Klinikum Der Universität Zu Köln
Interview with Ana Grönke
20/11/24 13:32
Leader of work packages 3 & 5, PhD degree in Medical Sciences. Project coordinator, Data Steward, and Research Officer at University of Cologne. Not only does Ana Grönke have significant experience in leading international multidisciplinary teams. She is also an experienced Postdoctoral Researcher with a demonstrated history of working in the research industry. This makes her a great asset to the BETTER Project!
Watch her interview to hear more about Ana Grönke’s role, her motivation and expectations for the BETTER project.
Watch her interview to hear more about Ana Grönke’s role, her motivation and expectations for the BETTER project.
Co-creation of a project designed to be better than others
11/09/24 11:03
We got funding in BETTER for 42 months – that is three and a half years. This is almost half a year longer than the usual average duration of a RIA or IA project. Sometimes compression of times like things to happen in 2 years instead of 4 works well but sometimes it kills this extra time that one has to dedicate to create value or at least make an honest attempt for this to happen.
In research as we organise it in the context of European Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development since some time now, we pose importance on the quantification of what happens: people we contacted, events we organised, community members we ‘attracted’ to our lines of engagement activities. Same also for papers we prepared and published, demonstrations we carried out; one can continue with the list for long enough. This quantification is supposed to also affect the impact of our project and, as result, the societal value.
One may of course wonder what if Tim Berners Lee (at that time of March 1989 or May 1990 still not yet knighted) had cared for KPIs to keep his head and his World Wide Web project above water by means of indicators that might, in retrospect, seem unimportant.
BETTER was conceived not only as a good project – it was, as it names reveals, intended to be a better project than all others we have been part of. This means that we committed to create value not only in the big things we aim to build but also on the small or less important ones that eventually are as important as the ambitious goals we aim to achieve.
Co-creation is the main tool we use for this: this means that we try to develop a team-based approach for all things that matter and will help us build a common legacy that we shall then be able to exploit afterwards.
Keeping it personal and trying to engage in several levels is not easy and costs time and sometimes it creates unnecessary frictions. The project has now entered its nine month since December that we started and we have come well along the first deliverables, the first milestones, the completion of tasks, the facing of interdependencies between Work packages and Tasks; for sure we now also know better what we might have done in some other (or better) way.
Kierkegaard is attributed a quote that holds not only for life but also for projects: they can only be understood backwards - but they must be experienced forwards.
Apart from the technical infrastructures we build in the project, we plan for acquiring and securing funding to operate several of the project activities after its completion. This does not mean to acquire new projects but find the means to support what we are now building. One source that academic institutions are used to acquire funding from relates to public funding but our ambition is to go beyond this and try also access for venture capital and private investors.
As this challenge was not connected to any KPIs, we are free to seek for and build greatness!
Adamantios Koumpis, University Hospital Cologne
In research as we organise it in the context of European Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development since some time now, we pose importance on the quantification of what happens: people we contacted, events we organised, community members we ‘attracted’ to our lines of engagement activities. Same also for papers we prepared and published, demonstrations we carried out; one can continue with the list for long enough. This quantification is supposed to also affect the impact of our project and, as result, the societal value.
One may of course wonder what if Tim Berners Lee (at that time of March 1989 or May 1990 still not yet knighted) had cared for KPIs to keep his head and his World Wide Web project above water by means of indicators that might, in retrospect, seem unimportant.
BETTER was conceived not only as a good project – it was, as it names reveals, intended to be a better project than all others we have been part of. This means that we committed to create value not only in the big things we aim to build but also on the small or less important ones that eventually are as important as the ambitious goals we aim to achieve.
Co-creation is the main tool we use for this: this means that we try to develop a team-based approach for all things that matter and will help us build a common legacy that we shall then be able to exploit afterwards.
Keeping it personal and trying to engage in several levels is not easy and costs time and sometimes it creates unnecessary frictions. The project has now entered its nine month since December that we started and we have come well along the first deliverables, the first milestones, the completion of tasks, the facing of interdependencies between Work packages and Tasks; for sure we now also know better what we might have done in some other (or better) way.
Kierkegaard is attributed a quote that holds not only for life but also for projects: they can only be understood backwards - but they must be experienced forwards.
Apart from the technical infrastructures we build in the project, we plan for acquiring and securing funding to operate several of the project activities after its completion. This does not mean to acquire new projects but find the means to support what we are now building. One source that academic institutions are used to acquire funding from relates to public funding but our ambition is to go beyond this and try also access for venture capital and private investors.
As this challenge was not connected to any KPIs, we are free to seek for and build greatness!
Adamantios Koumpis, University Hospital Cologne
