Project Governance, Reporting and Administration

18/02/14, British Library St Pancras

Content

Project Governance

Project Reporting

Administration

Financial Reporting

Project Governance

Management structure

Project Management Board

The Project Management Board (PMB) for Europeana Sounds:

Is empowered to take decisions for the project as a whole

Includes the Project Coordinator, Technical Director, Project Manager and all Work Package Leaders

Meets physically bi-annually and monthly by telcon

Negotiates and finalises the Consortium Agreement

Maintains the Project Guide

Assists the Project Coordinator in preparing for EC reviews

General Assembly

The General Assembly for Europeana Sounds

Comprises one member per project partners (main rep or deputy)

Meets annually face to face

Ratifies any proposed changes to the Project Plan and Budget

Approves changes to the Grant Agreement, DoW or Consortium membership

Approves all progress reports prior to submission to the EC

Consortium Agreement

The Consortium Agreement for Europeana Sounds:

Is an agreement between all Consortium partners (does not include the EC)

Includes the main guidelines for cooperation and conflict resolution

Current version is based on the DESCA model

All partners protect the required confidentiality or IPRs contributed to or produced by the project

Currently being discussed in the PMB

Advisory Boards

2 boards will be established

Advisory Board

• Will meet face to face twice in M15 and M23

• Will consider project progress, exploitation trends and policy

• Members selected for their expertise and networks

User Advisory Panel (UAP)

• WP7 leads T7.5 Project Evaluation to work with the UAP

• Includes 5 experts representing the target groups for the project e.g. consumers, creative industries, publishers, researchers and memory institutions (3 internal, 2 external)

• Will review all Deliverables relevant to end-user services e.g. WP2 and WP4

Project Reporting

Reporting your Activities

There will be a number of project reports where we will ask for contributions:

Quarterly reports (internal)

• Include summary of effort per WP, travel costs, sub contracting costs, other direct costs

Bi-annual reports (submitted to EC)

• Formal reports to the EC, including financial estimates of expenditure, effort consumed and summary of activities

Periodic reports (submitted to EC)

• End of year reports to the EC, including annual costs submitted via the Form Cs, and summary of progress by the Work Packages

Quarterly reports

Progress overview of WPs and tasks

Main contribution to the project during the quarter, including achievements

Issues that might have or did affect achievements, delayed results or the delivery of Deliverables and Milestones

Meetings held or attended

Project related publications

Summary of effort: consumed per person per WP

Summary of costs: travel, sub-contracting, other direct costs

Due by the 15th of the month following the end of the quarter

Bi-annual reports

Formal documents submitted to the European Commission

Summary of the previous 2 quarters

Include

• Activity and progress summaries per Work Package, including issues

• Deliverables and Milestones submitted or achieved

• Events held or attended and publications

• Progress towards project indicators

• Estimates of effort consumed (from timesheets)

• Expenditure on travel, sub-contracting, other direct costs

Deliverables D7.3 Interim Progress reports (M7), D7.6 (M19), D7.8 (M31)

Usual Deliverable review process (see later slides)

Submitted by the end of the project month the report is due

Periodic reports

Formal documents submitted to the European Commission

Summary of all four quarters (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4)

Include

• Activity and progress summaries per Work Package, including issues

• Deliverables and Milestones submitted or achieved

• Events held, attended and publications

• Progress towards project indicators

• Effort consumed (from timesheets) and analysis

• Expenditure of project budget and analysis

• Future planning

Usual Deliverable review process (see later slides)

Submitted within 60 days of the end of each project period

Administration

Admin Tools

There are a number of project tools either in use or being considered:

Basecamp

• Project communications – new projects set up per WP and for the PMB

Dropbox

• File sharing

Google docs

• Collaborative documents, now set up at europeana.sounds@gmail.com

Mailing lists (held in Basecamp at the moment)

Europeana Pro site

• Final versions of documents

Project wiki?

Quality Assurance Plan

D7.1 due in M2

Includes:

• Official legal documents (links)

• Terms of reference for project boards

• Document management procedures

• Procedures for Deliverable approval

• Locations of templates

• Summary of reporting

• Risk register

• Project collaborations

To be circulated to the PMB initially

Document Templates

There will be a number of project templates published in the next weeks:

Deliverable document

Deliverable review document

Milestone documents (if applicable)

Project presentations (with logo)

Monthly timesheets

Quarterly summary financial reports

Bi-annual reports

Periodic reports

Deliverables Review Process

REVIEWREVIEW

REVISIONREVISION

APPROVAL AND

SUBMISSION

APPROVAL AND

SUBMISSION

Three stage review process:

Step 1: Initial review (one month prior to submission)

• Outcome: review document with recommendations for revision, ranked in order of importance

Step 2: Revision

• Outcome: revised document, and a response to the review comments

Step 3: Approval and submission

• Coordinator, WP Leader and Technical Director approve before submission to EC

Performance Monitoring

Outlined in Part B of the DoW (Table 3.2b)

16 indicators, 4 or 5 per Work Package

Annual targets set to be achieved per project year

Will be tracked by WP Leaders through the bi-annual reports

Reported at the project reviews annually and in the Periodic Reports

Some of these are quite challenging!

Project Risks

Risks are monitored by the PMB

Issues affected project delivery are reported quarterly, bi-annually and summarised in the Periodic Reports

Risks are ranked according to their impact (low/medium/high) and their probability (low/medium/high)

Overall rated red/amber/green based on these 2 factors i.e. a red risk may be very likely to occur, or may be unlikely but high impact

Areas of risk include content related, technical, operational and perception

Financial Reporting

Finance Overview from the EC

Summary of the main points from the EC presentation:

Each partner maintains their accounts for the project and documentation to justify the costs

Materials can be audited by the EC during the project and up to 5 years afterwards

Local accounting rules apply

Time charged to the project MUST be recorded i.e. on timesheets

Costs must be necessary, incurred during the project, identifiable and verifiable, recorded in the accounts and value for money

Financial Reporting

Summary of areas to be covered by Roger Gavin, BL Finance Division:

Funding

Reporting deadlines

Eligible costs

Timesheets

Quarterly reports

Audit certification

Thank you

Catherine Gater

Catherine.Gater@bl.uk