WP-O Coordination and Management First Review Meeting Brussels, 23-24 May 2007

WP-O Coordination and Management First Review MeetingBrussels, 23-24 May 2007 Enrica Conrotto Politecnico di Torino

WPO: Coordination and Management WP leader: Laura Fulci Structure: Project Office + WP leaders + Local Administrative Contacts Partner involved: • WP-O-M: PoliTO – Project Office • WP-O-C: PoliTO, DEIS-UniBO, UGent, UEssex, UoPelop, UPC, GET

WP-O activities • WP-O has been conceived so as to distinguish between two levels: • WP-O-C: overall network coordination activities • WP-O-M: operational management WP-O-C Coordination: • Intermediary between contractors and EC • Reporting on mobility actions • Dissemination activities • Governing bodies meetings organization • Interactions with Collaborating Institutions • Teleconference tools and website management • Gender Action Plan supervision WP-O-M Management: • Operational NoE management • Financial monitoring and reporting

WPO-C: Deliverables and Milestones Milestones • M.O-C.1 [T0+1] Organization of the kick-off plenary meeting • M.O-C.2 [T0+2] Set up of governing bodies • M.O-C.3 [T0+6] Deployment of teleconference tools and web-based data repository tools for all partners • M.O-C.4 [T0+11] Organization of the first e-Photon/ONe+ annual meeting • M.O-C.5 [T0+12] Final update on Collaborating Institutions involvement • M.O-C.6 [T0+23] Organization of the final e-Photon/ONe+ plenary meeting Deliverables • D.O-C.1 [T0+6] Project presentation document • D.O-C.2 [T0+12] Report on mobility actions in the first year • D.O-C.3 [T0+13] Report on Collaborating Institutions • D.O-C.4 [T0+24] Report on mobility actions in the second year ALL MILESTONES AND DEIVERABLES OF THE FIRST YEAR COMPLETED

WPO-M: Deliverables and Milestones Milestones • M.O-M.1 [T0+2] Financial plan for the first year and budget allocation • M.O-M.2 [T0+3] Collaborating Institution agreement • M.O-M.3 [T0+12] Update on involved researchers and students and on budget allocation • M.O-M.4 [T0+18] Final update on involved researchers and students Deliverables • D.O-M.1 [T0+3] Management hand-book, with communication protocol, reporting procedures, • financial guidelines, and financial monitoring criteria • D.O-M.2 [T0+13] Periodic Management Report, and Report on the distribution of the EC contribution among contractors according to EC rules • D.O-M.3 [T0+15] Financial plan for the second period of activities • D.O-M.4 [T0+24] Final report ALL MILESTONES AND DEIVERABLES OF THE FIRST YEAR COMPLETED

WP-O Main Achievements Distributed documents • Management Handbook • Amendments to Consortium Agreement n.1 and n.2 • Collaborating Institution Agreement • Biannual Management Report • Amendment to the EC contract • Agenda and Minutes of the governing bodies meetings Meetings • Kick-off meeting: Paris, 29-30 May 2006 • JPAC tele-meeting: 18 December 2006 • First Plenary meeting: Barcelona, 27-28 February 2007 Actual effort/budget spent • Effort: • WP-O-C: 17 m/m (total effort foreseen: 42 m/m) 41% • WP-O-M: 32 m/m (total effort foreseen: 48 m/m) 67% • Budget: • WP-O-C: 61 K€ (total budget foreseen: 201 K€) 30% • WP-O-M: 91 K€ (total budget foreseen: 261 K€) 35%

Main Activities Summary • General management and Reporting • Contractual and legal management • Financial management

General Management Main Tasks: • establishing infrastructure for the NoE administration • handling overall legal, contractual, financial and administrative issues (helpdesk for NoE partners) • centralising information and project outputs • NoE reporting and financial monitoring towards the governing bodies and the EC • fulfilling the JPAC decisions, in particular with reference to the financial issues • handling the enlargement of the Noe (e.g. in the form of Collaborating Institutions) • preparing all management documents such as the management hand-book, templates for reporting etc. • consortium agreement maintenance • organizing and running all the coordination meetings (agenda, minutes, dissemination of documents, etc.)

Administrative coordination • Efficient NoE coordination and a prompt risk management • Intermediary between EC and NoE partners MAIN GOALS • Synergy between administrative and scientific coordination • Continuous monitoring on activities and expenditures • Standard guidelines for reporting, communication and dissemination • Helpdesk for NoE partners and flexibility to understand their different methods and legislation METHODS & TOOLS

Monitoring and Reporting Monitoring is a fundamental task of the project management The PO is in charge of monitoring partners activities and expenditures in order to provide to governing bodies NoE financial status and update on activities progresses • To reach this objective, some rules and a set of documents and guidelines have been defined: • the consortium agreement, which defines management rules and responsibilities for each partner • the Management handbook, which includes instructions on procedures related to reporting, communication protocol and results dissemination • the Biannual Management Report (BMR) • the First Periodic Management Report

Management Handbook Main goal: • improving the efficiency of the management process Content: • Project organization • Communication procedure • Rules for meetings • Reporting and deliverables • Financial guidelines • NoE results evaluation (integration indicators) • Risk assessment

Periodic Management Report Introduction – Participants involvement and budget/effort allocation SECTION 1 – Justification of major cost items and resources 1.1 Overview on NoE Effort employed in Y1 1.2 Overview on budget spent in Y1 1.3 Explanatory note on major cost items 1.4 Planned and actual costs by contractor and by cost item 1.4.1 Global estimate of total costs 1.5 Planned and actual effort by contractor and by WP 1.5.1 For AC contractors, overview of the effort of permanent staff working on the project 1.6 Brief description of the work performed by each contractor 1.7 Explaination of major deviations SECTION 2 – Form C SECTION 3 – Summary Financial Report

Contract An amendment to the contract was requested by Politecnico di Torino on behalf of the consortium and approved by the EC • Termination of INTEL's participation • Addition of UCAM-DENG as new e1+ contractor (partner n. 41) • Addition of ISCOM as third party of FUB

Consortium Agreement • The Consortium Agreement was signed by all partners except Intel (that finally withdrew) • Two Amendments were proposed: • Amendment n.1 : modifications on Confidentiality and Publications sections according to KTH requests • Amendment n.2 : modifications on IPR section, mainly requested by Intel Only Amendment n. 1 was signed by all partners, while Amendment n. 2 is null and void.

