Online Signature Legitimateness for General Partnership Agreement in European Union

How to eSign a document: online signature legitimateness for General Partnership Agreement in European Union

exactly exactly this so we will record this meeting which also means that you will receive the recording afterwards in a follow-up email um and now I would like to officially start this meeting hi welcome everyone um it's great that you are with us today uh I'm Christina I'm a European programs officer at the wheel and our topic of today is building an EU partnership and Partnerships I need essential to refunding it is a crucial part of securing even funding however it is also one of the biggest barriers and it can be challenging to find the right Partners so today we will look at some basic principles and also we will give you some very concrete tricks and tools how to find partners and to build a partnership but first of all I would like to introduce our special guest and that is Michael ward he is a CEO at the malinger employment Action Group and Michael will share his experiences um with you later because the malinga employment action group is working as a partner organization in your funded projects since many years and I would like to thank you for being us with us today Michael we are very happy to have you on board and hi there and also my colleague Emily is with us as a tech support hi Emily she will take care of everything in the background everything going on she will monitor the chat also so if there should be any technical issues feel free to reach out to her okay so uh let's have a look at today's agenda as I mentioned before we will record the meeting we will share the recording with you afterwards as well as all slides and links so everything that is presented here today we will share afterwards you will receive the follow-up email by the end of this week what we will do first is we will talk and have a look at why Partnerships are essential what are Partnerships on EU level and what are they not and then Michael Ward um Will Tell Us in his case study how they as a well-established actor a new funded project um with a huge experience how they go about finding Partners work together once a partnership established and we will have like a look into their um EU funded projects then we will have a short break come back together again and then I would share some very concrete tools tips uh websites uh databases on how to find partners and also on the first steps of establishing Partnerships um so that's then the second part and we ended um with the Q a session so this is your possibility to ask questions either to me but also to Michael if you have questions already during the presentations um during the case study please pop them in the chat so either we enter them directly there if it's like easy questions or otherwise we would pick them up in the Q a session if it's a very individual very specific question because you have like whatever a very specific situation at the moment with your organization please also feel welcome to reach out to us via email write us an email to our team here at access Europe and we will respond to those than individually okay that's it for the agenda and we would like to start with a quick poll in the beginning the question is how much experience do you have working with your partners you should see the poll even though I'm sharing exactly so this is uh definitely um for us it's very interesting to know to just see who's in the rooms or how much experience you bring and this is meant at EU level okay I'm sure you have Partnerships already on the national level but we would like to know and to see how much experience you already have on the European level because this is um sometimes can be very different okay so just looking at the results at the moment and what we can see is that half of the people 50 about 50 have some experience so you already had maybe one or two Partnerships on your level uh we see but we see also that like a big group already has none experience and there are a few with a lot of experience so we have a rather group that has some or no experience which is good because we will really start huh okay I just I think now you see the results right I'm sorry I hope you see the results now so okay so but this is an interesting uh combination um because we will look really also at the basics first and then look also on the next steps how to build a partnership so I'm sure we will be covering a lot of um interesting topics for you here today okay thanks for that um we will now look at why Partnerships are so important to EU funded projects because um and that's a fact the vast majority of your programs indeed require some kind of Partnerships it can be challenging and we know that very well to find Partners who share the same vision goals and commitment and also even if you have found those Partners it requires networking and relationship building efforts and it takes time establishing trust with potential Partners so we will take a deeper look at these aspects now just to mention we'll not look at your funding or your funding programs themselves for example like how do these programs work what do they fund selection criteria and so forth this would simply go beyond the scope of what we are able to cover here today however I would like to recommend to resources to you and the first one is the access Europe website access europe.ie this is our website and there you will find Handy overviews of the major EU funding programs as well of key EU policy areas we post all the funding deadlines there we include all the key details like budgets and number of Partners needed so if you would like to get first an overview of EU programs please go here and also I would like to recommend our YouTube channel because we run a variety of trainings throughout the year and they range from a general introduction to your funding designing your your project writing your funding applications and so forth so if you would like to get a head start on your funding and your funding programs this channel the YouTube channel might be useful to you today we look at Partnerships on new level that is connected to eufunding programs so I will mention that a lot but again we will not look at um your funding programs themselves or how funding is working so to make it concrete there are a lot of you programs out there right and what I just said with the exception of some particular cases there's no EU project which would not require cooperation among different actors and countries and I put a basic rule here so don't don't completely rely on that I said three partner organizations from different countries this is just a basic rule yeah so we have um different programs and each program each call maybe um has its own guidelines and requirements this is just to give you an idea and you see also the three um examples here um we have of the minimum of three organizations from different EU member states um so but for example Erasmus they have also knowledge alliances which would require a Consortium of at least six organizations they have smaller Partnerships small scale projects that would be only two yeah but as a basic rule so just what you're faced with when you would like to do a new funny project this is what you um would be facing so it can be definitely more or less right but what I would like to talk about for a second is why are Partnerships actually so essential to your funded project so why does you made this an obligation and highlighting this um shows a very good the major difference compared to national funding and there are a few so it's probably pretty good to look first at this I put some points here just for you to understand the perspective of the EU the one you're applying for the one you want money from so first of all it is a very practical reason for the you to do this because I can pull resources if you split up funding on multiple organizations you can maximize your impact because you can support larger scale projects that may be beyond the capacity of individual organizations so from the perspective of the EU it makes sense right and