The Inside Track: Public Funded Project Insights

Part 1: The Monitoring Officer

If you are considering or are in the process of a grant proposal from one of the many publicly funded bodies such as Innovate UK, there are a great many things to consider. The focus should always be on the development of your idea / innovation / solution, but as with any project that involves the public purse there are a myriad of elements to be covered off and delivered.

In this article we set out to provide opinion from a team of experts, all of whom have different perspectives on the process involved in applying, managing and delivering on publicly-funded projects.

We spoke to three experts in their respective fields, and in this blog we focus on the key role that provides a conduit between your project and the public body that is funding it: the Monitoring Officer.

Camilla Parker has over 25 years’ experience as a Business Consultant and freelance monitoring officer, and has overseen in excess of 250 publicly-funded projects across various technology sectors.

“What are the key elements required to ensure projects get off to a positive start?”

1.        Establish a constructive relationship with your Monitoring Officer to build trust, and if this is not your first project understand that each MO works slightly differently – so what may be accepted by one may not be by another.

2.        Provide a robust Project Plan (Annex 4), project timeline (with critical path & dependencies understood i.e. Eureka Eurostars bi-annual/ final online reporting requirements), risk management and financial forecasting. Regulatory certification compliance and dependencies. 

3.        Ensure that the baseline plans are coherent, have tangible deliverables and milestones identified through the project and cover all partner activity to facilitate progress monitoring.

4.        From the outset and throughout the project delivery there should be a clear focus on effective Exploitation planning to guard against commercial failure and no ROI. 

5.        Understand the importance of performance monitoring requirements for the publicly-funding body (e.g Innovate UK) how the scoring matrices to score project performance is used.

6.        Ensure QRMs are booked for the year so that you are able to plan your reporting schedule, and appropriate reporting systems put in place at the start - especially when there is a Consortium where there will be the need to co-ordinating input to the quarterly report/presentation.

7.        Ensure that claim evidence & requirements are clearly understood and the systems are put in place at the start. Make sure the Financial lead understands the claim approval processes & evidence required (industrial and academic). They can refer to Guidance sheets if needed.

8.        A comprehensive and robust risk register in place covering administration, operational, technical, strategic, legal/contractual/regulatory and external commercial which potentially could impact and derail the project i.e. cash flow, change in political direction with the industry and commercial pressures etc. All of which needs to be actively reviewed, addressed and updated throughout the cycle of delivery. The project management, technical objectives and exploitation of co-funded projects such as those with a pan-European element can carry additional significant risk, due to the multiple members of state participation in approval of amendments and/or their respective country’s awardee guidance which may contradict Innovate UK Monitoring Services.

9.        Do not flatline your budget; the project lead & finance person need to review the Project Plan and budget together; areas of focus could be during a ‘building’ phase, so materials are required but may cross over into the next billable quarter. This will enable you to forecast more accurately and keep your variances low.

10.   Ensure the project has a sound understanding of the grant draw-down procedures, monitoring requirements and establishes effective and efficient monitoring compliance systems from the outset (including biannual reporting to Eureka if appropriate, and trigger points for Eureka reporting Eurostars requirements) with appropriate time allocated to track progression, review the critical path and update documentation.

11.   Effective and coherent partner Collaboration Agreements being established with the partners aligned on the research, documentation and associated protocols.

Summary:

Ø  Build trust with your Monitoring Officer

Ø  Ensure your Project Plan is robust

Ø  Guard against commercial failure by developing a coherent Exploitation plan

Ø  Understanding of claim procedures are critical

Ø  Calculate all areas of risk and create a risk register

Ø  Budget management is key and should be prioritised

Ø  Ensure Partner agreements are in place where consortiums are involved

“What are the most common challenges project leaders encounter during a project e.g. dissemination etc?”

·        Scope creep

·        Lead-in times change

·        Contractors let them down

·        Staff sickness or they leave

·        Partners leave or reduce their commitment

·        Balancing development with exploitation and dissemination

·        Not enough time given to collecting and preparing quarterly reports and presentations and not submitted on time

·        It is crucial that projects are delivered timely and any fluctuations are minimised especially given the austerity and constant strategic challenges.

·        Being so focused on the development of the project the priority of ensuring monitoring requirements are met often goes out the window and along with this the delivery of an effective Exploitation planning to guard against commercial failure and no ROI. 

·        The Project needs to ensure that a systematic commercialisation process (routes to market, financial ROI, HR, IP, the global perspective, regulatory environment, partnering and collaborations) is put into place supported by continual research, develop and monitoring of the external market and to utilise the additional support of Catapults Centres, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTP), Enterprise Europe Network and maybe Innovations Loans. This will support the business plan development plus take steps to secure IP (if applicable) to avoid infringement and ensure they keep records of all developments to create strong ownership and internal knowledge.

Summary:

Ø  Pay attention to scope creep, lead times, partner commitment levels

Ø  Balance development, dissemination & exploitation equally

Ø  Ensure quarterly review deliverables are met

Ø  Closely monitor how the commercialisation (exploitation) process is developing and support where needed

“Can you provide an example of a particularly successful project (without specific names etc) and why it was successful?”

A recent International project which consisted of 8 partners was very successful due to a number of factors:

·        Prior to being awarded the project they were clear on their roles and responsibilities, Collaborative Agreement all signed and agreed

·        Their Project Plan was clear and concise with understandable and relevant deliverables and milestones, comprehensive Risk Register and an agreed system in place to regularly review the Project Plan and Exploitation Plan which made the project easier to regularly review track and monitor

·        One of the partners was a company who solely focused on dissemination and exploitation all the way through the project and worked with the other partners to build a database of potential end customers, consistently drip feeding the sector and reporting on developments and holding seminars to keep the sector engaged and ensure the development was still relevant

Summary:

Ø  Clear Roles & Responsibilities

Ø  Project Plan had clarity, detailed Risk Register & regular reviews

Ø  If you don’t have the in-house skills utilise specialist partners in areas such as dissemination & exploitation

For more information on how to optimise your publicly-funded project and ensure success please contact us and/or visit www.opusvox.co.uk