TransEET

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2.1 Risks related to project administration

At the start of the TransEET project, several risks were identified which could affect project administration, especially for the widening country as project coordinator:   

  • Skills gap in project management across partners: There is an imbalance in project administration and management skills between the coordinating partner as a widening country and more experienced institutions, particularly in areas such as EU project coordination, proposal preparation, and stakeholder engagement.
  • Limited outreach and stakeholder engagement in education: To achieve successful innovation in education, outreach and stakeholder engagement are important. Good contacts with schools are essential to be able to involve educational professionals in the analysis of requirements for educational innovations, co-design of new learning tools and materials, evaluating the outcomes, and integration into educational practice, but good contacts can not be taken for granted; the communication must be managed well to ensure effective collaboration.
  • Limited outreach to businesses and industry partners: The coordinating partner from the widening country currently struggles with designing effective outreach strategies and building sustainable collaborations with businesses as external stakeholders. Communication with industry partners, and involvement in applied research projects are important drivers for innovation and uptake of results, so this creates risks of missing opportunities.
  • Poor Communication Between Academic and Administrative Staff: Inefficient internal communication between academic and administrative staff hampers coordination and hinders the seamless execution of complex research projects. There is a lack of training in admin staff regarding research projects, in particular international projects. A related problem is that employees in this area are often temporary; when they leave after a short time (e.g., sometimes only six months), new contacts and relationships have to be created, and valuable expertise will be lost when it is not transferred adequately.  In some partner institutes, communication is mostly done one-on-one between admin personnel and project coordinator, but this can be vulnerable when one such person changes position, or leaves the organization.
  • Lack of Experience in Managing Interdisciplinary Teams: Innovative educational technology projects often require collaboration between diverse experts (e.g., programmers, educators, historians), but institutions may lack the administrative frameworks and know-how to manage such hybrid teams effectively. Sometimes, administrative procedures with the organization, faculty, or department, make it difficult to involve teachers as researchers, or go across deparment/faculty/institute borders to involve people with specific expertise. 
  • Fragmented or Narrow Expertise in Widening Countries: Research institutions in countries with lower research activity often face challenges in cultivating interdisciplinary and cross-functional expertise, resulting in dependence on external actors for key roles in project administration.
  • Limited Resources for Pursuing Possibilities for Funding: In institutes without much experience with international research projects and proposal writing, and high pressure on other tasks, such as education, the effort it takes to pursue possibilities for funding may be, or be perceived to be too great to be worthwhile.  
  • Insufficient Capacity for Leading Large-Scale International Projects: Without targeted training and structured support, institutes in widening countries may face difficulties in taking on leadership roles in high-stakes consortia such as those funded under Horizon Europe. This is not only true for widening countries – also some other partners suffer from this, with admin offices advising not to take on the lead in an EU project proposal. This also relates to the problem of institutes not being able to offer continuity in researchers’ scientific careers. For example, PhD researchers often have to leave their institute after finishing their PhD, which means that valuable expertise and experience is lost. 

Some additional risks were not identified beforehand but became apparent during the project:   

  • Inefficient Project Communication: When project communication within and between project teams is not set up well, information may not flow efficiently to the people who need it, or could benefit from it, information may be copied but not updated everywhere, or important information may be missed altogether.   
  • Presenting your institute as a suitable project partner: When preparing for project proposals, and trying to establish or connect to a project consortium, it is important to know how to present your institute as a suitable project partner. 
  • Inconsistent National Contact Point (NCP) Support Services: Varying levels of NCP expertise and services across countries create disparities in how institutions can access EU-level support for funding applications and project management.
  • Limited Access to Tools and Guidelines for Effective Administration: A lack of easily accessible, standardized resources — such as toolkits and best practice manuals — limits the ability of project managers and administrators to adopt effective and modern approaches. Some partners have created their own guidelines, but the people responsible for administration may not be aware of these guidelines.