Action F.1: Project coordination and management

The purpose of this action is to ensure effective overall management of the project, which will enable the achievement of the project objectives following high quality standards and on schedule. The action will start at the onset of the project, and includes management of administrative, technical, and financial aspects of the project and monitoring of project progress.

An organigram illustrating the project management structure is presented here. The staff of each beneficiary includes a team coordinator (for the coordinating beneficiary this is the Project Coordinator), scientific or specialised public body staff, technicians, and a financial administrator.

There will be 3 coordination and management teams: a) the project coordinator and the team coordinators constitute the Administrative Team; b) the financial administrators constitute the Financial Team; and c) the team coordinators of the UoA, the NAGREF, ARCTUROS, and the HSPN or their representatives, as well as the scientific staff of the project appointed by the team coordinator constitute the Scientific Team, which may also invite external scientists (through action F.5).

Project management is enacted by the Project Manager, who is assisted by the Administrative Team and the Financial Team. The latter will be in liaison with the external auditor (action F.3).

The Scientific team will support project management as a consultant by offering advice and validating the scientific results.

The Stakeholder Committee (action F.2) will support project management by providing guidance, in order to ensure public support and commitment and in order to overcome potential administrative and political problems. Communication among the personnel of the project beneficiaries and between them and the Project Manager will be facilitated by the partner intranet of the project website (action E.3).

The HSPN, as coordinating beneficiary, will be responsible for the overall project management and for the distribution of the EU financial contribution to the associated beneficiaries. The HSPN has assigned a full time Project Manager who has previous project management experience and who will direct and coordinate the project, will supervise the project progress and will be accountable for the efficient and timely completion of all actions. The team coordinator of each associated beneficiary is responsible for the implementation of the actions assigned to the beneficiary, for the production of the deliverable products, and for the financial management of the team’s budget, in which he will be assisted by the financial administrator. Team coordinators assigned by the UoA, NAGREF, and Arcturos have ample previous management experience in LIFE projects.

Each team coordinator will provide the Project Manager with an annual internal progress report, describing the implementation of actions, the state of completion of deliverable products and problems encountered. Moreover, the team coordinator will provide annually detailed financial data (cost statements) to the Project Manager who will monitor the economic liability of the beneficiaries’ expenditure, and will accredit the financial progress of the project. The Project Manager and the Administrative and Financial teams will meet 3 times annually and also communicate regularly via the partner intranet of the project website (action E.3).

The team coordinators are members of the permanent staff of the beneficiaries. The administrative bodies of the beneficiaries have decided to offer their work to the project free of charge (outside LIFE) in view of the benefits that the project is expected to confer, in terms of nature conservation, socio-economic effects, scientific and technical experience, employment opportunities and equipment acquisition. The team coordinators were involved in the formulation of this proposal, again free of charge for the beneficiaries, and are, therefore, dedicated to the project. During the implementation of the project it is foreseen that they will dedicate approximately 40 person-days per year.

Reporting procedure:

The HSPN will be responsible for the timely submission of the deliverable products, technical activity reports and expenditure and income statements of the project. The coordinating beneficiary will collect from the team coordinators the information and deliverables needed for the inception, mid-term, and final reports, as well as financial statements, will compose them and will send them to the EC and to the external monitoring teams on the specified dates.

Project progress monitoring:

The coordinating beneficiary will be responsible for monitoring the project progress and will be assisted in this by the annual internal reporting and the meetings described above, as well as by the external auditor (action F.3). The coordinating beneficiary will draw up a set of project monitoring indicators to be presented in the inception report. These indicators will be estimated annually and will consist of the following:

1. Project performance indicators evaluating the project operation, e.g., ratio of actual to scheduled percent of completion of key activities and deliverable products; cost-effectiveness of project execution; performance of project management; procurement effectiveness.
2. Project outcome indicators evaluating the feasibility and effectiveness of progress actions (other than the impact on habitats and species evaluated by actions D), e.g., number or participants in meetings, seminars, local events and educational excursions; extent of visitor damaging activities and of fly-tipped waste.