Networking is the key in todays project-derived world. If you wish your product to sell better, your research results make a difference, your mission to be conveyed to the policy makers and masses then you must be visible and heard. The same goes to EU horizon projects - they must be disseminated to various audiences.
Estonian Research Council (ETAG) is the granting organisation that supports research and innovation in Estonia. Their mission is to maintain and develop balanced, high-level and internationally successful research, development and innovation system in Estonia, as well as knowledge-based and sustainable Estonian society. They manage different funding instruments - amongst others also the Horizon EU funding.
On 26th of April ETAG held a twinning conference "Teaduskoostöö Euroopa tippudega" (loose translation: "Research cooperation with European Top Practitioners") in Tartu, at the auditorium of the University of Tartu Library. The conference was dedicated to the twinning measure and aimed at networking between various EU twinning projects that are currently being carried out or have only recently been completed.
In addition to EGT-TWINN project that was introduced at the conference, there were representatives of 14 other interesting projects present. Themes of these projects varied from linguistics to exoplanetary research and from business administration to cooperation projects in material sciences.
Presentations were depicted with panel discussions. The lessons learned from these are many. For example, most of the twinning projects' managers stressed the importance of partner selection at the initiation phase of any twinning project. The suggestion was not to limit yourself with the minimum requirements of 2 partners, but instead include at least 3-6 partners if at all possible. This is especially important when it comes to dispersing project management and execution related risks, but also to include vider perspective and oportunities that varying partners can bring to the project.
Another suggestion, that many agreed upon was to thoroughly think about the project time-management. It was even suggested that the initial project schedule should be multiplied by not 2 but even up to 5 times - especially for the novices in EU projects writing. Of course the more experienced the project writers are, the better they will eventually also plan their time frames. But for newbies, perhaps that was a tip to consider. Of course there was much more under discussion, but in a conclusion, it was a very inspirying and interesting conference to attend in.
EGT-TWINN project got also introduced at the conference and initiated quite a few discussion topics amongst the audience. People were interested in, for example, if managing a large project with as many as 5 partners was difficult and how did the proposal writing process go in case of so many people involved. It was an utmost pleasure to state that until so far EGT-TWINN has not faced any major difficulties at all. It is of course only the beginning of the project, as it was officially lounched only at the end of this January and 3 months is not a long time passed yet. However, here we come back to importance of the selection of partners. It is crucial, especially for a Horizon EU freshmen (like EGT-TWINN), to find partners who are much more experienced in EU project management and who will stand by and guide you through the difficult times - referring here of course to our wonderful partners - GTK, BGS, and GEUS.
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On 26th of April ETAG held a twinning conference "Teaduskoostöö Euroopa tippudega" (loose translation: "Research cooperation with European Top Practitioners") in Tartu, at the auditorium of the University of Tartu Library. The conference was dedicated to the twinning measure and aimed at networking between various EU twinning projects that are currently being carried out or have only recently been completed.
In addition to EGT-TWINN project that was introduced at the conference, there were representatives of 14 other interesting projects present. Themes of these projects varied from linguistics to exoplanetary research and from business administration to cooperation projects in material sciences.
Presentations were depicted with panel discussions. The lessons learned from these are many. For example, most of the twinning projects' managers stressed the importance of partner selection at the initiation phase of any twinning project. The suggestion was not to limit yourself with the minimum requirements of 2 partners, but instead include at least 3-6 partners if at all possible. This is especially important when it comes to dispersing project management and execution related risks, but also to include vider perspective and oportunities that varying partners can bring to the project.
Another suggestion, that many agreed upon was to thoroughly think about the project time-management. It was even suggested that the initial project schedule should be multiplied by not 2 but even up to 5 times - especially for the novices in EU projects writing. Of course the more experienced the project writers are, the better they will eventually also plan their time frames. But for newbies, perhaps that was a tip to consider. Of course there was much more under discussion, but in a conclusion, it was a very inspirying and interesting conference to attend in.
EGT-TWINN project got also introduced at the conference and initiated quite a few discussion topics amongst the audience. People were interested in, for example, if managing a large project with as many as 5 partners was difficult and how did the proposal writing process go in case of so many people involved. It was an utmost pleasure to state that until so far EGT-TWINN has not faced any major difficulties at all. It is of course only the beginning of the project, as it was officially lounched only at the end of this January and 3 months is not a long time passed yet. However, here we come back to importance of the selection of partners. It is crucial, especially for a Horizon EU freshmen (like EGT-TWINN), to find partners who are much more experienced in EU project management and who will stand by and guide you through the difficult times - referring here of course to our wonderful partners - GTK, BGS, and GEUS.
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