From KEYLINKS to PROVE …
In 2009 we organized a workshop in Brussels with Project Managers to discuss findings of the KEYLINKS survey on competences required of Project Managers of EU funded projects. On 24th September we organize a large conference with Educational Institutes from all European countries to discuss the curricula developed and to initiate a European Network of Educational Institutions on Project Management of EU-funded projects.
The major challenge for managers involved in the preparation and implementation of EU funded projects is to have their project application approved and to successfully manage their projects. Their success is closely related to their skills and competences important for effective management of different phases of the project cycle.
Nowadays, a wide offer of different educational courses focusing on EU funded projects is available. However, when you feel the need to attend such course it is not always an easy and straightforward process to actually choose the right course with adequate quality and relevance. One of the reasons is that a clear and standardized competence profile of a “Manager of EU funded projects” is still missing in Europe, therefore managers do not clearly know which set of skills and competences to develop.
Education Centre for Non-Profit Organisations (Slovakia) initiated a partnership of institutions from six European countries (TIMAN – Slovakia, MERIG – Multidisciplinary European Research Institute Graz – Austria, Jyväskylä Institute of Adult Education – Finland, Siauliai University – Lithuania, ECQ – Bulgaria, PCM Group – Belgium) with the intention to improve this peculiar situation.
With the support from the European Commission through the Life Long Learning Programme, GRUNDTVIG, the project KEYLINKS started in December 2007. Through this project (http://www.keylinks.eu) we intend to raise the quality of project management education and training by suggesting standards. We have contacted trainers, project managers, desk officers (Project Cycle Managers) and experts from different institutions in all European Union countries who have participated in differing roles in “EU projects” (for example projects funded within EU programmes or national / regional funding programmes) to share their experiences in project planning and management in this survey.
We identified tasks of Project Managers (with different characteristics) all along the project cycle that are more or less important and more or less difficult for managers of projects that receive EU funding. Very interesting discoveries we made which you can read by downloading the summary of findings from the site.
We compared the key competencies in the management of these projects identified by the survey with the training offers by Educational Institutions and designed draft training modules that particularly address the gaps in topics and methodologies.
Educational Institutions from all over Europe (24 countries) were invited at the final seminar organized in Brussels on 24th September 2009 to discuss and comment on these modules.
The PROVE project …
From 2012 till 2014 nine partners implemented the follow-up project of KEYLINKS that was called PROVE and that was funded by the EU Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme.
The project is based on an interdisciplinary, innovative and collaborative approach:
- Interdisciplinary because it seeks convergence between the existing Project Management methods, standards and guidelines such as PRINCE2©, PMBOK©, IPMA©, Project Cycle Management/Logical Framework Approach, ISO 10006:2003 and ISO 21500:2012.
- Innovative because it applies the benefits of these methods, standards or guidances to the specific needs of the EU-Project Managers.
- Collaborative because the products have jointly been elaborated by the 9 project partners, using peer-learning methods and teamwork.
Building on the findings of the KEYLINKS project we developed a Code of Ethics, a Curriculum and a Handbook on Project Management methodologies. All three products can be downloaded from the respective web site:
http://leonardo-prove.eu/
Want to know more about the findings of this research?
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