Collaborating Institutions Agreement • At the kickoff meeting it was decided not to enlarge the consortium, but to establish the role of “Collaborating Institution” (CI), with • no budget allocation • full participation to the project • The PO prepared the Collaborating Institution Agreement (included in the CA) • RULES FOR ADMISSION • Request for participation shall be submitted by the JPAC, or by the Coordinator, or by at least 3 partners in written form defining the plan of activities • The decision on the inclusion of the CI shall be taken by the JPAC • The CI shall participate in the Project activities and/or take part of results according to the proposed plan of activities • The CI will not be refunded for the expenses incurred

Collaborating Institutions • Current CIs: • Campinas State University, Brazil • Beijing University of Posts & Telegraphs, China • CTTC: Telecommunications Technological Center of Catalonia, Spain • University of Vigo, Spain • Polytechnic University of Cartagena, Spain • Poznan University of Technology, Poland • Applications approved in the second year: • University of Roma "La Sapienza", Italy • HUAWEI Sweden

Financial Management • Definition of common financial rules for budget allocation and reporting • Internal progress reports where each partner declares its effort and costs • WP leaders monitor the involvement of partners in their WP • In case of inactive partners, the JPAC could take appropriate decisions The PO is in charge of periodical financial reviews in order to provide the JPAC with the NoE financial status for decisions on budget re-allocation and financial monitoring

Initial e1+ budget allocation criteria • 50 K€ to each partner (70 K€ to GET) • 20 K€ to each WP leader (10 K€ for co-leadership) • 70 K€ per WP to be distributed to active partners • 70 K€ for implementing and running the project website • 80 K€ for supporting international collaborations (upon pressure of former EC project officers) • 300 K€ for the project office and as project reservoir

Pre-financing: 1.500 K€ • No budget was transferred to Intel-IRC (according to a JPAC decision) • Any change on WP leadership occurred after the CA signature will be taken into account in the second EC payment transfer 60% of the fixed budget was distributed (blue part in previous slide) according to art. 5.2 and Annex C of the CA

1st EC payment transfers

Budget re-allocation • At the end of the first year, an internal financial review was carried out by the PO with the WP leaders • The financial review included an assessment of: • the criteria defined by the WP leaders for allocating the budget available to each WP (70K€) according to the planned activities; • the budget already spent and the budget necessary to carry out some specific tasks and objectives. The final budget allocation was approved during the plenary meeting held in Barcelona and has been included in the Revised Technical Annex.

Current budget allocation

Financial monitoring In order to ensure the financial monitoring, the Project Office, as a method of control of the partners expenditure, will apply to the EC payment transfers of the second year the Art. 5.2(c) of the CA “Contractors who spend less than their respective share of the Budget will be funded only in respect of the actual amount spent. Contractors who spend more than their respective share of the Budget will be funded only up to the funding as allocated under this Consortium Agreement, unless otherwise agrees by the JPA Committee according to Art.3.2.4.” In case of under-spending partners the amount transferred will be proportionally reduced

WP Manpower in Y1 Permanent staff (AC): 116 m/m

Network budget in Y1

Global estimate of Total Costs

Resources employed • AC cost reporting model implies a discrepancy between effort spent and cost claimed • WP-O expenditure less than 50% as the main management costs related to the audit certificates will be claimed in the second year (special clause n.39). • WP-D costs and effort only apparently lower than expected. According to a decision of the JPAC, the effort spent for dissemination has been split among the relevant technical WPs (WP-D effort reduced while effort declared in other WPs increased).

Expenditures The partners expenditures are mostly related to: • Personnel Costs • Researchers, PhD – students, other staff for activities carried out by each WP • Travel Costs • management and coordination meetings • implementation of NoE activities (e.g. joint experiments, summer school, e1+ events etc) • participation to conferences and dissemination events • Mobility actions

Manpower employed per activity

Costs incurred per activity

Effort and cost per activity • Activities progressed as planned and the related claimed costs are in line with the budget foreseen for the total project duration (exceeding 50% of total EC contribution requested) • In the previous slides, WPs are grouped as follows: • Integrating activities: 50% WP-O-C + 80% VDs + WP-L + 50% WP-T • Joint research activities: 90% JPs • Spreading of excellence activities: 50% WP-O-C + 20% VDs + 10% JPs + 50% WP-T +WP-D • Management activities: WP-O-M Half of both expenditure and effort is devoted to the Integrating activities, key objective of the NoE

Conclusions Critical issues • different level of involvement due also to the different cost reporting model • very high effort for coordination • different partner approach due to national legislation and internal practices Achievements • expenditure in line with the expectation (70,5% of total effort, 68% of the total budget) • total actual costs > EC requested contribution • all key deliverables completed • management risk under control • progressive harmonization of administrative and legal practices

WP-O Coordination and Management First Review Meeting Brussels, 23-24 May 2007