Project Management during project completion

China

Beijing

As in every phase of grant projects, the final phase – completion – also has its own administrative requirements. Project Desk will guide and assist you in carrying out these final tasks.

Make checklist and plan for project completion

At the end of a project, the grant issuing body will usually set requirements about the way the grant project should be finalised. In many cases it will only make a final payment after you have submitted all the required information. The final payment will have to be processed; it will need to be sent on to partners. In some cases money will be reclaimed from partners who have underspent their budget. You must also submit your final scientific and financial reports, and organise and submit a final audit, if required. Project Desk will co-ordinate this procedure for large consortium projects where RSM is co-ordinator. In smaller or individual projects, Project Desk can draft the checklist for you. In this case, you will need to decide who will complete each task to complete the project.

Signalling requirements in (grant, consortium) agreement after project completion

Your consortium may have an agreement that stipulates requirements to be fulfilled after the project has ended, for instance, keeping track of former PhD students after they leave RSM. Project Desk can help you here, and can co-ordinate the whole process in large consortium projects where RSM is co-ordinator.

Lessons learned for future projects

Each new project comes with new challenges and new lessons. In order to learn from these experiences, Project Desk will collect the lessons learned by its own project managers and will aim to retrieve helpful information from the researchers who are in charge of grant projects. From small to large scale projects, we aim to use the new information and know how to develop best practices. These will be shared with researchers and support staff in new projects.

Organise internal and external closing (if RSM is coordinator) meeting

Project Desk can organise your closing meeting at the end of a project. The agenda will include: general evaluation; lessons learned; procedure for finalising the project according to grant stipulations; setting final tasks for the researcher, project manager, and other support staff.

For large consortium projects where RSM is the co-ordinator, an external closing meeting should include all project partners. The administrative Project Manager from Project Desk will organise this meeting for you.

Internal archiving of project documentation

All documents and contracts for all funded projects and contract research are kept in Project Desk’s electronic archiving system. Project Control maintains a paper archive for all financial information. The funding body usually requires project documentation to be kept for auditing purposes for between five and seven years after the project has been finalised. Project Desk will make sure your project documents are archived as required.