BRE will co-ordinate the project. BRE, as a leading national and international organisation, has considerable experience of activities at the European level. BRE has participated in over 140 collaborative European projects of which it has co-ordinated over 25. Dr Peter Bonfield will be responsible for overall project management. He leads BRE’s work on the technological and environmental aspects of timber and wood products and has responsibility for a research programme worth about two million Euro per year. Dr Bonfield currently participates in 3 European projects funded under the FAIR programme related to the performance of timber products. Dr Bonfield has just finished successfully co-ordinating a 1.6 million Euro, 36-month EC FAIR Project (PERPAN, CT95 0514) that was concerned with the performance of wood-base panel products. The project was completed on time, at cost and it exceeded its original expectations.

As Project Co-ordinator, Dr Bonfield will be responsible for:

• The overall progress of the project
• Meeting of milestones and deliverables
• Ensuring high quality of experimental and written output is achieved
• Meeting the contractual obligations of the project in relation to reporting and financial matters and other issues that may arise
• Overall planning of the project
• Organisation, chairmanship and reporting of progress meetings and technical meetings
• Maximising the dissemination activities of the project required to optimise its impact
• Resolving any conflict that arises in the project, through discussions with the relevant parties and reference to the EC where necessary.

Responsibility for achieving the objectives of the Workpackages in the project will be shared between the project partners. The role of the Workpackage Managers will be to:

• Plan and organise the work required
• Ensure the work is progressing at the rate required to achieve the milestones and deliverables envisaged.
• Ensure good communication between partners and industrial collaborators
• Monitor the quality of field and experimental work and of written material
• Carry out technical work as envisaged in the work packages
• Provide written reports to the Project Co-ordinator as required

The Project Manager responsible for each Workpackage is shown in the following section entitled ‘The Partnership’:

Good communication is essential for the successful delivery of European projects. This communication will be organised on several levels;

E-mail will be the preferred method for communication between partners on day to day matters, although telephone and fax will also be used as appropriate. All project partners will file written communications as a record of correspondence.

Formal progress meetings will be held at 6-monthly intervals throughout the project period. The European Commission’s Project Manager, project partners and appropriate industrial representatives will be invited to attend these meetings. Attendance will be obligatory for project partners. Notes of the meetings will be produced within one week and these will record decisions made and actions required.

Ad-hoc meetings will be arranged to deal with specific technical, contractual or other issues as they arise. Participation at these meetings will be dependent on the issue under discussion. Formal notes of these will be taken and decisions and actions recorded. These notes will be circulated to all project partners, the Commission and copies filed by the Co-ordinator.

The Co-ordinator (and appropriate partners) will meet with the Commission to discuss any relevant issues that arise during the project. These meetings may be called by Commission officials or at the request of the Co-ordinator.

The contract requires the completion of a significant number of deliverables. Partners will send these deliverables to the Co-ordinator for quality assessment a minimum of 2 weeks before their due date. The project Co-ordinator will be responsible for ensuring that these deliverables reach their target audience. The annual reports, final reports and associated reports will be written and compiled by the Co-ordinator and will conform to the Commission requirements for their style, structure and content. The Web-site for the project will be managed by the Co-ordinator.

A Consortium Agreement will be drawn up and signed by partners to address intellectual property, exploitation rights, regulations and safety. The Co-ordinator has produced Consortium Agreements in previous EU projects.

All project partners will keep accurate accounts of the project. These accounts will be used to compile the annual and final cost statements required by the commission and will provide the financial record required for auditing purposes.

The project will be managed according to BRE’s ‘General Procedure for Quality Control’. This is a rigorous procedure requiring, for example, fully indexed BRE Record Management files, and formal approval procedures for documentation clearance. This approach has been used successfully by the Co-ordinator in the Co-ordination of previous EU projects.