Efficiency and Renewable

Energy Sources (AER-FEDARENE)

This Declaration provides regional policies and initiatives designed to improve energy efficiency and to promote renewable energy sources (RES).The Declaration is a political tool that aims to:1. Increase visibility of the commitment of several European regions to improve

energy efficiency in public areas and to increase the use of renewable energy resources in the global energy portfolio.

2. Advocate at European and national level to ensure that Europeans and state authorities pay greater attention to regional policies in the field of energy and climate change.

3. Encourage other regions to establish measurable targets and quantitative development of RES and the improvement of energy efficiency.

The first eight signatories of said Declaration endorsed it in March 2006 during the World Sustainable Energy Days, an event that brought together more than 930 energy experts from different organizations, and today there are 96 European regions which are also committed after the signature of the Declaration (Full list of signers of the Declaration available at http://www.fedarene.org/).

The Declaration AER-FEDARENE is a strategic tool for the translation of the most generic and long-range European energy goals into more specific ones. The signers of the Declaration have decided to increase the quota of renewables in their local energy combination and to improve the energy efficiency in public buildings and transport systems. The Declaration can be considered as the most visible evidence of political commitment.

Although the Declaration is not a legally binding document, its signature exerts more pressure on regional authorities, while requiring a lot of effort to implement new environmental technologies and to establish effective laws to face the challenges of the future. Given the importance of this commitment, peer reviews of the AER have been designed to help regions to carry out their commitments into concrete actions.

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http://www.fedarene.org/


Some regions go further, not only by announcing their readiness to adopt a friendly energy attitude but also by presenting some of the quantifiable energy objectives. This applies to some of the partners that make up the MORE4NRG project, who have stated qualitative and quantitative objectives.

Appendix 3

MINI EUROPE aims to exchange and improve regional policies in SME development, focusing on the main themes of providing infrastructure for innovation to SMEs and promoting entrepreneurship. In particular, it addresses the issues of increasing involvement of under-represented groups (like minorities, disabled people, women) in entrepreneurship.

Most of the activities in this project are carried out through networking: bringing together and capitalising their methods and experiences, all partners can strongly improve their performance in this field. Mini Europe will collect existing good practice in SME support in the partner regions and from relevant Interreg projects in two catalogues of good practices.

PARTNERSHIPThe MINI EUROPE partnership combines the experience of 9 organisations in 8 regions:

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Province of Flevoland (Netherlands)

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council (North West of England - UK)

Észak-Alföld Regional Development Agency (Hungary)

Maramureş County Council (Romania)

Almi Företagspartner Mitt AB (Sweden)

Institute for SME Industrial Firms of the Valencian Govt. (Spain)

Patras Science Park S.A (Western Greece)

Veneto Region and Veneto Innovazione (Italy)

All partners of Mini Europe are public authorities or Regional bodies responsible for supporting SMEs development in their Region. Each of them brings relevant experiences and practices in this field of action to be shared with the other partners. All partners have the competence and authority to implement the good practices identified and developed throughout the project, and they are in the position to involve the relevant network of actors in their region in this field.

GOOD PRACTICESThe overall objective of MINI EUROPE is to elaborate through its international partnership a set of regional political instruments and strategies to sustain the development of Small and Medium Enterprises, increase their capacity for innovation and technological transfer with universities and knowledge institutes, and to initiate its implementation in the partner regions.The first stage of the project has been devoted to mapping and then compiling two Catalogues of good practices documenting existing good practices in the partner regions and results from relevant projects.CLUSTERSGood practices that focus on clusters consist of economic development programs, cluster development schemes, models that consider the physical infrastructure requirements of a cluster, specific programmes to foster and support the development of productive clusters and SMEs networks. These Policies seek to create the proper framework to boost the development of productive clusters and identify the necessary infrastructure for effective SME development within them, creating the appropriate milieu favourable to innovation.

EXTENDING ENTREPRENEURSHIPThe objective of this group of good practices is exchanging and developing methods to attract more people to entrepreneurship, especially from underrepresented groups. The partners offer integrated support to socially less favoured groups, foster entrepreneurial attitudes and skills for young people, encourage local people and residents in deprived areas to create their own business or help different

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types of business starters to start up their own businesses or to expand their already existing companies.

FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTSThe primary purpose of several of the partners is to support micro and small sized enterprises in innovative initiatives. This is the reason why some partners’ purpose is supporting micro and small sized enterprises in innovative initiatives and motivating supply and demand in the field of innovation services, decreasing the cost of innovative investments, enhancing the access to the credit system for SMEs and launching a venture capital fund for start-ups and companies at an early stage.

INTERNATIONALISATIONIt is important to exploit economic relations between different countries at national and local level, in order to encourage and promote the inclusion of SMEs in the trade relations between different countries. For instance initiatives have been developed to support networking, within the cross-border regions bringing together chambers of commerce (representing the business environment), public regional authorities (representing the public environment) and universities (representing the academic environment) to boost international relationship.

KNOWLEDGETRANSFERConsistent relationships between SMEs and knowledge institutes are fundamental to boosting innovation. To this goal, some partners implemented schemes to facilitate the commercialisation of academic research results. Others focus on practices aiming to foster the cooperation among SMEs, research and innovation centers and technology providers.

SUPPORT FOR INNOVATIONInnovation is at the heart of the project. From facilitating the access of SMEs to added value services, to the introduction of design into traditional companies, or the incorporation of online training systems which allow them to better access finance, innovation can be seen throughout the project as a tool for stimulating SME development.LEARNING CYCLEThe partners are strongly engaged in bilateral experience transfers, matching a partner ‘exporting’ a specific good practice with a partner ‘importing’ it. Visits, training, video conferences will allow the partner regions to deepen the practices and mainstreaming innovative instruments for SME development.

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Appendix 4

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e-Citizen is an INTEREG IVC project. The cooperation is designed to support European cities and regions in their joint efforts to accelerate e-Government through exploiting established networks, gained experiences and good practices to improve interaction between citizens and public authorities, better involving citizens in local decision-making and contributing to change in operational culture and attitudes within public administrations.

e-Citizen II PartnershipPartner 1: The Baltic Institute of FinlandPartner 2: City of Tampere, FinlandPartner 3: Tartu City Government, EstoniaPartner 4: Odense Municipality, DenmarkPartner 5: Province of Flevoland, NetherlandsPartner 6: Sheffield City Council, UKPartner 7: South West Regional Authority, SWRA, IrelandPartner 8: Municipality of Bologna, ItalyPartner 9:Patras Municipal Enterprise for Planning and Development S.A.,GreecePartner 10: Vysogina Region, Czech RepublicPartner 11: Municipality of Miskolc, HungaryPartner 12: The Association of Basque Municipalities (EUDEL), Sp

e-Citizen II supports European cities and regions to ensure1. accelerate uptake of e-Government and e-Participation policies, strategies and

actions2. overcome limited access to comprehensive knowledge and practical experiences in

deploying e-Participation in public administrations3. ensure better understanding of efficient utilization of e-Participation tools in

modernizing administrations1. more transparent, effective and cost efficient administration2. more inclusive, high quality citizen centred public services,3. improving interaction between citizens and public authorities4. clear change in the operational culture and attitudes in public administrations

Goals for the e-Citizen Cooperation:74


1. To enhance the transparency, effectiveness and efficiency of local administrations and the provision of high-quality citizen-inclusive public services through the dissemination of best practices in the use of cost-effective e-Government solutions that meet citizens’ needs.

2. To strengthen the capacities of local and regional administrators, decision-makersand experts through the sharing and adoption of gained experiences and lessons learnt in the implementation and development of e-Government and e-Participation in different contexts.

3. To provide up-to-date information on accumulated experiences and good practices on e-Government and e-Participation and ensure high-impact Pan-Europeandissemination through the creation and promotion of a comprehensive best practicemultimedia manual.

4. To ensure sustainable success of regional e-Government initiatives through the creation of a European interregional network for cooperation and sharing of experiences on e-Government and e-Participation.

5. To encourage and facilitate interregional cooperation between European cities and regions on disseminating and transferring good practices on e-Government to ensure success off the project results, flow of information and acceleration of new joint project initiatives.

