ELIXIR CONVERGE WP6: Project Management and Scientific Coordination

Project managing boards will be mobilised early in the project and will be provided with the project handbook. The project handbook will follow Open PM best practices to provide the board members and the project participants with a clear definition of their roles and responsibilities. The handbook will also provide the relevant processes and assets the project will use to ensure contractual commitments in the Grant Agreement are delivered on time, within the scope and budget, and with the expected level of quality.

Monitoring activities will also be included, from impact KPIs to technical delivery metrics (deliverables and milestones), quality assurance, risks, opportunities and innovation management (identification of assets).

Leadership: ELIXIR Hub (Juan Arenas)​

Participants: All participants via management boards.

This task comprises the monitoring and control activities to be carried out during the life-time of the project in order to ensure project goals, benefits and impact are delivered. All monitoring and control activities will be carried out as defined in the project handbook, providing project boards with the required data to take informed decisions along the execution of the project.

Monitoring and control activities will require inputs from all participants and will be reported at the participant, work package and project level as defined in the project handbook, every six month.

Leadership: ELIXIR Hub (Hannah Hurst)​

Participants: All participants via monitoring and support activities.

The project data management plan (DMP) will be delivered early in the project according to the project scope and the EC requirement. The project does not anticipate access to research data as it will be managed by the demonstrator projects only, while the project will provide technical support on the definition and implementation of the DMP using ELIXIR resources and services.

Leadership: ELIXIR Hub (Hannah Hurst)​

Participants: All participants.

In collaboration with WP2, we will continue to build capacity in management across our ELIXIR Nodes using a mechanism that has proved successful in previous projects which builds management capacity in different areas:

• Executive management capacity across ELIXIR Nodes will be tackled in collaboration with the Executive Master in Management of Research Infrastructures (EMMRI);
• Node coordination capacity will be developed, supporting the activities of the Node Coordinators Group that is emerging, to address the need from Nodes to share expertise and learn from others on how they can be more efficient and effective; and
• Expertise in grant management will be tackled by the Project Management Network EC Focus Group, providing specific advice and training to increase the quality of proposals submitted by the ELIXIR Nodes.

In addition, we aim to continue with the implementation of the ​ELIXIR Equal Opportunities Strategy including specific training in unconscious bias. As a result the different activities will contribute to the long term sustainability of the ELIXIR Nodes. Activities will be reported as part of the periodic and final technical report to be submitted to the EC and will contribute to the ​ELIXIR Handbook of Operations​.

Leadership: ELIXIR Hub (Susanna Repo)​, IGC (ELIXIR Portugal)

Participants: All participants via participation in planned activities.