The Grant

Casper Ravnsted-Larsen is an old contact from Brussels. He is a journalist and has been working on a generic communication strategy outline for organisations. We decided to build a podcast series rolling out this strategy in short and concise episodes with concrete examples. With this I also want to get closer to you, dear listener. We want to get your feedback and for you to share your experience...

Episode site When you podcast you sometimes need to shake things up and try to do things differently. I have launched a short format some time ago, but it needed some rethinking. So here it is: my first shot at serving you vibrant short podcast episodes with strong engagement. Casper Ravnsted-Larsen is an old contact from Brussels. He is a journalist and has been working on a generic communication...

This podcast episode is a collaboration between the AIRinVET project and The Grant. Getting applied research stronger integrated into vocational education is of key importance in moving education and industry closer and develop a stronger understanding between them. The Erasmus+ project AIRinVET has through its two-year duration focused on transforming vocational education through applied research...

Episode site The AI Series is a popular initiative. Of course, because many of you are sponges that want to get as much information, guidance and critical mass on how to use the Large Language Models. In the first five episodes in the series my dear guests Rita and Kristjan have been taking us through different corners of this new technology and in the last round we had a double episode focusing o...

Episode site The Grant are many things. I try to help with advice, insights, how-to’s, don’t’-do’s and generally give a voice to the community. But The Grant is also opening up on practicalities. How are actual projects working when they are running. And this week is a peak into an Erasmus+ project Through my daytime-work I am involved in an Erasmus+ project called WIN4SMES focused on securing eno...

Episode site Opening up the Brussels bubble is always fascinating. Especially when looking into the section of the bubble that is close linked to shaping and forming work programme content - short and long-term. EFFRA – or European Factories of the Future Research Association – is one of the European Partnerships. This means that the organisation is feeding input into the Horizon Europe work progr...

Episode site Reporting to the EU Commission in a funded project is an art in itself. From the face of it, it looks like a fairly simple part of implementing a project, but of course it is not. The complexity of implementing the projects combined with the number of partners and being on top of regulation and formalities all adds to this task being something that anybody should prepare solidly for....

Episode site Reporting to the EU Commission in a funded project is an art in itself. From the face of it, it looks like a fairly simple part of implementing a project, but of course it is not. The complexity of implementing the projects combined with the number of partners and being on top of regulation and formalities all adds to this task being something that anybody should prepare solidly for....

Episode site The AI Series is a popular initiative. Of course because many of you are sponges that want to get as much information, guidance and critical mass on how to use the Large Language Models. And the first three episodes in the series have been showered in enthusiasm since my dear guests Rita and Kristjan have very actively incorporated the tools in their workflow as proposals preparers. N...

Episode site The AI Series is a popular initiative. Of course because many of you are sponges that want to get as much information, guidance and critical mass on how to use the Large Language Models. And the first three episodes in the series have been showered in enthusiasm since my dear guests Rita and Kristjan have very actively incorporated the tools in their workflow as proposals preparers. N...

Episode site Proposals become like little babies for the proposal coordinators. There is no end to the number of times guests on The Grant have referred to their submitted proposals and projects as their babies. However, many of these babies get rejected before they come to live. Rejections are an essential part of submitting EU proposals - whoever has been even the slightest involved in EU R&...

Episode site Startups are the organisations that are the most in need of finance. They almost literally spend all waking hours figuring out how to acquire the financial means to realize their wonderful ideas. However, the funding system as well as the venture capital area are both quite rough on them. Niloufar Gharavi is a startup’er herself. But she also had a good idea a couple of years ago: why...

Episode site The project officer is the key person for any project. It is the person that is the EU representative towards the project and in this respect their core responsibilities include securing well-run projects, deliverables on time, financial accountability and all-in-all that the projects are living up to the grant agreement signed with the EU Commission. There are of course many layers t...

Episode site The project officer is the key person for any project. It is the person that is the EU representative towards the project and in this respect their core responsibilities include securing well-run projects, deliverables on time, financial accountability and all-in-all that the projects are living up to the grant agreement signed with the EU Commission. There are of course many layers t...

Episode site The EU Commission is committed to supporting municipalities and towns throughout the continent and not just the big cities. Smaller communities a little off the track are relying quite a lot on the complex of funding schemes focused on their issues and challenges. Gata de Gorgos is a town between Valencia and Alicante on the eastern coast of Spain. Through LinkedIn I got in contact wi...

Episode site Coordinating a funded EU project is quite a task to pick up. Everybody who has done knows the truth of that statement. The complexity and the many layers of the responsibilities are exhaustive and on top of that you also need to have an impressive stamina as a people person dealing with the positive and challenging elements of human interactions…conflicts, that is. In other words, it...

Episode site 'The lump sum budget principle is slowly being implemented in more and more calls in especially Horizon Europe, but also in other of the European Commission administered funding schemes. In other words, it is a principle that has come to stay, hence it is a good idea to get better and better acquainted with it. The Grant will of course do it’s best to keep you my dear listener upd...

Episode site The kick off meeting is on the list of things that has to be taken care of when the EU project has been funded. Here in the third episode in The Implementation Series The Grant zooms in on this special event exercise and how to attack it. With me I have Senior Project Manager Nicole Schmidt from EUTEMA. She is the colleague of good old Georg Melzer-Venturi, who has been our guide in t...

Episode site This week’s episode is something I have been looking forward to a lot to share with you. And it is a rather exotic topic. During my formative years I went to New Zealand hitchhiking alone around the whole country. Hence, the country on the other side of the planet has always had a special place in my heart. Recently New Zealand and the EU Commission signed an Association Agreement att...

This is the third release of episodes under my short format The Grant Shorts. This is the first out of two episodes where I zoom in on my 3rd job within this sector: Head of Funding in Offshoreenergy.dk – the official Danish energy innovation cluster (now Energy Cluster Denmark). In this episode I elaborate on how I slowly moved into the area of preparing proposals for cluster members and the clus...

This is the third release of episodes under my short format The Grant Shorts. This is the second out of the two episodes where I zoom in on my 3rd job within this sector: Head of Funding in Offshoreenergy.dk – the official Danish energy innovation cluster (now Energy Cluster Denmark). In this episode I elaborate on four core elements to be aware of when supporting SMEs towards funding from Brussel...

Episode site The tide is turning. Regulars of this podcast know that I detest the call deadline policy applied especially for Horizon Europe. With no shame call deadlines are scheduled right after the summer and Christmas holidays with administrators knowing very well that thousands of professionals preparing proposals for these calls will have their holidays and much-needed downtime with family d...

Episode page The series I start they never really stop - there will always be something to add as I move along. This week’s release is adding another episode to The Timeline Series. The visual element in proposals is much underestimated. Or at least for my part when I was preparing proposals, I considered it a luxury to actually have the time to make nice graphics and layouts. Many of you out ther...

Episode site Finally, after 120 episodes of this initiative I managed to get a Programme Committee representative into the virtual podcast studio. And why is that important? Because the Programme Committees are core parts of the formal structure in relation to the EU framework programmes for research and development. Or Horizon2020, Horizon Europe and FP10 as they are more commonly known. The Prog...

Episode site It is time for yet another introduction to a funding scheme in The Grant. The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions is a very popular funding scheme among the European research community. The funding scheme focus is on exchange of researchers and it offers fairly accessible funding for the research activities to do abroad as well as covering cost of transferring and living. Of course The Gra...