Key activitiesComponent 1: Management and coordinationResponsible partner: The Baltic Institute of Finland.Expected results: Efficient project implementation and finance management, project progress and finance reporting

Component2: Communication and disseminationResponsible partner: The Baltic Institute of FinlandExpected results: Enhancing awareness about the project, key results and outputs

Component 3: Exchange of experiences dedicated to the identification and analysis of good practicesResponsible partner: Sheffield City CouncilParticipants: allExpected results: Enhancing accumulated knowledge, skills, experiences and goodpractices on developing e-Government and e-Participation tools and futureprospects between project partners and Europe wideExpected outputs: joint study visits and seminars: Tampere, Billbao, Cork, Patras, Sheffield, Tartu, Flevoland, Bologna, Brussels28 local workshops, 88 local reports, a Pan-European Best Practice multimedia Manual

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Component 4:Pilot transfers of good practice on e-Participation benefiting allResponsible partner: TampereParticipants: Vysogina Region, Province of Flevoland, SWRAExpected results: UtIization of the gained experiences and good practices on e-Participation is enhanced through transfers between partners and disseminated throughout EuropeExpected outputs:

1. three transfers of e-Government and e-Participation practice2. four staff exchanges3. five local workshops4. local e-Government and e-Participation strategies and policies improved

The Baltic Institute of Finland leads the Interreg IVC financed project - eCitizen II – Towards citizen-centered eGovernment in European cities and regions - launched from the beginning of January 2010.

Appendix 5

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What is it?

Adaptive strategies in a changing climate region

SAWA is an acronym for Strategic Alliance for Integrated Water Management Actions. SAWA strives to strengthen the member states for their current implementation of the EU Flood Directive (FD) by developing a transnational implementation strategy. The aim is to adapt existing water management systems to the effects of extreme flood events due to climate change, focusing on sustainable development of society and regional economies.

Based on case studies and pilot implementations, SAWA will test the new and innovative strategies in Flood Risk Management around the North Sea. The project integrates local, regional and national stakeholders, university and vocational training students.

AimsThe project aims to adapt existing water management systems to the effects of extreme flood events due to climate change, focusing on sustainable development of society and regional economies.SAWA builds onto the following aims:

1. Improve, facilitate and accelerate the implementation of the new Flood Directive (FD) by developing a common planning and implementation strategy based on experience from a number of cases in the NSR,

2. Work out a decision strategy on how to use and prioritise new adaptive measures in Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs) closely coordinated with the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) implementation process to show synergetic potentials,

3. Develop and compile new adaptive structural and non-structural flood mitigation measures and schemes to improve water management systems in the NSR,

4. Prepare institutional, expert and public structures for an optimal implementation and operational capability of the FD in coordination with WFD, focusing on education, communication, capacity building and adaptive measures.

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Background

The application for the SAWA-project was approved by the steering committee of the North Sea Region (Interreg IVB) in May 2008. Parts of the Partnership was already established in the Interreg IIIB FLOWS project which was approved in November 2002 and completed by June 2006.

FLOWS is an acronym for Floodplain Land Use Optimising Workable Sustainability. This means communities adapting to climate change and coming to terms in living with water. It was a transnational project with participants from Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Its challenge was to influence decision-makers across the member states.

The FLOWS programme was designed to look at the issues and deliver practical projects to identify how people need to adapt to live with water.FLOWS took in several projects, all with the ultimate aim of providing decision-makers with more and better information on flood risk in order to help them:

Make better decisions about where to site new housing Design family houses with a culture of living in and around water Provide practical solutions about how to make existing flood-risk housing more

resistant Provide better warning systems when floods are forecasted

Facts and Figures:

Within the upcoming SAWA-project we will again have a transnational project where some results of FLOWS and other EU-Projects will be the starting point. A team of sub-partners of all administrative levels, universities and scientific research institutes will co-operate on this project until 2011.

We have an approved budget of € 8,16 Mio. half of which is co-financed by the EU.

Partners

Within the SAWA-project there is a team of about 22 partners of all administrative levels, universities and scientific research institutes from: The Netherlands, Unitited Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Germany.

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http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=germany

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=sweden

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=norway

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=united-kingdom

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=the-netherlands


All SAWA pilot projects and activities contribute towards sustainable solutions in the North Sea Region addressing the following key aspects in sustainable river basin management issues:

1. EU-Flood Directive 2. Governance 3. Climate Change 4. Hybrid Adaptive Measures 5. Education 6. Decision Support Systems 7. Stakeholder Involvement

Expected Outcomes1. Centers for education towards sustainable flood risk management around the North Sea, 2. Adaptive strategy for implementation of Flood Risk Management Plans in the NSR,

3. Decision support database for flood protection measures in the NSR,

4. MSc/postgraduate course on flood risk management,

5. Cost-benefit analyses of measures in relation to adaptive planning strategies to optimize the implementation of Flood Risk Management Plans and River Basin Management Plans.

