Findings/lessons learned
• ENRECA projects have been relatively good at establishing a shared understanding of project objectives and implementation throughout the project life cycle.
• It is a challenge to ensure that RCB projects do not become overly supply driven.
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The resource frame includes the overall budget frame, but also other recourses available to the project partners, e.g. knowledge, competences, relations, networks, and facilities,
• Agreeing on objectives can be difficult due to different interests – individual and institutional – and project participants may try to redefine objectives during the course of implementation.
• Changes in South leadership can significantly impact a RCB project, e.g. due to new management priorities.
• ENRECA projects have often been too ambitious. Partnerships should evaluate carefully the realism of the objectives.
Developing project objectives typically involves some initial discussions and negotiations facilitated by the use of a graphical structure, such as the LFA objective tree, to develop and communicate the relationship between overall/development objectives, intermediate objectives, and specific outputs. ENRECA evaluations have stressed that mutual agreements should be reached on goals, approaches, outcomes, impact, and responsibility (Ilsøe 2005:14). ENRECA projects are good at creating such shared understanding among participants on project objectives, outputs, and action plans. When project managers were asked to what degree their projects have been able to create a shared understanding throughout the project cycle, an average score of 4.13 (see Table 5.10). 54% of the project managers answered “to a high degree”. This result is verified, when the question is turned around and respondents were asked if their projects have experienced that participants have expressed a lack of knowledge concerning the project objectives as defined in the project application. This question obtained an average score of 2.26 on a five‐point scale, and 46% of the project managers answered “to a low degree”. In general, ENRECA projects seem to be relatively good at maintaining focus and awareness of project objectives.
Table 5.10: Danish ENRECA project managers’ perception of project participants’ involvement, motivation, and
shared perception
Answer Options To a low degree To some degree To a high degree Average Rating Stdev
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Has your project, in general, been able to ensure a shared understanding of project objectives and implementation throughout the project life cycle?
- 4% 35% 4% 57% 4.13 1.06
Have you experienced that project participants have expressed lacking knowledge concerning the project objectives as defined in the project application?
48% 4% 30% 9% 9% 2.26 1.39
ENRECA evaluations have shown that South and Danish partners in general play an equal role in selecting the research subjects. Considering the high degree of voluntarism involved in many of the projects, personal interest and enthusiasm is considered fundamental for obtaining success. Some projects have experienced a lack of South engagement in planned research activities, and some project managers attribute this to the failure of properly addressing South researchers’ personal interests and capacities, as well as institutional priorities. North‐South RCB projects run a risk of becoming too supply driven. Striking the right balance between supply (i.e. what Danish researchers can and wish to offer) and demand (i.e. what South researchers and institutions need) is important, but not always easy. Project managers mention the dilemma, that even though project definition is made through a participatory process, it can be difficult to get partners to assume a proactive role in developing ideas.
Maintaining an ongoing dialogue on the project purpose and the objectives is stressed as important by several project managers. One of the reasons is that participants may initially have different agendas:
“There was a lot that was not surfaced during the initial meetings. Not everything came out in the open. A problem that came out up later was that some of them [South participants] were more interested in the income support that the project could provide … and they were not so enthusiastic about the [research] idea. Not everybody was open about that from the start.” [PM6]
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“I think the Dean wants more [resources] for his teaching and for running the place. You know, research, he is really not in favour of it. Of course he can see that research is needed, but on the other hand, there are so many other things that the project could do for him and his institution.” [PM8]
One project manager emphasized the importance of being clear and firm on the objectives of the collaboration and to develop institutional and individual incentives to ensure South involvement:
“If they aren’t here for the research, then we don’t need each other. If they want to earn consultant salaries, then they should do so. What we can offer is education, a sequence of courses; plenty of English courses; project management courses; and we have tried to make personal development plans for the participants. Moreover they get a lot of flexibility and responsibility.” [PM4]
In some South organisations the leadership changes frequently and new leaders may challenge old agreements and plans. Especially in the case of institutional capacity building objectives a general consensus in the South organisation is therefore desirable. This can only be obtained through a careful anchoring effort, where faculty staff is involved in defining the project’s long‐term objectives, main tasks, and outputs. Limiting scope creep – the tendency that objectives are expanded is always a management challenge. A risk mentioned by several project managers is the tendency to become overambitious: “We really wanted the project when we did it, and maybe we were not quite realistic. Maybe we closed our eyes to some of the potential problems.” [PM11]
“It is difficult to setup realistic plans for the project as both Danida and the partners often are too ambitious. Not academically, but in relation to time.” [PM1]
Lack of experiences also constitutes a challenge. A project manager argued that if South partners are not experienced in doing research, little realism may exist regarding what can be achieved with the available resources and competencies: “In many cases they [the South partner] probably lack the basis for judging
how much effort has to be put into such [research] tasks” [PM11]. Both North and South partners run a risk of over‐promising and being too optimistic. Taking into consideration that Danish partners are also often entering a new field, at least institutionally and geographically, the same argument applies to their ability to judge the expected resource need. Exaggerated ambitions, and subsequent failure to reach the objectives, are mentioned by several project managers as a source of much frustration.