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Strategic project management resource kit

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Putting the 'spark' into project management

Central to the success of any research project is the management of the work, resources and partners involved. An EU-funded initiative disseminated the best management tools used by EU research project coordinators, facilitating the translation of research efforts into effective technology generation and development activities.

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European research projects have to coordinate multiple teams often from various disciplines. Project coordinators are already looking for professional management tools and even consider the possibility of developing such techniques. Seeking to aid in this matter, the EU-funded ‘Strategic project management resource kit’ (SPARK) project established a reference pool of key management processes, methods and tools based on life sciences and health (LSH) project experiences. SPARK recognised the complexity involved in project coordination and aimed to increase the impact of research efforts by strengthening the coherence of research managerial activities conducted in Europe. LSH project managers shared their coordination practices experiences and provided the basis for the identification of excellent management tools and techniques. The best ones were disseminated through the SPARK initiative and were presented in a series of workshops and an interactive handbook. The SPARK project offered the potential for efficient project management, allowing for more resourceful time allocation spent on the actual research activity and its exploitation. The project ran for 30 months and provided LSH management teams with improved skills and techniques for handling research projects.

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