Technical assistance

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE · 360° STRATEGIC SUPPORT

Funding is not the finish line: it is the starting point

Many organisations know the opportunities are out there, but they do not have the time or the tools to work out which ones genuinely fit, how a solid application is built, and what it takes to manage one through to the end. Our technical assistance steps in exactly there: from reading the call to the final financial report, with the same team from start to finish.

ACCREDITED RESEARCH ORGANISATIONItalian National Research Register, MUR · 001157_ETER

QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMISO 9001:2015

Who we work with

Four kinds of organisation with different needs, asking for the same thing: someone who knows the mechanisms from the inside and turns them into practical decisions.

Companies

From the single micro-enterprise to the industrial group: identifying the instruments that fit the development plan and building the application.
Public bodies

Support for programming, for organisational and functional reviews, for institutional capacity building and for procedural alignment.
Research bodies and centres

Setting up collaborative projects, building scientific partnerships, aligning research objectives with the rules of the programme.
Non-profit and third sector

Access to instruments that often go unnoticed, administrative obligations, and sustaining the activity beyond the life of a single project.

The logical framework: where applications are won or lost

Almost every national and European programme asks you, in one form or another, to think in terms of a logical framework. It is a matrix that forces you to answer an uncomfortable question: how will you prove the result was achieved. Fill it in last, at the end, and you get a project that does not hold together; use it to build the project and you get a coherent application. We fill it in together with the client, at the start.

Intervention logic

Verifiable indicators

Sources of verification

IF ... THEN

Overall objectivethe long-term impact

What it contributes toThe wider benefit the project works towards, together with other interventions.

Impact indicatorsMeasures that no single project controls on its own.

Statistics and studiesOfficial sources, sector data, programme evaluations.

Specific objectivethe change you promise

What changes, and for whomThe direct, verifiable benefit for the target group, the one the project answers for.

Outcome indicatorsBaseline value, target value, timing and method of measurement.

Your own surveysQuestionnaires, field measurements, registers, administrative data.

Expected resultswhat the project delivers

The concrete outputsWhat exists at the end of the project and did not exist before.

Output indicatorsQuantity, quality, timing. Numbers, not adjectives.

Project documentsReports, minutes, released deliverables, acceptance tests.

Activitiesthe work plan

What gets doneWork packages, sequence, responsibilities of each partner.

MeansPeople, skills, equipment and services required.

CostsBudget by cost category, consistent with the rules of the programme.

The column missing from this table, and the one that decides the outcome, is assumptions: the conditions outside the project’s control that have to hold for the chain to work. Together with the preconditions of the activities, it is the part evaluators read to find out whether the author knows their own context or is simply filling in a form.

Overall objectivethe long-term impact

Intervention logic: The wider benefit the project works towards, together with other interventions.
Indicators: Impact measures that no single project controls on its own.
Sources of verification: Official statistics, sector data, programme evaluations.

Specific objectivethe change you promise

Intervention logic: The direct, verifiable benefit for the target group, the one the project answers for.
Indicators: Baseline value, target value, timing and method of measurement.
Sources of verification: Your own surveys: questionnaires, field measurements, registers.

Expected resultswhat the project delivers

Intervention logic: What exists at the end of the project and did not exist before.
Indicators: Quantity, quality, timing. Numbers, not adjectives.
Sources of verification: Reports, minutes, released deliverables, acceptance tests.

Activitiesthe work plan

Intervention logic: Work packages, sequence, responsibilities of each partner.
Means: People, skills, equipment and services required.
Costs: Budget by cost category, consistent with the rules of the programme.

The four levels are read from the bottom up, with an if ... then logic. And the column that decides the outcome is assumptions: the conditions outside the project’s control that have to hold for the chain to work.

From the call to the final report

Five stages. The fourth is the one everybody calls "writing the project", and it is also the shortest: if the first three are done properly, the application almost writes itself.

Monitoring and search

Systematic search of open programmes and initiatives, national and international, relevant to your sector.

Eligibility and strategy

Checking the requirements, reading the rules on eligible costs, deciding knowingly whether to apply now or wait for the right instrument.