then the next two points collaboration integration cross-border Corporation this is exactly what the EU is all about it's about Collective action it's about strong relationships between member states and if you bring together organizations from different countries from sectors disciplines including research institutions non-profits you bring together private companies with public entities and so forth so these con Partnerships then contribute to the cohesion to the knowledge sharing to the mutual understanding uh the point of view policies and objectives is also a very important Point um and also one basic rule for you funded projects actually because you'll find a project are aligned with the EU policies and objectives that can for example be the EU green deal or the European pillar social rights by engaging with Partners the EU ensures that these over goals and strategies are actually addressed and that they are that that via the projects via the Partnerships they are they are contributing to these goals and the strategies and then of course an important point is uh that you would like to show that it's a hub of innovation research and development so strengthening networks of research and Innovation establishing collaboration between researchers um sharing research infrastructure increasing joint research efforts that's all on the agenda of the EU uh in any case so I thought that this is maybe pretty good to see okay whereas all of this coming from and why is all of this happening and giving you an idea why it actually plays such a crucial role when it comes to your funding what does that now mean for you and for your organization so what are your benefits right if you do all of this if you start a partnership on your level first of all it is um always a possibility to learn and share so you have the possibility to exchange good practices acquire new skills you will have access to new ideas new knowledge for your organization what I just mentioned uh your funding is connected to your policy goals so you will also have the possibility to connect with an influence policy it is a possibility to be Innovative so different perspectives together Foster better Solutions you are having the possibility to actually experiment and also and to test new and Innovative tools and it is always a chance to access new sources of funding and maybe this is an important point because once you have participated first of all this brings you to a stage where you can reach for for bigger scale projects so you can kind of uh um Build Your Capacity um in the EU funding um Arena but however also it enhances your credibility for potential new donors so they see what you have done what you have accomplished and that in general has a positive influence on your organization's reputation so just to conclude um these are the long-term benefits of European development and being involved in EU Partnerships however we should also talk about what they are not um and what they should not be because working as a team and you might know that already on a national level this comes with many challenges and that is especially true in multi-partner you funded projects building a team with multiple partners um in a cross-border partnership is indeed a challenge so joining a new partnership never should be for you an afterthought or an inconvenience it should never be the goal for Pure subcontracting or Outsourcing tasks it is definitely relationship building it is trust building on a daily basis and also over a very long time span so a couple a project usually like um can last a couple of years so the entire process of the project you will be working with these people and a tick box exercise it is definitely not um a partnership always needs to be patiently built to make it a successful one to make it a productive one and that takes a lot of resources and also believe me times and nurse I know what I'm talking about so this is what uh Partnerships should not be in that what you should be aware of they are also of course also not without risk so um Partners could drop out the project could not deliver right on their work packages so as always also a risk involved this is what you should know before you actually enter Sachin or should be aware of that this could could be happening but what happens when you say now okay look I have um I would like to go out and build a Consortium right I would like to design a new partnership and we created a checklist just for you to see what kind of questions should you ask yourself you always should step one go step one step back and say okay um what skills are needed to deliver on my right project what so who do I need what are the key expertises to make this project happen how can a partnership actually help to deliver this project do I need a partnership to deliver this and also why should this be carried out at a EU level so what is the European Dimension and that is very important because this is exactly what is this uh what is evil funding all about does it make sense to put it on a new level what is the advantage it actually gets from cross-border cooperation and from the corporation with different partners in different perspectives and also you should ask yourself and how will you allocate tasks and responsibilities across a partnership what are the roles um we usually recommend to maybe not not start as a as a lead for uh for a project but as a partner first um if you would take the lead role all the administrative burden all the responsibility often also managing the project actually lies on your side so especially if you are new to your funding we would recommend to join an already established Consortium they are out there people actually are look looking for organizations with experience and with special skills so you could also be invited into a Consortium you can then being just a partner in a project learn about the processes about the challenges um from this perspective of not being the lead and how it works in general and then maybe the next step is to design your own project and to build your own Consortium so but that is I saw it for the for the um for the poll we have some that I have already experienced so maybe it's your interest now to actually to have your own project and design your own partnership around that and also one more checklist that is important in building your um your Consortium is make sure if you build this up these different organizations are they representing different sectors and stakeholders do we have a diversity of perspectives in the group do we have different skills and expertise that we actually need to deliver on the project do we have to geographical spread and also have these um Partners the the the reach and the capacity needed to deliver on the project that is sometimes not so easy to find out I will give you some tips later on how to do that and how to find the right Partners where to find the right Partners but this is just for you before you actually start going out there and looking for partners you should ask yourself those questions look at those aspects before building a Consortium we will look now at two very concrete examples of Partnerships and consortiums connected and these are two projects that actually um wear the wheel was the coordinator so this is in scope as an aerosmuse plus project or was an Erasmus Plus project um it's an online learning platform with a Target group of voluntary and charitable organizations and also social Enterprises and you see here the Consortium that we assembled for this project these were six organizations from five EU member countries and they collaborated in a different in different work packages so it was the the goal was to develop an online platform evaluate an online platform build learning content so develop learning content in this virtual environment and also to create a validation system so that you would get a certificate afterwards you've done you've done this learning content on the platform so you can imagine who do you need what kind of Consortium do you need to actually deliver on all of these work packages you see here um beside of the wheel we had three