(8) Donde χ es conocida como la susceptibilidad magnética Este comportamiento con M alineado a lo largo
2.2.5 Contraste en IRM
2.2.5.1 Imágenes ponderadas en T
If dissemination is about making project results available, exploitation is about ensuring that they will actually be used by the target groups: institutions, professionals and learn- ers within and beyond the project partnership. But how can this be achieved? This is one of the most difficult tasks of a Multilateral Project, and one the greatest shortcomings of EU funding programmes in general. Too many innovative and high-quality project products have not found their way to their potential users.
Effective dissemination activities are a pre-condition for the sustainable use of project outcomes after the end of funding, but are not sufficient. Making sure a product will be used amounts to more than spreading information about it.
Interaction with stakeholders
Intensive interaction with the eventual users and beneficiaries of the project and other stakeholders is of crucial importance for the successful and sustainable exploitation of the results. The interaction should be ongoing from the beginning of the project work until the end of the working period.
Publication of project reports:
■
■ http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/
llp/project_reports/project_reports_en.php
Regular co-ordinators’ meetings of funded projects, with
■ ■
spaces for displaying project products Publication of
■
■ Success Stories and organisation of a yearly
Lifelong Learning Award for outstanding projects The
■
■ European Quality Kit, a document containing a lot of
links and addresses related to European adult education policy and practice which can very useful when building up the dissemination strategy of a project: http://ec.europa.eu/ education/programmes/llp/grundtvig/doc/kit.pdf
National Agencies
National Agencies of the Lifelong Learning Programme (http:// ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-programme/ doc1208_en.htm) carry out intensive promotion activities about all the funding opportunities of the programme. Most National Agencies arrange yearly information events to which currently funded projects are invited to introduce their activi- ties. Some National Agencies organise regular meetings with the Multilateral Projects in those countries. The Finnish National Agency, CIMO, organises yearly thematic dissemination events with a range of project presentations. The British National Agency, ECOTEC, publishes monthly e-flashes with dedicated sections for project news in which the projects can share their news and experiences.
The amount of potential support National Agencies provides may vary from one country to another, because the National Agencies plan their activities independently. In any case it is advisable for project co-ordinators and partners to establish contacts with their National Agency when the project has been approved. The National Agencies should be priority target organisations for project dissemination, as they can open access to project actors and educators at large.
Grundtvig networks
Dissemination of the results of previously funded projects is one of the specific tasks of the networks funded by Grundtvig and other actions of the Lifelong Learning Programme. Although the number of the networks is small and only a few thematic areas are covered by these networks a Multilateral Project should check in the compendia mentioned above to see if a relevant network exists.
One Grundtvig network can be of particular importance for dissemi- nation: European InfoNet Adult Education (www.infonet-ae.eu) is a
Dissemination and Exploitation of Results Chapter 1 0
Examples of exploitation plans of other projects can be found at www.european-project-management.eu
The exploitation plan should be constantly revised and updated, and in its final stages define how the project products will be used by the partners after the end of funding. For this, intel- lectual property rights (IPR) needs to be discussed.
One way of including people from outside the partnership and inviting target groups to work closely with the project is the establishment of a Focus Group.
The role and the tasks of the Focus Group could be:
To express the needs of the future users of the material being
■ ■
developed
To comment on certain interim products of the project
■ ■
To participate in an event organised of the project and give
■ ■
feedback on it
The group members can bring valuable information to the part- nership. Working actively in a Focus Group motivates people to exploit the project outcomes later on. An example of guidelines for organising a project Focus Group can be downloaded at www.european-project-management.eu.
Testing and piloting draft educational products on a sample of the envisaged users is also crucial. In this way important feedback on the adequacy of the project products and hints how to improve them can be received.
When it comes to interacting with stakeholders a co-ordinator of a Multilateral Project can learn important lessons from Agile Project Management, an approach first applied in software development project. Agile project managers aim to limit this interaction to the start of the project (needs analysis) and to the stage immediately prior to the finalisation of the product (piloting). Often the needs of stakeholders have changed in the meantime or were not properly understood in the first place. If the traditional waterfall model (cf. Box 9) is applied the project products may fail to meet their expectations. This is a sequen- tial approach where the main activities follow one another. In contrast to the waterfall model the Agile approach (cf. Box 10) is characterised by several small, rapid, and iterative planning and development cycles instead of heavy initial planning process which is then implemented sequentially. Stakeholders are intensively involved in all stages of the developmental process. Through their constant evaluation and feedback the unpleasant surprises at the end of the project may be prevented! The short duration of the cycles allows for immediate modifications and adaptations.
Exploitation plan
The issue of the exploitation of results should be high on the project agenda from the very beginning. The funding mechanism requires that each Multilateral Project has a separate exploitation work package, in which an exploitation plan is developed. In Box 11 the exploitation activities of one Grundtvig project are described.
