Being effective is not necessarily being efficient, but anything that is efficient also has to be effective

The political conviction of the European Union is that European research helps to create growth and jobs. Therefore the EU supports research in many aspects, including financial support of research initiatives from public and private sectors. For all stakeholders, politicians, academics, research institutes, industries and participating researchers, research is only successful if it has an impact on the market – ideally within a relative short time. Due to the limited resources available, research must be performed in an effective manner.

The development of EMDESK® is based on decades of project management experience. It supports co‑ordinators, consortia and researchers in the creation of project proposals, adaptation of the Technical Annex during the negotiation phase, provision of updated descriptions of work to complement amendments during project changes and creation of the many project reports that have to be submitted to the European Commission throughout a project in EU Framework Programmes.

In particular, the challenge of providing annual, half-yearly, quarterly or even bi-monthly progress and management reports in a consortium with up to 20 partners requires resources that are better used for scientific work. EMDESK® will help maximise resources for core scientific and technological work and, at the same time, provide increased flexibility, precision and transparency in project co‑ordination and management.