The idea for the Europa Media trainings came quite naturally after working for several years on EU projects. The demand was there and it only took a few information days and other similar events, following the invitation of the National Contact Point and the Investment Agency, to realize that we are onto something that will not only help so many people but also make us grow as an organization.
Our training courses are designed to help those who are interested in the EU funding opportunities and would like a more in-depth perspective on what this will entail. So far we have organized more than 100 courses, helping more than 5,000 participants. Our clients are mostly researchers but we also deal with a significant number of administrative and management staff from research and higher educational organizations, SMEs, non-profit and industrial associations or international organizations from Europe but also from the US, Canada or China.
So, you may now ask yourself why bother with our courses when there is so much free information available online. You may also want to know what sets us apart from our competitors. These are valid questions and we are more than happy to explain why we are the best at what we do.
First, our courses are led by people who make a living out of EU project management.
Our team doesn’t just do trainings on EU funds, but it is actively and on a day-to-day basis involved in successful projects, from deciphering the EU jargon of the call for proposals to comparing numbers on audit sheets. From us you won’t just get generic answers about what should go where and in which form; we answer specific questions about your real-life situations by always referring to real-life examples.
We are a team of 15 people, each with his or her experience in various EU projects. We are based in the beautiful city of Budapest but we operate all around Europe, following the busy schedule of our clients.
To cater for all of our clients’ needs and make sure we cover all major problematic aspects of the EU project life-cycle, we have developed five specialised, individually tailored workshops that can be divided into four categories – proposal development, evaluation, project management and financial management. This way we manage to cover technical, legal as well as financial aspects.
Here is what to expect:
1. Proposal development – for this training we normally choose three or four topics and design our exercises according to them. We want participants to first understand the system in which they operate and so we begin with explaining the basic rules of EU funding. Then they receive materials – for instance, a call text, proposal template of a real project – on the basis of which they work on their own until we reveal the real outcome.
2. Evaluation – This is a crucial one because it is where participants learn how to place themselves in the shoes of the proposal evaluators. By the end of the session, all attendants will have to submit their own evaluation of a given proposal, meet with other evaluators and ultimately deliver a collaborate report. We expect participants to be able to understand the strengths and weakness of a project proposal and to hopefully learn from someone else’s mistakes by the time they are in the position to develop their own attempt.
3. Project management - As we believe project managers are like the caretakers of a home – making sure everything runs smoothly, we structure our course so as to foster an effective decision-making process, in line with EU requirements. We come up with several scenarios, each with a specific problem based on real, our own projects. Our participants then need to opt from a series of solutions from a card that we provide and can compare their results with the correct answer which is to be revealed only at the end.
4. Financial management – Since this is a generally a difficult part of the project life-cycle, we have decided to develop two workshops from two different perspectives: financial reporting and EC audits.
- Financial reporting – If you want to understand EU financial talk, then we will offer an intensive training on the financial issues from the basics till advanced level. To make things accurate, we provide a variety of materials, from a taxi receipt, travel documentation, catering, translation, equipment charges, to salary slips, timesheets and contracts - all based on real project materials. Your task is to prepare a Form C for reporting your organisation’s costs in the project and discuss with us the different options of eligibility.
- EC Audits – We recommend this training for those who are a bit more advanced and would like to understand how financial audits work. To do this, we make you the auditor for the duration of the workshop as we provide full documentation of a real past project. We only supervise your thinking process and guide you to reach the optimal result.
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I hope this blog post has convinced you of the worth of our work and the energy and passion we put into it. If you would like to know more about what we can do for you, check out the Services section above or drop us a line. We are looking forward to working with you and helping you achieve your goal.