Deliver Finalise Test Develop Plan Analyse Develop Develop Review Lessons learned Develop Review Lessons learned Develop Review Lessons learned Initial plan based on needs analysis
Deliver final product
Box 9: Waterfall model of project management
Dissemination and Exploitation of Results Chapter 1 0
Ownership of the project products
■ ■
Duties and rights of each partner with regard to the use of
■ ■
the products after the end of funding
Processes of modifying jointly developed products
■ ■
Information and/or permission duties regarding the use of
■ ■
the products
The duration of the agreement
■ ■
Intellectual property rights issues are rather complex and var- ied. There is no common European law on copyright issues, nor does the funding programme prescribe a particular regulation. Multilateral Projects need to create their own copyright agree- ments. The following resources and references may help:
An introduction to copyright issues in EU projects (already
■ ■
mentioned) http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/ valorisation/ipr_en.htm
A small document called
■
■ Intellectual Property: Guidelines for
Promoters of Training Projects was published by the European Commission in 1997. Although quite old, it is still useful, as it introduces co-ordinators to basic questions about IPR Much more detailed information on IPR issues can be
■ ■
obtained from the IPR Helpdesk, a Commission-funded free service available to all those involved in running European projects: www.ipr-helpdesk.com. It needs to be said, how- ever, that this service focuses on IPR issues in research projects, which are much more complex than in Multilateral Projects
A very useful resource is
■
■ http://creativecommons.org
Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation which pro- vides six free licence models of how to regulate intellectual property. The range of the licences is from very restrictive to extremely liberal. A project can choose or combine the ones which best fit their needs
At
■
■ www.european-project-management.eu examples of
copyright agreements other projects have used can be downloaded
Evaluation of exploitation strategies
The exploitation activities of a project need to be evaluated during and at the end of project period like any other project activity.
A list of the topics to be discussed could contain the following items:
Have there been obstacles to the implementation of dissemi-
■ ■
nation and exploitation activities?
How has the needs analysis been carried out in the planning
■ ■
phase of the project and was it sufficient?
Intellectual property rights (IPR)
Intellectual property is a legal concept referring to the protec- tion of works created by the human intellect. It consists of an exclusive right conferred upon the creator or/and the owner of an intellectual work. The owner can be the creator of the work (most usual case) or a transferee, in the event of a transfer of copyright. (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/val orisation/ipr_en.htm)
Intellectual property is a legal concept which refers to the protection of works created by people, in our case the products of Multilateral Projects like books, CDs, websites, training materials etc.
It is wise to start the discussion in the partnership on IPR issues early on and not to leave it to the stage when the prod- ucts have already been developed. Partners may have different expectations with regard to the ownership of these products and these may lead to conflicts.
Although only few projects develop and sign formal copyright agreements it is very useful to do so. A copyright agreement regulates:
The main objectives of the exploitation activities are:
To promote and raise awareness about the project contents,
■ ■
developments and results
To successfully transfer the results to appropriate decision-
■ ■
makers to achieve their sustainable promotion and support To convince individual end-users to adopt and/or apply the
■ ■
results, also after the project and support by its partnership has ended
In order to outline the exploitation strategy for POTENS project, the following chapters try to answer central questions such as:
What will be the project results?
■ ■
What kind of needs does the project respond to?
■ ■
Who are the final or potential users or beneficiaries of the
■ ■
project’s outcomes?
http://potens.com.pl/documentation/Plan_of_Exploitation. html, March 2010
Dissemination and Exploitation of Results Chapter 1 0
Finding an institutional home
The adoption and appropriation of project results by relevant institutions in the thematic sector:
Is the
■
■ work for the project embedded in the regular activities
of the participating institutions?
Is the project of significant strategic relevance to one of the
■ ■
partner institutions? Is this institution willing to make a last- ing commitment to finance staff to continue the work of the project and update the results?
Would institutions outside of the partnership be interested in
■ ■
taking over any elements from the project: e.g. the hosting and updating of the website, the organisation of a thematic conference or running a developed training course
Integrating the results into national systems
Mainstreaming of project results into education systems would be the best possible solution to guarantee that the project has a long-term impact:
Does the project approach (partially) coincide with local or
■ ■
national policy aims?
Do policy and decision-makers in the partner countries know
■ ■
about the project?
Are decision-makers regularly addressed? Is there a coherent
■ ■
advocacy strategy?
Quality, transferability and ongoing relevancy
It is important that the project products, activities, methods, and approaches can be easily adapted for use in other con- texts:
Does the project develop generic or replicable models?
■ ■
Are there any other sectors, target groups or countries where
■ ■
the results could be used? Will the results be regularly reviewed and updated?
Finding new funding or commercialisation
It is important to consider how to gain extra funding in order to continue development or promotion:
Are there any European or national funding opportunities for
■ ■
a follow-up project or network? Might there be any private sponsors?
■ ■
Can a business model be developed which finances at least
■ ■
the staffing necessary to maintain and update the project results?
Did the planning create a firm basis for the further work or
■ ■
was there something crucial missing?
What were the products and other outcomes of the project,
■ ■
how have they been evaluated and what was the feedback? Were all the partners involved in the exploitation activities?
■ ■
If their input was different would the differences be seen in different countries and how?
Were the objectives in creating new contacts and networks
■ ■
reached during the project?
