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The Coordinator of the new network, John Shawe Taylor, had previously coordinated two Working Group Networks, NeuroCOLT and NeuroCOLT2, involving up to 16 partners. This meant that he was personally acquainted with all of the project partners to be involved with PASCAL, greatly simplifying the management process. The NeuroCOLT2 network to some extent formed the core of PASCAL, but with the inclusion of a wide range of new partners, the number of members was increased to over 50.
From an organisational point of view one of the main changes that the increased size of network created was the potential breakdown of management based on personal knowledge of all the participants. It therefore became necessary to formalise the procedures and processes that controlled the operation of the network. A further and perhaps more important change was the recognition that it would not be possible for one or even a small group of people to foresee or control the research direction that would be followed by network partners.
Consequently, in order to maintain their engagement with the project there would need to be significant bottom-up organisation allowing groups to propose and develop novel ideas and directions. Indeed being open in this way was seen as crucial if the network were to generate dynamic and cutting edge research. However, just letting individual groups `do their own thing' would undermine the whole purpose of creating new European synergies.
The conclusion reached was that the mechanisms should nurture and be responsive to bottom-up initiatives but that the relevance and quality of major initiatives should be assessed and funding allocated through a peer-review process. |
Two main funding procedures were introduced: one to provide nurture of basic research and the second to regulate larger scale activities. It was imperative that both should not be allocated a priori, but be moderated by checks on activity levels and the quality of any proposed initiatives.
Base-line funding was allocated to each site year on year to ensure that they could participate in the network through attending events, visiting other sites, hosting visits, etc. With active sites it was also intended to give them the freedom to be creative in advancing PASCAL's objectives by allocating them funds that they can use at their own discretion.
For the first year the base-line funding level was proportional to the number of researchers and PhD students registered at the site. At the end of each year the activity of the sites was assessed and the base-line funding adjusted to reflect their level of participation and contribution to the network. In this way the funding works was based on delayed feedback - those that forward PASCAL's objectives are rewarded with additional funding in the following year. The Steering Committee were able to affect how the money was used through its determining of the criteria used in the assessment of sites. These were adjusted in later years to offset identified weaknesses or to effect desired changes in the attention paid to different activities. Hence, the Steering Committee could exercise its management responsibilities through a relatively transparent adjustment of weightings for different activities together with the possible introduction of additional criteria addressing new issues identified by reviewers or the committee members.
The proportion of the overall funding allocated through the base-line formula was approximately 40% in each year. The remaining 60% was held back to support specific targeted activities through a series of programmes, such as the Conference and Workshop Organisation Programme, and the Infrastructure Programme. |
