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IPMA ITALY Journal of Applied Project Management
Volume 1 no. 2 (July 2015)

schedule in order to minimize the longer applicable and the EC will
impact on the future project fund a project without “authorization”
management. Differently form the and approval. In some cases
other projects in which the price is happens that people and/or whole
fixed and the possible implementation Companies change their interests
of the activities with less effort can and/or core business and withdrawn
positively impact increasing the from the Consortium: the Project
margins of the project, in the EC Manager must re-arrange the
project’s case the missing declaration activities to other partners or ask the
of all the costs implies the loss of Commission the possible assignment
contribution received. Saving the of subcontracts, justifying the
effort of human resources and saving situation. In the most serious cases the
the charged costs in the declaration European Commission can chose to
exposes to EC will lower effort spent terminate the project and can
on the project for which the EC fund a liquidate the Consortium. In case of
percentage. This applies both to variants the Project Manager must
Partners and to Coordinators and the evaluate within the Consortium,
real Project Manager’s challenge is to obtaining the written approval of the
respect and obtain at the end of the other members, the way to forward,
project all the initially requested having in mind all the stakeholders’
funding. At the end of the project the interests in the project.
Manager can assess the overall
project performances in terms of 3.4 Risks and Opportunities
sustained costs and the meeting of Management
the proposal declared costs could be
reached with the correct balance of In EC projects the risks management
the partners within the Consortium. should be considered at the same
The additional consideration must be level of the other commercial
dedicated to the contractual projects. Being research projects, the
variants: the only acceptable level of the risks and their impact on
changes to the former Grant the activities it usually underestimated
Agreement are of minor importance but the low level of attention can
and impacts. Concerning the impact lead to the explosion of the costs and
of the activities conducted by each the associated risks to the costs and
partner and their performances, the to the schedule became a reality.
EC has a very weak visibility but the Moreover, in case of Coordination of
rules concerning their high level a project, the EC requires that a
management as contained in the dedicated bank account is opened
Grant Agreement. As consequence by the Company and the associated
no variants are acceptable costs of its management and
concerning the technical activities maintenance are not eligible then
and the final outcomes until duly directly impact on the overall
justified. Technical changes on Company costs of the projects.
research and innovation expected Moreover the long time for the
implies that the evaluation of the development of the technical
experts (see sect. 3.1) could be no
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