other sector representative bodies in Scotland for example on Latvia we had a technology partner and we had a vet provider so what all Partners shared in this project was a common purpose on providing training support advice advocacy to the third sector and that's very important that you actually also have a common purpose in this uh in this Consortium the second one that I would like to mention is rewriter lease and it's also Erasmus Plus funded it is currently running and again the wheel here is the project coordinator we have again a partner Consortium as you can see here this project aims to revitalize the European social economy sector so what we needed um were partners with a strong focus on education but also on social economy and you can see we have a lot of non-profits of social Enterprises also involved and we also have a university partner the Dublin City University involved as a research partner delivering here um on the evaluation part mainly so that was it from my site and we have now real life example in the room today Michael Ward CEO at malinga employment Action Group and um Michael Howard now stop sharing and um he will tell you about his experiences based on use of running your funded projects himself and he probably can do that uh way better yes hi thanks Christina um I've just gone up my slide here and we'll get going so share screen okay we have a slide up in the screen with meag on it yes absolutely we see that uh yeah so uh just very quickly I'll introduce the Action Group where a community supported not-for-profit in in Montague County Westmead and established and founded initially in 1986 and officially incorporated as a company when we opened our first Enterprise Center in 1990 so we've been around a long time um uh with a our suppose reason for being it was back in that time mulligar was a particular black spot for employment so the committee the Action Group committee was initially set up and uh with a view to looking at projects that could help build employment and sustain employment with local Enterprise and so on and so forth so that's why we're here and we have grown a bit on what's got a few more interests over the years so at the moment currently we have um two Enterprise centers the Mullingar metic it's called an MCE Community Enterprise Center and the Mullingar Enterprise technology and Innovation Center uh we run schemes for DSP CE scheme job initiative scheme which has gradually winded down but we have a CE scheme with 35 participants I'm at the moment we still have seven on Ce with a public CSP scheme which is uh an employment scheme supported by public community service program we have seven staff on that and outside of that we run our own uniform school uniform shop we serve over 30 schools locally and that is one of our income generation streams obviously the rents are another one and finally EU projects that we have been involved in since 2015 uh so this kind of gives a little bit of our funding mix so as you see the rents the Erasmus Plus and the job activate adaptive job application but the Uniform Boutique are our three primarily primary income sources and like Erasmus was kind of a game changer for us um when we started to get involved in it because it brought in a lot of extra work a lot of extra income and it offered us a question during the last pandemic when the rain dried up and um the boutique some extent also dried up so Erasmus Plus allowed us an opportunity to keep keep the show on the road keep people working um and at that time we we we we got involved in a lot more projects than we normally would and it helped balance the books so it's been um a lifesaver for us let's say in the last few years uh so the European projects that we get involved in are part of Erasmus Plus um which is the program for uh education training Youth and sport in Europe and Erasmus Plus uh has got a number of fun in streams I think my next slide with or another a number of opportunities within it uh solo it offers opportunities in higher education uh vocational education and training which I've underlined which is primarily what we've been doing and the types of projects we get involved in uh school education adult education news education and support education um I've also underlined because uh just in March in the most recent call we submitted our first adult education uh bid or project and we're waiting to hear on that and we have been looking at Youth and Sport as well um I suppose participate precipitated by being asked by local clubs and organizations who are involved in these areas about the opportunities that might be there and can we have done develop projects and Lead projects today we're partner in and so on so forth so they would be project set potentially in the future we will develop Partnerships for um so as I say 2015 is when we started and um since then we've partnered with 49 different organizations from 23 different countries in Europe uh on 13 Erasmus Plus projects um five of them which we we ourselves LED so it's been um an interesting uh ride for the last uh eight years only so um these are some of the projects we participated on um I suppose a constantly contrary to what Christina said we kind of jumped in at the deep end and our first project was uh crucial crowdfunding project and we wrote it ourselves we built a partnership ourselves and we LED it ourselves so um and we'll talk a little bit about how we did that later on but we kind of we we went in at the deep end so there's no right way or wrong way but we were able to do that because I had on a previous employment experience working in projects so for the organization it was uh completely new but for me uh we kind of knew the terrain and we knew how to go about it uh the reason we looked at Erasmus Plus a few reasons I suppose income was definitely one of them but it was more than just that so we were looking to uh to get more work for the staff we had and we were looking to generate new positions and we were looking to uh generate income but we were also looking to sort of broaden our Horizons uh learn from others uh see what others are doing throughout Europe um raise the profile of the organization as well so um these these were all good reasons to look at Erasmus Plus and Erasmus Plus um was the the the program of choice for us because having previously worked on interact projects and things like that Erasmus Plus is a very good entry level sort of program because the administration is not as honors as some of the other projects the budgets are smaller than the likes of Interest things like that so for a small organization like meag we were in a position to lead a project and we had a financial capacity to to be awarded a project which we wouldn't have in some of the other larger project programs um so yeah I'm just going to go by way of talking about how we built um uh consortiums and Partnerships and so on I just want to take the first project so crucial crowdfunding um 2015 so it was submitted in March 2015 and the idea was to look at uh crowdfunding with a view to our sort of client base which would be a lot of smes and small businesses and their social Enterprises and so on so we wanted to uh develop a learning product that they could learn um how to take advantage of crowdfunding which uh was was uh growing at the time but it was a mystery to a lot of people so um what we actually did to uh to try and build the Consortium we started looking at in 2014 and uh we actually set up a LinkedIn group on LinkedIn you can set up networking groups and we set up a LinkedIn Erasmus Plus partner search uh specifically targeting companies like ours or who are working with Enterprises and startups and smes so um interestingly that group attracted a lot of attention I love it there's a lot of Partners out there if you can find them but there there are a lot of Partners out there looking to get to participate in European projects and looking to participate in um Erasmus Plus projects so I actually closed the group when there was a hundred members in it and we started to look through who we had and eventually we we picked a partnership so these were our very