About us
European
Login
The project management structure is defined in order to successfully accommodate the risks of ESCORT project. It is defined in such a way that to clearly identify the responsible members of the consortium, as well as to optimize communication between the different partners and the managing bodies of the project. The management structure will be based on rules and regulations described in the Consortium Agreement. The project’s Consortium Agreement will include amongst others, measures for the arrangement of confidentiality, IPR, exploitation rights, decision-making, change procedures, and negotiation with third parties. The Consortium Agreement will be in accordance with the EC Model Grant Agreement and General Conditions.
There are three levels of management in this project:
- Management of interactions between all the consortium members.
- Management of issues specific to either the Indian or EU sides (mainly budget issues).
- Management of Coordination between the EU and Indian partners.
General Assembly (GA)
The GA is the body consisting of representatives of all participants, with the task of supervising the project and will be chaired by the EU and India Project Coordinators. The GA will provide a forum for discussion and will decide on scientific, financial and management issues, major modifications of the work plan, budget distribution, and will prepare requests for amendments to the European Commission. The voting procedure is described in the Consortium Agreement. The GA will meet yearly or, if necessary, more often.
Project Coordinators
The Project Coordinators will deal with their respective groups and with their respective authorities (the EC for the EU coordinator and the DST for the Indian coordinator). The EU participant Coordinator of the project is the official link between the consortium and the European Commission. Whereas for Indian participant Coordinator of the project is the official link between the consortium and the DST.
WP Leaders
For every of the work packages (WPs) a WP leader is nominated from the EU side, which has a corresponding WP leader from the India side. The WP leaders from EU and India may interact directly or may be assisted by the Coordination Committee, see below. The presence of mirroring WP leaders from EU and India sides will ensure the fulfillment of the attributed coordinated tasks in due time internally to each side. In case of timings mismatch between the activities on the EU and India side, the Coordination Committee will take the necessary measures, possibly re-scheduling the workload from either side.
To assist the ESCORT Coordinator, Dr. F. De Angelis, we will define the ESCORT Governing Board (GB), which is in charge of project management from the EU side. All rules of governance will be set out in a Consortium Agreement (CA) under discussion among the Partners, regulating mutual relations and rights among participants and vis-à-vis the European Commission. The CA defines decision-making procedures, methods for reviewing the technical work, the settlement of internal disputes and the distribution of the EC grant. Confidentiality and intellectual property right issues, relating to ownership, protection, use, dissemination and access rights to knowledge will be adequately dealt with in the Consortium Agreement.
Governing Board (GB)
Overall decisions will be made by the Governing Board, consisting of the WP leaders and coordinators from the EU and India sides. GB meets physically at least once a year at the ESCORT General Meetings, more often by teleconference calls. The GB takes the ultimate decisions on all strategic choices (such as modification to the work plan, or modification to the consortium, modification of budget, adaptation of WP, contractual amendments, etc.) and provides input to the Coordination Committee. The decisions will be taken by a majority-vote process or, for specific cases, by unanimous consensus. The details of the voting system will be agreed upon and clearly outlined in the Consortium Agreement.
Coordination Committee
The EU Coordinator is assisted by the Coordination Committee to take strategic decisions concerning coordination of the project activity with the Indian partners. The Coordination Committee is composed by the EU and Indian coordinators and by two specifically nominated participants (one from the EU and one from the Indian side) which take care of the relations between the EU and Indian project activities. The Coordination Committee takes also decisions concerning requests of two-way mobility exchanges between EU and Indian partners. Although these EU mobility programs to India are generally handled independently by each partner on the basis of the respective activity and allocated funds, the Coordination Committee will assist the partners in deciding the optimal timing and hosting Indian partner and will eventually take the final
decisions in case of conflicts among the partners concerning mobility issues.