Developing an FP6 Proposal and How We Can Help

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Developing an FP6 Proposal and How We Can Help

• METU - Office of EU Affairs

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Steps to follow
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What to include in the 2 Page Outline

• Objectives the aim you want to achieve
• Innovation your contribution to the
  state-of-the-art
• Partners those you would like to be
  involved
• Outcomes only the results of the project
  itself?
• Impact the extent of impact your
  project will have (economic, social,
  environmental)
• Policies parallelism with relevant EC
  policies
• Duration months/years it would take to
  complete
• Budget amount needed for the
  successsful completion of the project

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Why bother with a 2-page outline?

• You turn your project idea into a precise,
  clearly expressed yet detailed statement
• We may help by commenting on draft
• We can use the outline to
• Identify timing of FP6 opportunities
• Help you consider your IPR situation
• Show ways to find partners
• Test out your idea with the related Turkish NCP

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Which one would you prefer to be Coordinator or
Partner?

• Coordinators NEED to have project management
  experience, particularly of multi-partner
  projects
• The burden of proposal development falls mostly
  on the co-ordinator
• If you do NOT want to be the coordinator, related
  NCP can help you find a project to join

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Finding partners

• Alternatives to find partners
• Your own networking (best alternative)
• NCPs
• CORDIS (as the last resource)
• Use your project outline to prepare
• Non-confidential project outline
• Non-disclosure agreement
• Confidential project outline
• DO NOT DELAY! you need to find most partners
  before you can develop your proposal

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Steps Along the Way
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Proposal Assistance

• NCPs can help Turkish SMEs, universities, other
  institutions to participate in FP6
• A grant from TUBITAK to financially help you in
  participating in FP6 by
• Awarding the project proposals that are eligible
  and have been elected for evaluation
• Meeting travelling costs to meet with partners
• Grants up to 12,000 Euros
• Forms and guide at www.fp6.org.tr
• You do not have to be a project coordinator to
  apply

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Fleshing out your outline

• With most partners in place begin to define
• content of the project
• budget of the project
• how the project is going to be managed
• Tasks, finance, IPR issues
• Communications (meetings and disputes)

GET PARTNERS INVOLVED IN THIS
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Writing it up is not magic!!

• Guide for Proposers
• Format, content and length of proposal are given
• Follow it precisely
• Do not waffle or duck the questions asked
• Know how the evaluators work
• What kind of questions are they asking?
• How do they allocate marks?
• This information is all published
• Ignoring it can be very costly !
• NCPs may comment on your draft proposal

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Please the evaluator

• Evaluators have
• 1 hour to read and score your proposal
• Many other proposals to score
• Make life easy for them!
• The first 2 pages must excite them!
• Make it easy for them to give you marks
• Diagrams and charts are easy to understand
• Remember you need to aim for gt 80

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Steps Along the Way
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Submission

• The Call for Proposals tells you the exact date
  and time by when proposal must be received
• Electronic submission is mandatory now
• It is possible to submit your proposal earlier
  and to modify it before the deadline
• Do not leave it to the last minute as EC server
  may be overloaded

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Negotiations

• Evaluation of proposals can take up to 3-4 months
• Contract negotiations start soon after
• You need to be ready for suggestions to
• - reduce the budget
• - modify the project
• - join with other consortiums, etc.

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There are 2 contracts

• Contract between EC and each partner
• The basic legal framework
• Consortium Agreement between all partners
• Adds details to this framework, especially
• Project management
• IPR protection and exploitation
• Must be in place before EC awards the Contract

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TIPS

• Do not aim to be a coordinator if you are a new
  starter
• Best way to find good, reliable partners is to
  attend conferences, seminars, workshops in your
  related scientific area
• Do not open your project to your potential
  partners in detail at first
• IPR issues are vital and needs detailed reading
  due to the participation of SMEs in projects
• Related documents can be found on the Cordis site
  and it is extremely useful

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• Consortium Agreement is very important since it
  details all the phases of the project with
  relation to all partners, their job descriptions,
  responsibilities, etc. Read it in detail before
  it is too late!
• Never think that the thresholds given in the Call
  for Proposals are enough for your proposal to be
  evaluated as successful. Aim for the highest, the
  best
• Submit your proposal well ahead of the deadline
  for practical purposes

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THANK YOU !

• METU - Office of EU Affairs
• Middle East Technical University
• 06531 Ankara / Turkey
• Phone [phone] Fax [phone]
  1348
• http//www.euoffice.metu.edu.tr