first partners we had partner in Estonia Youth and Science and business foundation so we picked them as our technology partner uh purely because they kind of promoted himself for dissemination um technology website building things like that that's uh we personally didn't in the Action Group didn't have skills in uh the malta Communications Authority were also very strongly that their state agency um in village and Malta so e-commerce um was was a big part of what they do from developing the training point of view we got involved with the other organizations uh Institute of Entrepreneurship and development class care uh IED or in Greece lefka or in the Czech Republic rln we're a UK based company and brandies were a Spanish company so um this was uh as it turned out it turned out to be a very good partnership and we learned a lot uh working with these people and I think one two three four of those people we've worked on numerous projects some subsequently and in fact dramblees you would see popping up every project we write a bar one I think uh dramedy's or a partner on IED tend to be a partner on almost all of our projects as well because they have proved to be excellent on the technology side um building training product e-learning websites dissemination that sort of thing um the reason we didn't work with multi-communication story senses that said the two or three guys that we worked with on this project had moved on into the private sector uh subsequently so we we haven't worked with those guys again and we learned a lesson we learned the bad partner lesson as well which are Estonian partner but we learned um that not to ever work with again for various reasons if anybody wants to ask the question later on in the question and answer I'd be happy to uh to oblige but um in general there was a very successful project for us um and we built some very strong Partnerships as you can see since then rln unfortunately we won't be able to partner with anymore but we've partnered with them in a couple of projects since then as well but uh as they're out of deu and having set up an Irish company here and we won't be working with them again um so yeah following on from that project our next project uh this actually uh came from the the previous project because while working with smes and crowdfunding and that we found some craft breweries and micro breweries who were it was basically exploding back in 2016 that whole that whole business uh with a lot of new entrants and a lot of them were looking at sources of funding and looking at crowdfunding so that's how we came across that and while we were working on the crowd funding project we noticed that a lot of these guys were coming from Industries as diverse as teaching Engineers techs guys a lot of Home Brewers um who had no experience of business so we we looked at a project to um so we'll developed a trading product smileybrowing.com to develop a training product for those guys to show them the business side of Brewing as well as the Brewing side of Brewing so uh a different skill set required a new um a new partnership or a New Consortium what's required and um I think we'll have a look at how we built it on the next page so yeah our partners you'll see a couple of uh familiar ones clavica were there again to check Partners uh the Czech Republic being um probably known for beer and they're they're the Brewing industry brandies again this Spanish partner who are have proved to be very good at course development and curriculum development and so on and we worked with a Spanish partner on this one who are specialized in training in food and beverage and agriculture management but primarily we took them aboard food and beverage they had a lot of contacts in that area as well um which was very good in training who were introduced to us by rln actually rln we asked about this project and they said it's not for them but they introduced us to win training who are a company who specialize in training into the hospitality sector so um they were a wonderful addition to that project actually and then finally we brought in the European Brewing convention which is part of the Brewers of Europe and they are an umbrella group for the Brewing industry in Europe and I work with all the uh the Brewers so purely for uh to give the project um legitimacy for dissemination uh for expertise for running workshops uh things like that um and finally we did an official launch in Brussels um so uh discover our project our reach I suppose and a legitimacy telling what I never had uh without the progress of Europe the interesting thing about that project is if I go back to previously I won't go back to this previous slide but uh in my previous life when I showed the projects there were two smile Brewing projects there's a smile C project and as an example of what can happen when you have a well-run project a well-deseminated project that people will pick up on it and this project was picked up by a change maker in Sweden oh well we had no previous contact with but they decided to do a follow-on project on this and they were looking at the whole concept of the circular economy and how it can apply to the Brewing industry and the the raw materials to go into the Brewing industry so my LC was born and we were asked invited onto that project and we were introduced to a whole host of new potential partners and people to work with so that that's kind of how the network grows on these types of projects the example of in trade and being introduced to us by another partner we had worked with and the example of the project being picked up um and we've been contacted and they had their Partners we brought we actually brought ramblies onto that project as well again so at this stage our um our network was growing quite wide another project we developed was one called push pop-up shop helper it was aimed at artistic Community or creators and it was saying that how to get from being a maker to being a business or an Enterprise how to commercialize your your uh your your uh your work and um foreign vehicle we did for that was to look at pop-up shops and how an Enterprise would set up a pop-up pop-up shop um so in this case we again we wrote this was one of our own projects so we let all of these projects on going through in our projects we LED and we built the Consortium so again we buy Ed who we've seen there before with the University of um Lithuania who were introduced to us by dramblies we've worked with that University on three projects now at this stage I think we brought in recreate from Ireland because we decided and it's it's a natural thing we do now in every project we write we'll bring in a local Irish partner and we'll bring in a partner who hasn't worked on the residence plus before so it's a way of uh as well sharing the knowledge and sharing the the opportunity with with other organizations like ourselves so and I think it's something when you're right in the bed that's a very valued by the the evaluators as well so I'd love to see partners that haven't been involved in the program before and they'd love to see a second Irish partner when when we submit to lairgas Lyrica International agency um Michael's just giving you a five minute no that's all right this is our last project and our most recent month all right this is this was our last project our most recent project and in the Consortium building here this is a project on Mental Health in the workplace at the Consortium building here we brought in a local park good to talk you can see dramblies there again uh but in training are there again we found out that apart from uh Hospitality training or training in that area did a lot of health and safely and they actually delivered training on Mental Health first aid for mental health and these sorts of things so uh those guys got involved and the other three Partners here we met at a contact seminar in um Romania that was funded by Lyrica as the national agency and uh oh if you ever get an opportunity to go to one of these contact seminars if you're looking to build a Consortium or get involved in projects it's invaluable we met so many good people