How do you pick the right partners for a consortium call—and who does what?
Top tips
- Identify a core team to develop the strategy, adding extra partners later for specific jobs.
- Choose the right people, not necessarily the highest-profile people, for the right jobs.
- Start as early as you can and build in some overlaps in capability in case partners drop out.
- Include the whole consortium in writing the proposal, with the academic partners taking care of the excellence section.
Having coordinated bids for EU funding for the best part of a decade, Emmanuel Detsis from the European Science Foundation says he treats the development of projects as a science in its own right. Detsis has a background in space science and policy but has also coordinated proposals in areas including social sciences, cybersecurity and migration.