1. EU Funding Seminar, UWE, April 2009
Personal experience of EU Project Management
Cath Thomas
Project Manager
Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems (CHRIS) Project, Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL)
Research Development Manager
Research & Development Division, Research, Business and Innovation (RBI)
&

2. Personal experience of EU Project Management – About the project
Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems (CHRIS)
Addresses safety issues of human & robot performing
co-operative tasks in a co-located space,
March March 2012
FP7 Information Communication Technology (ICT) Collaborative Research Project, Specific Targeted Research Projects (STReP)
Project co-ordinating partner: Bristol Robotics Laboratory, UK (BRL)
Project partners: Four other EU institutions

3. Personal experience of EU Project Management – About the project
BRL (UWE), Bristol, UK
LAAS-CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research), Toulouse, France
INSERM (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale), Toulouse, France
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI), Leipzig, Germany
Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), Genoa, Italy

4. Personal experience of EU Project Management – My role
FP7 Collaborative Research Projects:
> 7% of total budget value can be for management
i.e. project co-ordinator and/or project manager
these management costs are 100% funded by EU
I am 0.5 FTE for the full 4 year duration of the project

5. Personal experience of EU Project Management – My role
Produce reports
Monitor milestones, deliverables, task progress
Arranging & co-run meetings
Organise travel
Monitor budgets and expenditure
Do end of year finance report and put together claim
Organise timesheets, and fill out for senior academics
Manage project website
Produce posters and other promotional material for the project

6. Personal experience of EU Project Management – Project Co-ordinator’s view
“Managing large EU Programmes requires a detailed appreciation of the day-to-day dynamics of the partnership and the balance between potential new research directions and agreed aspirations. Achieving stability and integration requires a project manager”
Professor Chris Melhuish
Director of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory & Project co-ordinator CHRIS project

7. Personal experience of EU Project Management - Essential skills
Organisation
Communication
Planning
Multi-tasking
Prioritising & time management
Assertiveness
Able to carry out a diverse range of tasks
Making lists!

8. Personal experience of EU Project Management – ‘Highs’
Getting to know about cutting edge robotics research
Working as part of a pan-European team
Being in control of, and managing own work
Feeling of responsibility

9. Personal experience of EU Project Management – challenges
General EU administrative requirements
Workload ‘peaks’ e.g. annual report production
Contractual changes
Dealing with people delivering late or other forms of ‘misbehaving’!
The positive news is that the project manager can ‘protect’ the academics involved in the project from much of the above!

10. Personal experience of EU Project Management
Questions…..