EU-funded projects are very frequently assumed by a consortium of several project partners. One of the project partners, usually the one that has taken the initiative to submit a proposal to an identified Call for Proposals, and identifies the project partners, acting as a Leader organization, Leader of the Consortium or Lead Beneficiary (nomenclature may vary from programme to programme), while the rest are to be considered Implementing Partners. These are the usual partner types in EU-funded projects:
All project partners will share project activities and budget, describing the different responsibilities that are assumed by each one in a Memorandum of Understanding (also called Partnership Agreement). However, the Leader of the Consortium acts as representative of all the project partners vis a vis the Contracting Authority (CA) and is ultimately accountable for the entirety of the project at all levels (operationally and financially), being the sole interlocutor with the Contracting Authority (CA) for all matters.
Each project partner may have its own internal procedures, teams, and, in case of multinational consortia, be subject to their respective national legislation that needs to be observed. Each project partner will have its own project coordinator. However, they are all subject to the conditions established by the Grant Agreement at the need for internal coordination is generally large.
Partners in the consortium may have different positions and responsibility. As partners in consortium the full partners participate (in the preparation and implementation of the project, having part of the budget at their disposal, or drawing support from it) and the associate partners (participating in the preparing and implementation of the project, but e.g., in the role of consultants, advisors, they usually do not have part of the budget at their disposal and their role is limited) could participate.
End beneficiaries/users of the project results may or may not be directly involved in the implementation of the project and are, in most cases, external to any of the parties involved in the project implementation. The degree of engagement of the project with the final users depends greatly on the EU-funding programme and/or Call for Proposal. They may be considered, in any case, central stakeholders in the project.
Effective management of EU projects requires businesses, universities, governments and/or non-profit organisations to form different types of partnerships on a national and international level. From the point of view of EU Cohesion Policy, the partnership add value to overall performance of EU projects and generally it helps stronger integration in EU (Poluka, Liddle, 2014).
A prerequisite for creation of these partnerships is that (Tetřevová et al., 2017):
The importance of partnership lies in the benefits which it offers. Sharing of resources, activities and knowledge of the partners creates a so-called synergistic effect (the 2 + 2 = 5 effect), where the whole is able to create greater value than the individual parts would have created separately. A partnership allows for an increase in the efficiency of the partners’ activities in that it eliminates duplication of costs due to the joint provision of selected activities, economies of scale or by using the excess capacity of the partners. In addition to this, a partnership makes it possible to implement projects which could not otherwise be implemented due to their financial demands. For companies that do not have sufficient potential for their own research and development, partnership is one of the options to gain access to missing technologies or knowledge, helping to build corporate know-how. The importance of partnerships also lies in reduction of risks, including reduction of the impact of possible failure to realise jointly implemented projects on the individual participants in this cooperation.
Joint exploitation of opportunities, an improved position as regards the stakeholders, increased resilience to external negative influences or transfer of currently available knowledge and technologies and creation and transfer of new knowledge, technologies as well as products and services subsequently lead to strengthening of the economic performance and competitive ability of the individual partners, the respective localities, regions and countries.
The importance of partnerships also lies in their contribution towards sustainable development (Daddi et al., 2010), as development of partnerships with different types of economic entities can be seen as an expression of social responsibility in the economic, social, and environmental spheres.
On the other hand, partnerships may also be associated with certain risks, e.g., misappropriation of know-how, high transaction costs, over-networking or restriction of autonomy. It is therefore necessary to ensure when managing EU projects and creating partnership in them (European Commission, 2014):
Project stakeholders are people (or groups) who can affect, be affected by, or believe to be affected by the activities carried out during a project’s lifecycle and/or by its output(s) and outcome(s). Stakeholders can be directly involved in a project’s work, be members of other internal organisations or be external to the organisation (e.g., contractors, suppliers, users, or the general public).
The number of stakeholders depends on the complexity and scope of a project. However, the more people the project has an impact on, the more likely it is that it will affect people who have some power or influence over the project. Given that stakeholders can be useful supporters of the project or may choose to block it, the effective management and involvement of them is crucial for its success.
Generally, there are many ways of stakeholders’ stratification.
As stakeholders could be identify:
From a broader perspective, the environment, or subjects from the past or the future can also be considered as stakeholders. Directly or indirectly impacted stakeholders by the project can be identifed. The attitude of stakeholders to project could be neutral, positive, negative or indifferent, in case the project affects stakeholder from some point of view positively and from other negatively. Their attitute to project could also developed and changed in time.
From the impact point of view there could be identify:
Stakeholders in EU projects usually include more subjects than normal projects, because it is in the EU's interest that the positive effects of EU-funded projects are used by as many beneficiaries as possible. European Commission recommend to involve into the projects especially competent regional, local, urban and other public authorities, economic and social partners, bodies representing civil society, such as environmental partners, non-governmental organizations, bodies responsible for promoting social inclusion, gender quality and non-discrimination etc. (European Commission, 2014).
It is important to identify stakeholders, to analyse their attitude to the project, to develop appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions and execution. The process of identifying stakeholders is usually started by creating a register of stakeholders, i.e. a complete list of all stakeholders. An essential source for identifying all relevant stakeholders is the study of project documentation (contract documents, project charter, organizational process assets) as well as documents of the past projects and, last but not least, a thorough brainstorming of the project team. The output is a stakeholder register containing, in particular, stakeholder identification data, role in the project, expectations, interest, influence, attitude, impact and power resulting in overall importance. The importance of stakeholders is depended on the power of stakeholders, ability to influence the project, as well as on the legitimacy of their relationships towards project and from the urgency of the stakeholder from the project point of view (Andersen, et al., 2021).
Based on the analysis and identification of stakeholders position it is desirable to have a differentiated approach to different stakeholders. Different strategies are available, it is possible to use the range of RDAP strategies (reaction, defence, accommodation or pro-action strategies). Communication with them based on a created communication plan is an essential tool. The content of the communication plan is to clarify the scope of sharing information with stakeholders, especially clarifying the project's purpose, scope, risks and stakeholder's role in the project. The communication plan should define the form and frequency of communication, as well as the tools for further development of the partnership. It is necessary to decide if there are enough resources to engage in regular two-way communication with all important stakeholders. In the case of limited resources, it is necessary to define the most influential and the most interested and choose other forms of communication for others. The communication plan with stakeholders needs to be continuously updated along with the progress of the project. This is the only way to ensure that the plan will still contain different tactics to engage different stakeholder groups, depending on their interest and influence.
Stakeholder management deals with identifying, maintaining, strengthening, managing and exploiting relationship towards stakeholders of project (Ponnappa, 2014). The term has a close relationship with corporate ethics and corporate social responsibility.
During the last two programming periods, the public administration in the Czech Republic gradually changed its view of civil society organizations as EU financed projects´ solvers and as potential partners. Previously, civil society organizations and public administration had less experience with the principle of partnership. Based on involvement in EU projects focused on a number of different topics implemented in previous programming periods, the public administration is changing its hitherto cautious approach to these organizations and now perceives and values civil society organizations as valuable partners.