Projectology
I spent three days last week writing an application for a new project for the EU Lifelong Learning programme. It is about developing and implementing web 2.0 and social software for collaboration between different projects and for project dissemination.
I do not enjoy writing funding application – but then who does? And at the end of the day it always seems a bit of a lottery as to what gets funded and what doesn”t. I have written some applications which I thought were great and got turned right down – whilst others which I thought were pretty crap and which got approved. There’s probably no easy answer to this.
But one thing I think can be changed is what is required to produce an application. the EU Lifelong Learning form is truly dreadful. It requires endless forms to be filled in for each work package and each output, providing endless data on things like the educational qualification level of the person who might use a particular product.
Just so you don’t think I am an endless moaner – I think the UK HE JISC application procedure is pretty good. JISC forms are limited to 6 to 10 pages and any extra pages are discarded. OK – it can be difficult to get ideas expressed clearly in such a brief format. But they don’t ask for days of effort in filling in bureaucratic nonsense for someones monitoring database which is never actually used for anything.
Be interested if anyone has any ideas on how to develop a creative project applciation procedure which can addto the development fo ideas and knowledge whilst still being fair to appilcants.