there and we we wrote another project the same time we wrote this project um we brought in I think five other partners we wrote it first throughout College in the UK it wasn't for ourselves but uh we we built our Network I'd say we doubled our Network at that contact seminar alone and we got them invited onto projects and we got very good partners for for our projects the beauty of the contact seminars that you can actually meet them and talk to them and look in their eyes and be a pretty sure what they're about before you got to get involved with them because uh there's always a risk when you're working with a Parker you've never worked before you don't know how to work you don't know what the work ethic is you don't hard like a punctual or the lazy you don't know until you work with them so um so yeah uh the interesting one here I think are the most interesting one for me was this uh Turkish partner who was the district governorship in Izmir and we really brought them on because mental health supports uh are a very low or basic level in in Turkey so to bring them guys on they contributed so much through their enthusiasm to their dissemination uh through through the desire to uh to kind of uh build use what we had done to build their capacity in in Turkey so um uh so yeah what have we learned in what eight years uh we've learned don't be afraid to lead a project um I I think you might have said something very similar start with a clear understanding of what you want to do before you decide in your project before you decide on your your partners know what you want to do and we've worked on other projects with managers uh with bad managers and I say who have a project if God had approved I haven't even ordered themselves so you have to be very careful there's companies out there and they're writing projects for organizations and the organizations are taking them on and then when it comes to Leading and they don't actually know what they're doing or how to do it and so I would say be careful of those projects they're steer clear of them but be very clear in your own mind if you're leading a project what you want to do and choose the partners to fit into the different roles or the different needs that have in that project and uh trust your instinct so if you think somebody is uh not reliable you're probably right um something to say um Christina said as well it's not subcontracting but I will say that when you're working with partners Contracting contract your contractually you you are contracted a national agency so you are effectively subcontracting to the other partners even though it's a collaborative environment but from a financial point of view uh to subcontractors so even if you get paid all the money up front don't pay all the money upfront work out a payment schedule based on deliverables um and ultimately uh remote your decision maker so sometimes something can happen on projects as well is that it kind of gets stagnant because decisions are not being made so it's very important as as a project leader to prepare to make the decisions and move the thing along when it needs to be um the other things I would say is keep records and use the national agency in this case lyricas because they're wonderful and they're great help and uh they're your friend as they say and they'll always be your friend so I think that's all I've got to say Christina excellent Michael why are you touched on so many points here um when it comes like to these these contact seminars provided like were hosted by leagus I will also talk about those but also like that you actually have kind of how I understood it a mentorship program for Irish organizations to bring a new ones into the partnership I love that because this is exactly what you need you need an experienced partner and then you can join and also this aspect of that the EU they like it if there's like a new not experienced organization yet this is actually then also an advantage for the whole project because you show you bring in new um organizations in this so I love those ones especially thank you so much thank you uh and also what I what I what I picked up is that you actually uh you were you started as a lead very courageous uh to mistake but you've had like kind of inside knowledge and that was the important part because they had you so you could kind of even though your organization was nutrients there was someone who knew what would be um what would what you would expect right or what could be like the challenges uh connected to that so that is an important point but wow okay throughout you started as a lead that's big yeah I guess the fear wasn't there because I had experience of projects before so if an organization doesn't have any experience there's the fear of the unknown so that that the prevention from taking the step absolutely I totally uh see that and also what I liked is that you said like you our goals actually for going for you funded projects was we wanted to develop the organization so you actually wanted also to create Workforce right so to create new uh parts and I like that that you had actually this plan when you start it you know where you wanted to go yeah very impressive very very impressive really you touched like on a lot of points there and I have one minute before we would go into the break and maybe we could ask this question very quickly to you because it's directly to you directly um what are the basics that one needs to identify a perspective partner that might not work out are there any signals from your experience like what gives you the first signals what are there where you would say oh no we don't include them I think an obvious one is when you're building a a project application your requiring some input from the partners and if it's not coming or if it's slow coming an application stage when they're probably most committed when it comes to delivering on the project the chances are there are going to be a problem okay another another way then is to kind of look back at uh Erasmus Plus projects and see what they've been involved in before and uh maybe at the first time you do it you don't really have the context but uh it's a small world actually um after a few years I think at this stage now to be very few partners because uh some of my contacts wouldn't have come across at some stage so um but obviously that doesn't hurt the first time you're doing it yeah um like to say trust your instincts people people can be very intuitive even even from a distance you know but uh yeah definitely delivery of uh of anything great trust your instincts I like that um and uh thanks a lot Michael for sharing all this experience with us um I would now um like uh to start a short Comfort break for everyone for us to just get another cup of tea and after 10 minutes so we would come back here at three um all together after 10 minutes eight minutes now about um I would then share some very concrete tips some databases exactly those contact seminars that were already mentioned by Michael because there are a lot of like a lot of people are trying to find partners and there are already some established systems where you can find those Partners so I will share those very concrete tools with you how to find partners and then afterwards also give you some um first steps on how to establish a partnership so we touch upon that and then we come to the uh a so if you have any more questions and I see there are some others we would pick them up then in our audience q a uh afterwards but first of all uh have a nice break get another cup of tea and we meet back here at 3 P.M thanks a lot so hello everyone foreign I hope you had a nice break um and uh already for the last uh or second part of this event today hi Michael uh and what will happen now as I just said is I will look at I will share with you some concrete um tools to find partners and then we look at how to establish Partners this will be about like 15 to 20 minutes and then we have time in the end for um the audience q a and for your questions again if you already have questions pop them in the chat it will be money toward by my colleague Emily and then uh