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http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=stakeholder-involvment

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=decision-support

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=education

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=adaptiv-measures

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=climate-change

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=governance

http://www.sawa-project.eu/index.php?page=eu-flood-directive


Appendix 6

ELLABO

Project ELLABO has been established within the Hanse Passage Program Cluster C: Human Resources and innovation

Project leader: Province of Flevoland, Netherlands

Partners:

• Province of Friesland / Netherlands • Province of Overijssel / Netherlands• Province of Groningen / Netherlands • Province of Drenthe / Netherlands • OPCAREG / Haute Normandie / France • University of Lower Silesia AAE Wroclaw / Lower Silesia / Poland • Centre for Full Employment, Sheffield / Yorkshire & Humber / Great Britain • LaBIB mbH, Hanover / Lower Saxony / Germany • Bremerhavener Arbeit Gmbh / Bremen / Germany

Running time: The ELLABO project started in October 2005 and ends in June 2007.

The goal of the project

The EU has to deal with an ageing population. In March 2000 in Lisbon, the EU has set ambitious goals on the labour participation of elderly. By 2010 half of the 55+ people must be at labour and the average age of retirement has to raise with about 5 years. To reach these goals, we have to employ each year 900.000 elderly extra on the EU labour market (in comparison: between 1997 and 2002 250.000 extra elderly were employed per year). But the reality is tough. In for example the Hanse Passage region Flevoland, the unemployment rate among elderly rises worryingly fast. Already people of 45+ are considered too old by many employers. Reason enough to find out if the Hanse Passage regions all cope with these problems and how they deal with them. Together we have to find ways to prevent that a rapidly growing group of European citizens will be condemned to long term unemployment.

The overall objective is to contribute to the participation of elderly on the labour market (according to the Lisbon goals, half of the 55+ people must be at labour in 2010) by exchanging knowledge on support systems or measures that improve the possibilities for elderly unemployed to re-enter the labour market (as employee or in self employment).

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The main activities

1) Four international meetings

1. Decide on the management structure in function, define the roles and responsibilities of all the partners and to make a detailed planning of the activities.

2. information of the labour participation and unemployment situation of elderly in the Hanse passage regions

3. focus on elderly unemployment. Best practices on how to support elderly to re-enter the labour market are identified. The possibilities to adopt those practices in other Hanse Passage regions are studied.

4. focuses on developing recommendations for improved regional policies, joint strategies, innovative actions and continuous co-operation of the regions involved.

2) Produce a report with recommendations and best practices.

3) Publish the project information on a project-web-platform on the Hanse Passage website and linked to other relevant websites.4)Build a network of experts in each participating region and between the regions involved.

The results of the project were disseminated and – where possible - incorporated into regional policies and working methods to ensure a sustainable effect. Therefore, the support and involvement of the regional key players has been sought from the onset of the project. In addition to this, the aim was to establish a lasting co-operation between the networks that have been built during the ELLABO project. The possibilities to continue this cooperation were discussed.During the first phase of the project, the 10 ELLABO partners collected various data with the purpose of understanding and comparing the labour market situation of the elderly in eachparticipating region.In preparation of the best practice research, one of the partners - Fryslân - defined the criteria for successful projects aimed at promoting the labour participation of elderly people. It appeared to be rather difficult to determine the unambiguous criteria for different kinds ofprojects or measures. One can look at tangible facts such as the cost efficiency in relation to the results. But a project directed at awareness is completely different from a training project for elderly unemployed. So how does one compare their costs? The partners create a report dedicated to this question. During the second phase of the ELLABO project, all of the partners searched in their region for inspiring examples of projects or measures for seniors. The original goal was to collect the best practices for unemployed elderly. However, they decided to broaden the scope,

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because they also found interesting projects focused on retaining older employees. They thought they were worthwhile for diffusion to a broader public. The best practices can more or less be divided into three categories:1. Supportive policy projects: these are the projects or measures that are mainly aimed at

raising consciousness among different target groups (employers, policy makers, seniors). Most of these projects are carried out by an intermediary organisation and might contain different elements, such as research and training activities.

2. The second category of projects is focused on the activities to retain elderly employees. 3. Thirdly, there is the type of project that is aimed at elderly unemployed for re-entering

the labour market. This might include training, matching activities, self-help groups of encouraging self-employment among older job seekers.

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Documents

Strategies for Successful Management of INTERREG Projects