7. Pathways to sustainability
Guy Tilkin developed a set of guiding questions in an effort to make EU-funded project results sustainable. They were originally developed for Networks in the Lifelong Learning Programme, but apply also to Multilateral Projects.
Building a network of stable relationships
A well established network of contacts and relationships is the best guarantee for sustainability:
How close are the co-operation bonds between the project
■ ■
partners?
Are there co-operation perspectives beyond the project dura-
■ ■
tion?
Do the partners have well established contact networks to
■ ■
relevant stakeholders?
Box 12: Sustainability factors, based on Bienzle/Gelabert/Jütte/ Kolyva/Meyer/Tilkin (2007), The Art of Networking. p. 120
Integrating the results in national systems Finding an institutional home Finding new funding or commercialising the network Building a net- work of stable relationships Developing outcomes of high quality and
transferability
Dissemination and Exploitation of Results Chapter 1 0
there sufficient support and capacity building mechanisms at European or national levels to help Multilateral Projects to live up to these high expectations. On the other hand it is legitimate to ask for a certain degree of impact beyond the direct benefi- ciaries if public money has been spent on a project.
A possible minimum level of sustainability each Multilateral Project should be able to reach:
There is still a contact person available for at least the whole
■ ■
project, or, preferably in each partner institution
The project results are integrated and systematically used
■ ■
in the partner institutions and disseminated in their local (national) environments
The main project results continue to be distributed in their
■ ■
local (national) environments by all partners and can be easily obtained on request
The project website is maintained and fully operational for
■ ■
three years after the end of the funding period. Through the website potential users can access the project results and ask for support from the project partnership when using them To be successful these exploitation and sustainability issues
need to be pursued during the whole project duration. The European Commission recommends spending 10 to 20 percent of the whole project budget on valorisation activities.
Sustainable project results may appear very different from project to project. They may range from at least using the results in the partner institutions up to integrating a curriculum developed by the project into mainstream provision. In many cases an excellent way of making a project last is to organise on a regular basis a Grundtvig in-service training course for staff of adult education institutions. Through such courses the project partnership can get valuable feedback on the project products and also find new channels and ways of exploita- tion. Participation in these courses is funded by the National Agencies of the Lifelong Learning Programme.
There can be no doubt that the funding programme expects quite a lot by assuming that a Multilateral Project funded for two or three years should have a sustainable impact. Nor are
Annex
The authors believe that highlighting potentially crucial aspects of project management is the purpose of a publication of this kind. Having said that they hope that the Survival Kit albeit with its somewhat ironical title also got the message across that participation in a Multilateral Project usually generates huge added value. Most co-ordinators and partners will testify that participation in Multilateral Projects generates multiple In this publication much has been written about the challeng-
es that project co-ordinators and partners of a Multilateral Project in the Lifelong Learning Programme might face, and a range of theoretical inputs, recommendations, tools, tem- plates and resources have been offered to help in mastering these challenges and steering the project to a successful end.
Concluding Remarks
Statement
Comenius Erasmus Grundtvig Lingua Minerva
Average Base size: 1839 respondents Base size: 715 respondents Base size: 627 respondents Base size: 117 respondents Base size: 109 respondents
Increase the European “outlook” of individuals and institutions.
94% 90% 90% 85% 79% 88%
Increase and sustain co-operation amongst institutions/organisa- tions.
88% 93% 93% 90% 67% 86%
Increase capacity for mobility of participants.
90% 90% 83% 73% 67% 81%
Improve quality of teaching/cur- ricula.
81% 76% 71% 67% 76% 74%
Improve teaching/teacher training practice, approaches to learning and management
72% 71% 74% 72% 78% 73%
Improve the employability/adapt- ability of participants.
58% 70% 56% 51% 64% 60%
Increase the teaching and learn- ing of EU languages.
65% 66% 46% 76% 35% 58%
Lead to greater transparency and recognition between member states of curricula, study pro- grammes.
58% 76% 43% 33% 48% 52%
Lead to the integration of meth- ods/tools/ frameworks into nation- al (regional) policy and practice.
64% 55% 52% 42% 42% 51%
Improve the employability and adaptability of participants facing disadvantage.
31% 41% 46% 25% 33% 35%
Source: Ecotec surveys of Socrates II Actions, 2007 Scores include ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ Box 1: Benefits of participation in European projects
Annex
rated at least as highly as the impact of the main outcomes produced (e.g. improved curricula, better teaching quality) or changes brought about at system level (e.g. greater transpar- ency, recognition of programmes and integration of innovation in national policy).
Notwithstanding all of the technical suggestions and recom- mendations offered in the Survival Kit, above all, project management is about maximising such benefits for all profes- sionals and partner institutions involved in these projects. benefits at the personal, professional, institutional, and some-
times even at the political level.
This general conclusion was confirmed in a study carried out to evaluate the second phase of Socrates (2000–2006), one of the predecessor programmes to the LLP. The feedback from project actors (cf. Box 1) was not only overwhelmingly positive, but illustrated that participating institutions derived benefits in more than one respect. Side-effects and spin-offs (e.g. a