we will pick them up no worries so this part will be about as I mentioned concrete tips and tools platforms websites and so forth because um it can be daunting to build a Consortium at first um and uh it is actually really where that you have to build it from scratch as Michael did but Michael is our hero of today I would say uh he brought that experience also with him uh but still um as I mentioned if you think okay look uh I would like to just Link in with some people I would like to find partner organizations out there uh maybe you don't have to build it from the start if you would like to do that if you're at this point definitely go for it and we just heard from Michael some very good tips and tricks how to do that and what to look for when you actually are building this Consortium but also here for a start you just need sometimes a very few good ones and also we saw it with Michael for the next projects it get easier and easier because you actually saw so they parted again with these organizations where it worked out well and where they had an overlap like how they worked and they worked well together so they decided okay we will do another project together so you maybe just need a couple of key contacts and from then on you enter new networks and new Partnerships so it's kind of a snowball method here um the easiest way always is to use existing contacts so check what contacts you have here in Ireland do you if you have any contacts throughout Europe many of them some of them may be active in your projects or they are connected to networks so a personal recommendation can always go a long way um and as also Michael mentioned be sure who you are reaching out to here because you will work closely with people in these Partnerships for years so trust Mutual understanding is very essential so also check who are you reaching out who are those people who are those organizations haven't worked with them before and maybe they can recommend them um more in other networks networks is a good topic here also because and a good keyword because um you can join any network so a network of organizations member organizations on your level for nearly every topic it's out there for democracy Arts volunteering education social economy Sports and some are dedicated especially to European Civil Society organizations so I would recommend to join those networks and be active in them it can keep you up to date first of all also about the EU policy in your area you're working in which is like a very good side effect and you anyways need to know about when applying for you a funded projects but also they have a super informative websites and newsletters so you can get updates on funding opportunities um on events you can connect with Partners at their events you can get to know those member organizations so this is always a good point to start look at this network just Google just Google and try to find or also if you are working in the area since a while you might already know of the biggest stakeholders on European level so my recommendation always is sign up to the event sign up to the newsletters and get engaged um and also Michael mentioned that partner finding trips SO in-person meetings is essential so you actually can meet the people and talk to them in person um that you maybe will be working uh with for years so investing here some resources investing some money is um very uh helpful um and there are multiple EU events out there you could join you could look at the EU networks I just mentioned or you just Google it you will find all of these events online it's definitely worth to invest resources here and go also in person to European uh countries to other European countries and events um one popular method is to look up former beneficiary so you could do just some research the programs your funding programs they have their own websites um they list uh the results there so all the funded projects before they share success stories there's also the funding and tender portal where are all the open codes so if you click there on the program you also find a list of results so you will see all the projects that were funded um in the past and then you have a list of project partners then again you can Google those project partners because you think okay this was an interesting topic that I also would like to work with and this organization looks interesting so you just Google them you find a con they find you find the contact details um and um you could just easily reach out and say look I was doing some research I saw that you did this project we're developing a very similar project here over here would you be interested in the conversation so really just an easy start put could be interesting to scope out and could be a very effective method in this case also here mentioned by Marco we are very lucky in Ireland to have excellent National contact points and uh Michael mentioned leagus um they are the ones for Erasmus Plus so every um EU program has its own National contact Point that's usually an organization here in Ireland they are super helpful when it comes to advices around um a project idea you have advice around the EU program itself around application and they can also help with Partnerships too for example if you don't know who's the national contact point for interact Atlantic area you can either Google it or you can also check our website we have every email program there you just click on it and then you find a contact to the National contact point and they are really super helpful also in a different way because they have usually excellent websites they have newsletters you can sign up to them you can register for events that they run either an aisle and also Broad and join them they are often in person they can be online they are super busy in this area for example creative Europe National contact point or also the mavicury program the interacts this is always a good place definitely to start and also just to mention there are um especially after calls were published so for bigger programs like Horizon Europe or for life you have often calls that are published and afterwards um happening online are brokerage events so that is also it's not in person but however you would be able to scope out sometimes hundreds of organization who are interested in especially those calls online but still you get an overview actually who's active who could would be interesting for me so if you are interested in these brokerage events you don't know where to find them we usually post them in our newsletter we have a monthly newsletter or also we usually share them on our Twitter page so if you would like to um benefit from the fact that we do all the research on every EU program out there then please use all the information that we're sharing with you um this was also mentioned LinkedIn Facebook a very interesting uh uh way to find also partners because this is just one example I found and I'm also part of a lot of groups uh partner finding groups on Facebook and on LinkedIn um these as you see this here so there are like a lot of organizations signed up to where people signed up to and registered and followed so this is a good point to reach a lot of people um very quickly and um with a with a broad scope this is also very simple this can be connected to program as you have it here for example Erasmus Plus but it's also out there for other programs or even just like broad partner finding um groups on LinkedIn and Facebook very easy to find if you put it in the search bar and what I would like also to highlight is what a lot of people use is um these partner finding tools and databases I just collected here list they can be useful definitely they are often not especially targeted at Civil Society or social Enterprises and also some are better than others so often they are cluttered with a lot of profiles and you really don't know what to do here we listed here some that could be of help and we will send on these slides so you can look afterwards if this is interesting for you you should have always like an idea what you're actually looking for so for example if you work in edit education