Challenges in large international projects - findings from ERAMIS and PROMIS projects
Marek Milosz, Agathe Merceron, Kestutis Kapocius, Sergio Luján-Mora, Jean-Michel Adam
Proceedings of the 10th International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED 2016), p. 103-111, Valencia (Spain), March 7-9 2016. ISBN: 78-84-608-5617-7. https://doi.org/10.21125/inted.2016.1016
(INTED'16)
Congreso internacional / International conference
Resumen
The completed ERAMIS and the ongoing PROMIS are European Union (EU) Tempus projects for setting up a new Master degree titled “Informatics as a Second Competence” taking as a model a similar existing degree of the University of Grenoble Alpes, France. Both projects can be considered big and having quite long implementation periods – more than three years each. There were seventeen partners from eight countries in the ERAMIS project, and there are now twenty one partners including three companies coming from ten countries in the PROMIS project. In both cases, EU partners collaborated with partners from regions that differ culturally, namely, Central Asia and Russia. Although those projects were not the biggest in the Tempus program, they could be classified as large in terms of their budget and the number of partners involved. The core results of the statistical overview of parameters of the Tempus programme projects are presented in this paper. The analysis was performed in two dimensions: project budget and number of partner countries. It allowed classifying ERAMIS and PROMIS projects as large in comparison to other EU Tempus projects. To clarify the context, the short descriptions of both projects are given, followed by the summary of the evaluation of problems encountered by the EU partner project teams. Issues arose from different areas, such as project activities, scheduling, legal procedures, and so on. Some issues were due to the international nature of the project, for example, varying level of language skills, different culture, legislation and ways of handling tasks, work motivation, etc. Leverage came from the people: all teams consisted of academics in the same field. They had approximately the same level of knowledge and skills, used the similar reference works and similar technologies. We consider this is essential for the success of such projects. By pointing out the various issues encountered in these two projects, we aim to raise awareness about the problems that need to be dealt with and planned for in this kind of large projects as to allow others to avoid them or address these issues smoothly.