Partnership

Identifying the partners you are missing and defining the roles, through an existing network of national and international contacts.

Application

Preparing the application: logical framework, work plan, budget, annexes and submission on the platform.

Management and reporting

Operational planning, project management, monitoring of commitments and financial reporting through to final payment.

What the assistance covers

Six areas of intervention. Open the one you are interested in.

1Policy and inter-institutional coordination+

Building and running the dialogue between the parties that have to move together for an intervention to work: administrations, technical bodies, private partners, local representative organisations. It includes preparing the working tables, mediating between different interests and drafting the acts that formalise the agreements.

2Policy analysis and development+

Examining the programming documents, identifying the levers available, assessing the expected effects. It is what turns a list of intentions into a policy that states who does what, with which resources and in which order of priority.

3Organisational and functional reviews+

Analysis of how the structure is organised and how it actually works: who decides, where the dead time accumulates, which skills are missing. The output is a workable reorganisation proposal, not a theoretical org chart.

4Structural reforms and procedural alignment+

Examination and assessment of structural reforms and of the related adjustments to procedural rules: preparing accreditation packages, filling the gaps identified, screening the requirements. This is the work that makes a body formally ready to do what it has decided to do.

5Strategic planning and operational programming+

From the medium-term vision to the annual plan: objectives, indicators, responsibilities, resources. It includes SWOT analysis used as a working tool, and the search for sustainable funding solutions, meaning ones that do not leave the organisation exposed when the project ends.

6Institutional capacity building+

Transferring tools and method to the people who will have to use them: courses on project design, the project cycle, the logical framework approach, strategic planning and cost-benefit analysis. It includes organising and running study visits and professional coaching for officials, so that the method stays inside the organisation even when we are no longer there.

When the decisions have to be taken by many

Local development cannot be designed from a desk: if the people who live in the area do not take part, the plan stays on paper. That is why we use structured participatory design methods, which have precise rules and produce a written outcome.

GOPP

Goal Oriented Project Planning
objective-oriented planning

A facilitated workshop in which the stakeholders reconstruct the real problems together and turn them into objectives. The logical framework grows out of that, and it grows shared.
- stakeholder analysis
- problem tree and objective tree
- choice of the intervention strategy
EASW

European Awareness Scenario Workshop
European scenario workshop

A method promoted at European level: groups with different roles compare alternative scenarios of the future and arrive at concrete proposals that command agreement.
- comparison of alternative scenarios
- groups by role, then by theme
- proposals voted on and ranked
SWOT

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
context analysis

Not the box-ticking exercise you see in annexes, but a working tool: it separates what depends on you from what depends on the context, and the choices follow from that distinction.
- internal and external factors
- crossing the four quadrants
- translation into lines of action

The framework all of this moves in

Technical assistance is not a neutral service: it is carried out inside precise rules, those of structural and cohesion policy. Knowing them means knowing in advance what a programme can fund and what it cannot.

Structural and cohesion policy

We develop strategies consistent with the mechanisms and procedures of national and European funds, on the levels these instruments require you to think on.

Regional development Administrative decentralisation Economic cohesion Transnational cooperation Interregional partnerships Participatory local development Operational programming Sustainable funding

The network we put at your disposal

Many calls cannot be won alone: they require a partnership, often with organisations from different countries. We activate relationships that already exist, rather than looking for them once the call is open and it is too late.

INSTITUTIONALBodies and institutionsNational and regional public bodies, European institutions, development agencies.

ACADEMICResearchNational and international universities, research centres, private research organisations.

INDUSTRIALCompaniesLarge companies, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, innovative SMEs, start-ups and scale-ups.

INTERNATIONALAcross bordersEuropean networks, partners in the Mediterranean area, partners in the United States.

Do you have an idea and no idea which instrument to take it to?

Tell us about it. We will tell you whether a suitable programme exists, what applying involves and what you need to have ready before you start.

Tell us about your project

For the list of completed and ongoing projects, and for any detailed information, please contact us: we will provide it directly.