or vocational education and training the e-pay apartment search could be interesting if you work with youth organizations or start to use or class could be interesting with the crowd healing this is something that was set up to bring researchers and other entities this includes also non-profits together so if you would like to look at increasing research or engaged research projects Cloud Helix could be a good place to go to what I would like to highlight is also that the programs themselves have matchmaking platforms so they develop them more and more you see it here for Erasmus you have it for surf that's usually just a form you fill out and then it's shared with all those people who signed up we haven't interact Europe Community we have a new Marie Curie matchmaking platform and I just show you the intellect Northwest Europe online community you see that here you sign up and then you have a profile you have a access to all these organizations and you also have here people and organizations who post concrete project ideas where you have contact details and can reach out to the people directly so these are run by the national contact points very often they are run by the programs themselves or by the commercial contact points you always need to check it's very different but they can be a good good um starting point if you already know which program you actually would like to apply for because then you find those people who are exactly who are who are interested in exactly the same cause what I would highlight is I would like to highlight is also our partner database so as accessor we created an own partner database and the very special thing about this that it is for Irish Civil Society organizations only we would like to make partner brokerage easier because we saw okay this is an issue when it comes to your funding and um we wanted to highlight Civil Society organizations right now there are about 100 profiles on the platform and they are from organizations from all over Ireland they are from all sorts of fields including youth volunteering Sports health environmental Arts organizations and I just show you one example this is the example of the profile for the wheel where we describe the focus of our work our interests funding goals key strength then you have the possibility to add pictures videos social media handles and so forth so you can show the potential of your organization you share your contact details and this is the possibility to be contacted by organizations who are interested to um to be become a partner or to invite you into a Consortium yeah registration is very easy you just fill out the form it will probably take about 20 minutes should you have any questions about this you just reach out to me directly and I'm happy to help you with that and just letting you know that um this database is not only just existing out there it is of course on the one hand an opportunity for you you have this profile then online so you can share it easily also with other partner organizations you can showcase your potential and your motivation but also our team the access Europe team is working hard in promoting the database we have a lot of European networks we have stakeholders we are contact with the national agencies in other countries so we have social media events trainings also that we ourselves join across Europe so we promote this partner database um in in every possibility actually on every opportunity that is there so we bring it out there so that other people actually can look you up and say oh that is really really interesting I would like to contact this organization in this uh special um working area so my last uh five minutes I would like to um dedicate to five concrete steps on how to connect now with your partners so we covered the part of where to find Partners now you got now like an idea of what kind of tools you actually can use and I will share just the concrete steps that you could take and we already heard it a little bit from Michael so what is let's have the scenario that you actually have an own project idea it can be different maybe you just say look I just would like to join an already existing Consortium but if you have a it's a point where you say I have a project it is I have a project idea in mind I would like to build my own Consortium before you actually reach out to organizations um our recommendation is to create a project concept note there's a template for this and we will share this with you also afterwards and in this template you summarize your project and it gives the organizations that you reach out to that you found via events whatever it gives this partner organization all the main info that they need to make a decision um I would recommend to develop or to spend some time on this and really develop a concept note that you're happy to share with partners to list uh well as you see here the target groups um the priorities that you address the key outcomes and so forth if you're now wondering how do I come to that step we will not cover this today um of course but we have run trainings on this topic so you check our YouTube channel and you will find trainings on this there you will have um trainings on how to design actually your project right so you would already be on that you would already be on that step as I mentioned so you have identified potential Partners also with an appropriate expertise and now it's time to reach out I always recommend to reach out early so don't respond also yourself if you get a partner invite maybe like two weeks before the deadline don't don't do it because or like scope it out but um the question is why do they reach out so late and the same is for you if you are reaching out to people um usually people don't respond to last minute invites and it's really hard also to then to to have this basis yeah to clarify all the questions that you have so um definitely reach out early um this is an example how you could reach out so it is really pretty easy pretty State straight straight forward you just write a nice email you attach the template please don't explain too much of your project in the body of an email put it all in this concept note so they see okay they grasp actually like the facts and they see you are prepared you know what you're talking about you introduce yourself your organization and your concept and also why you actually have them in mind so they want to hear why you reach out to them right and most importantly also why they should be choosing you so there must be a there must be or should be at least an overlap in that then the steps three uh let's say you got now after you're reaching out to organizations that would have the potential and would bring the key um competencies to your project you got some positive answers Next Step would of course be to set up a meeting a zoom meeting a telephone call whatever again we will recommend to come prepared have a short presentation ready ask questions get to know them ask about the capacity the expertise the networks they have look them up do a little bit of research what kind of project that was mentioned before what kind of projects did they do in the past so just to understand and to scope exactly that out is that a partner I can work with um and scope them out is a is is key here so make no promises at this stage if you're not sure don't include them this is just what is like this is general advice we had it just trust your instinct at this point okay step four would be um if you now let's say have found organizations would like to join a Consortium and most importantly you're also willing to work with this is the stage to tweak and finalize the project concept note and also to allocate partner roles we were speaking about that beforehand who is the lead who is the coordinator um who um has um responsible for which work package outcomes and so forth you definitely should allocate and clear and evenly distribute the partner roles we would even recommend to get a partner agreement so write it all up and make them sign it because also this can happen I don't know if Michael had that before but that some people drop out like