Governance

• Introduction : PRIME as an experiment
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  Normal 0 21 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable mso-style-name :"Tableau Normal" ; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0 ; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0 ; mso-style-noshow:yes ; mso-style-parent :"" ; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt ; mso-para-margin:0cm ; mso-para-margin-bottom :.0001pt ; mso-pagination:widow-orphan ; font-size:10.0pt ; font-family :"Times New Roman" ; PRIME was developed as one answer to the new tool developed by Framework Programme 6, (...)

• An overview of PRIME rationale, emergence, organisation and project
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  WHY PRIME
  Prime as an idea was born at the beginning of the 2000s (2001 exactly) from an encounter of the then 3 largest centres in the field – PREST, SPRU and ISI – accompanied by a small group of individuals, Larédo and Rip in particular. The self-evaluation was rather daunting. Expressed in few ‘strong’ (and of course too caricatural) words, it highlighted : (i) the fast ageing of the community after the 1970s golden years ; (ii) a strong focus on deepening existing dominant concepts that (...)

• 5 years of activity at a glance
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  There were 2 lines of activities : structuration at the European level, and thematic focus. Both were driven by our vision of integration, a still fuzzy concept within EU circles. And all this had to be managed…
  Two of the structural activities have been very successful – training and indicators (see respective sections) – while it became soon clear that a network of excellence was not an adequate institutional setting to nurture ‘fora of strategic intelligence’ even at the demonstration level (...)

• Partners’ involvement : a 5 year review
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  Participation and Involvement
  Altogether more than 250 European researchers have participated to the activities of the network, not counting for episodic participations to annual conferences and thematic workshops (this is in line with our initial estimates, even though the effective composition is quite different from our expectations). Over 330 different doctoral students have participated to on average two training activities, which is more than the double of the initial expectations – (...)

• Governance structures in action
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  There is, at first glance, nothing striking in the overall governance of the network. As most networks of excellence, PRIME had a Governing Board, An Executive Committee, A Scientific Committee, A Standards and Ethics Group and different Working Groups. It also relied on an Administrative, Financial and Legal Operator, which professionalisation was a central feature in its performance (see specific page). What interests us here is the ways in which these bodies were set and operated, and (...)

• Daily management : the critical role of a professional operator
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  Our up-front initial choice was to have a truly professional management team to address all legal, administrative and financial issues. This bears a cost, which is not in proportion with the size of the contract. The EC 7% limit has a completely different meaning with a 15 million euro project and a 6 million one, while, between both, experience has shown that the management activities do not vary very much… Thus, if we wanted to be professional we needed to share. The supporting (...)

• Prime relations with the Commission : 4 central debates
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  Relations with the Commission are classically separated into scientific and financial.
  Beyond classical bilateral exchanges between the Scientific Officer and the coordinator, the scientific relations in our case, were mediated by a central medium – annual monitoring by a 3 persons group. We, as policy analysts and the coordinator as a so-called ‘expert’ in evaluation practices, have heavily questioned this approach, compared to other choices (see for instance the FP6 2004 monitoring report). (...)

• PRIME understanding of integration
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  In our initial proposal we constructed an approach towards European integration based upon a distinction between individual and collective excellence, seeing PRIME in terms of helping organised teams, groups, centres or institutes to move up the ladder towards collective excellence. For us the word ‘excellence in research’ is used in connection with maintaining the ability of a field or speciality to permanently renew its concepts and, to achieve this, to nurture what was then called ‘risky’ (...)

• Reflecting upon supporting High risk research
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  There have been numerous debates about how to undertake this objective. Should we, once we had recognised enduring challenges, adopt a top-down approach, concentrating funds on these topics and allocating them to those members addressing them ? This was the solution favoured by most policymakers in Brussels (the notion of ‘network of excellence’ having been designed as an alternative to the initial proposed mechanism of ‘centres of excellence’) and quite a few members within the community. The (...)

• Fostering the national development of SPRI capabilities in new member states
  21 janvier 2011, par julien

  Involving new member states has been an objective set by the EC and one that the reviewers have examined each year. For us, it was a legitimate aim, so early on we undertook a structured effort to characterise existing capacities (see Mac Ceestireo project). The results were decidedly disappointing with the exception of the IKU group at the Corvinius University of Budapest, an important player in the creation and in the existence of the NoE. Essentially we could only find good individuals (...)

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