A week in San Servolo

Mauro Da Lio — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:41:00 +0100

San Servolo is a small island of the lagoon, just in front of “Piazza S. Marco”. I have been there from Feb 19 to 20, and aganin from Feb 23 to 26.

Days 19-20 were for the SAFERIDER progress meeting. We are approaching the preparation of the demonstrator vehicles, and in the meeting the system architecture and specifications have been consolidated. If everything goes fine, in in September (next two progress meeting) we will have the system running on the motorcycle driving simulator in Padova (perfectly in schedule). In the meanwhile another progress meeting is planned in Greece for June.

Days 23-26 were for the preparation of four different proposals for the next EC call with deadlines March 31, April 1. These meetings go more or less according to the same scheme: first the coordinator welcomes partners. Then partners presents themselves, e.g.: “I am from SuperProtonic Inc. and we do warp engines”… Then the coordinator illustrates the targeted calla and how the idea fits the objectives. Most of the morning is then spent to analyze the WPs (which means Work Packages, i.e. the chapters in which the project is made). A WP which never miss is “2 Uses cases and scenarios”. People try to fit each other skills into an harmonic design. This is key for the success of the project. You may have a genius in one team and loose the game. On the other hand a good team wins (even if it miss the “genius”). A research project in the EU is not only evaluated on the basis of how “smart” the idea looks. This is only one aspect. Other important aspects are that the team is well composed and overall encompasses all the needed skills and that the team looks credible and able to actually achieve the results. The last aspect, of paramount importance, is the impact the results are expected to have. Gone is the time (at least for EU funded projects) when the only thing that matters is how difficult and smart the project looks like. A very interesting research, with no impact on the society, is useless and will not be funded.

But which were the four proposals? Two ere in ICT for environment and two in ICT for energy… more after the submission.

MeccaBLOG: A week in San Servolo

A week in San Servolo