the last minute and that is of course even like before like the uh before you even hand it in the application we had somebody drop out after the first meeting after approval to deliver the project there we were able to deliver the project but we worked very hard to get money back to we had paid them up front that's right be careful how much you pay up front exactly yes and even that you had this is a very good example Michael thanks for sharing because they signed this already like they got the money and they even dropped out so that is really that is can be really risky so to have those agreements up front um try to to um to have that uh in case so last step on our last step there it starts actually the whole thing but last step I will be able to cover today is uh to start the process of co-writing which is actually the application so you write this application with all the partners they deliver their own Parts it Parts it can be a very intense process they are different again tools out there to do that um and um we are again not able to cover the whole grant writing application writing part today sorry about that just mentioning that this as I said can be also a very intense process by itself um and because if again you're writing this with a lot of different people um and they have their own interests they have their own goals and you still need to be focused on the scope of the call topic and still to do this project but they will bring in their own um interest so staying here focused on something is important I have to I have to stop that here because otherwise I would start with the whole application writing round writing part and that would just be too much but this is just to give you an idea of okay how could I actually reach that moment but again as also probably Michael would agree there starts the fun so there starts also the whole uh work with the with the within the Consortium um yes what we would like to do now is to uh ask the room ask you um how do you usually go about finding Partners uh on a new levels so do you have any uh go to events uh newsletters websites um do you are you someone who prefers the personal contact so how about how how do you go about finding partners and we will uh create or we will have a greater the mentee for that my colleague puts all the information in the chat you can see it here so either you click on the link and that brings you to mentee.com or you put in the uh the email at the website and the code and then we will try to collect your wisdom on the this topic I will give you one minute for that do you want me to go ahead and share the results you can yes yeah oh that would be great okay here we go and will burn is just sharing in this chat that the annual EU info day is great for networking I totally agree there are info days for every evil program so we see the results thank you Emily uh our good friend Google definitely I use that Facebook exactly we heard that e-pail is a very good go-to source um the EU information day the new commission uh I I think that um what you what you what is meant here is probably like the funding and Tennis portal where you find the results and the former projects and the former beneficiaries and then you can look up the the partners here as definitely a very good go-to place that's that's why we're here today and I see more coming in we have LinkedIn we have social media PPN definitely very good uh mobile exactly they are the National contact point for a new program the wheel we're always happy to help of course and uh and networking okay great thanks a lot for sharing this with us and now I will look at the time we're really good uh I would encourage um you to ask questions in case there would be questions for Michael or for me Emily did you see any in the chat were there any new ones yeah there's one from will Byrne from Special Olympics um I would love to hear from someone who has gone through a pillar assessment with the DG unit oh wow Michael did you ever do that me neither I'm very sorry what we could do will is that we ask inside the wheel if someone has expertise with this would you write us an email afterwards and then we could check that yeah no no thank you yes hi yeah and hi uh guys it's William here from Special Olympics we've been blessed over the last 12 years to receive over 25 million euro where Vu Grants open EU grants at the moment one other thing here on a normal well everything Michael said was absolutely spot on one thing I would highly recommend is to get into the Partnerships and take on the Partnerships because when you do go to information day and you can have 500 uh Partners there there's only five or six or seven Irish Partners there and we are missing plenty of opportunity to get funding now obviously you can't fit a circle into a square and I know Michael said that before you have to get the right part of the right uh the right grants the right Partners but there is so many opportunities there with the Erasmus true Health Sophia there's so many entities out there within the EU which a lot of these organizations our organizations can apply for uh in terms of the DG unit and the peer assessment what we're doing here is actually applying for Grants this call and a normal call for proposals The Next Step Up is outside the partnership and become a Consortium some experience there and then the next level look which we're looking at the moment is to become almost if I can say the Inner Circle where you're guaranteed millions of pounds a year for each charity and Charities like this can do this direct link and Mission with the government and what happens there is that the DG unit will carry out if they do a legal review and accept it the character actually to carry a non-pillar assessment we're just going to start the nine pillar assessment if I was just thinking of Michael or anyone in this call had some experience because there's so few entities in Europe you've gone through this that would be greatly appreciated uh thanks well that that sounds impressive and it's also sounds a bit scary the nine pillar assessment so I hope you're able to do that I would ask the question to the group is there anyone out there who is familiar with that we we know of that process but we have never been involved in it so we would not be able to have insights right we just know how that looks like and that it's possible but um yeah again is there anyone from this group would like to go on Mike okay so no I would I would say uh well I would say that I can ask through our networks in Europe and see if somebody there if the arrow put them in touch with you oh thank you so much I'll drop you my email there Michael thank you I've definitely yeah I'm not experienced myself anyway so yeah yes exactly thank you so much we can do the same so that's definitely possible maybe we find someone who went through that but first of all like great congratulations on your successes in that in that field and yeah they are not so many Irish organizations involved yet that's uh that's why there's such a huge huge opportunity actually to get engaged so anyone else uh who maybe would like or do we have another question to chat Emily no there's nothing else in the chat so I don't know if anybody wants to come on Mike and ask a question anyone would like to use that opportunity to ask a question to us about Partnerships yes Eddie from Cork Community media hub hi uh just a quick one I know this might be off topic a bit but the cuc out of the picture completely now because of braces because in Paris we've built UPS uh relationships with some groups in community media so is that that is that gone yes wow that's that's a yes and actually what is happening now is that a lot of organizations set up an Irish office kind of to be able to still participate because of course yeah what you said they are really established relationships so we know of some that are now based in Dublin just opened an office and to be able to have like an official address they still want to to take part otherwise no okay thank you welcome anyone else would like uh to ask a question just one little bit of housekeeping as well if any