Dear all, [This email goes out to everyone who's signed up for the new "SynchroniCity All" mailing list. The old list is in copy. Please check that you get two copies of this email -- or you'll be missing out when we switch to using only the new one after September 20. Anders (cc) will help you sign up properly in the Google Doc.] This is an update on the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP) process of the SynchroniCity project. Following the update of the Description of Action (DoA) by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC, WP Leads and key task leads), with 33 months as the period and subsequent changes, a DoA draft (version 1.1) was submitted to the Commission for feedback. On Friday (September 9) morning I met in Brussels with our coming Project Officer and Co-Project Officer from the Commission in a meeting where I presented the DoA, including rationale and suggested improvements, following the Evaluation Summary Report and Ethics Summary Report. The meeting was scheduled for 1,5 hours, but lasted 4 hours. This was positive, I reckon, since it was a very thorough and comprehensive "clarifications and optional improvements" dialogue around the DoA and our collective thinking about the foreseen actions. This is adding value to our project and strengthening the action plan towards the start and following first review. As a result, I got the mandate to propose to the Commission an updated version 1.2 of the DoA, to be delivered no later than Tuesday September 20. The procedure will be that Emilia and I will produce a draft, based on the feedback from the P.O.s, and then the TSC has a first round of extra quality assurance. In parallel, this DoA v1.2-draft will be circulated to everyone in the consortium for reference, quality check and comments. This will happen ASAP, but this week. The document will contain a change log and comments reflecting the Commission feedback and our response. We have, as a service to ourselves and the Commission, provided the DoA in a consolidated "human-readable" format (a single PDF in the format of the Technical Annex Section 1-3 + 4-5), in parallel with the formal entry of the DoA in the grant management system (SyGMa) (which breaks the continuity from the original proposal format). We will continue to maintain this format as the master for the DoA, and similarly the budget in a spreadsheet -- also in case of any future amendments to the Grant Agreement. In addition to the DoA, the Commission is also -- as you're all acutely aware -- benchmarking the admin performance of the consortium. This includes timely completion of all formal partner data, such as PLSIGN and assigned roles. We got highly negative remarks because a handful of partners had NOT completed these admin tasks in time (Thursday September 8), making it impossible for Emilia to formally submit the DoA in SyGMa. I -- and the Commission -- will not tolerate such slack in the future, as it not only generates negative benchmarks and adds friction to the overall management, but also because it puts the effort of our colleagues across at risk, and ultimately can be used as a cause for terminating the Grant Agreement Preparation process. I made a promise to the Commission, on behalf of the SynchroniCity consortium, that our compliance will improve immediately. And internally, I'll talk measures to benchmark our internal performance (you'll get negative marks in my book for delays). That said, SynchroniCity *is* a big boat to steer, and we *do* want a co-creative, city-driven process. It is indeed to allow for that richness that the simple formalities must be observed, so that we can focus on the content and impact of the actions. One of the overall guidance points we got was to strengthen the voice of the cities in the management structure. This will be done by bolstering the Reference Zone Coordination with a formal Reference Zone Forum (RZF), which will act in parallel to the TSC, with the Reference Zone Coordinator (RZC) as liaison. The Forum will ensure due agency to the cities in day-to-day operations, and the Forum will potentially grow as the number of reference zones increase. Overall, the feedback was very positive on our bold ambitions, and solid support! You will find further comments and feedback in the coming draft update DoA v1.2. Finally, in this update, I'd like to invite all SynchroniCity partners who are in Bratislava on Tuesday, September 27, to come together for an informal lunch meeting. It would be very beneficial to seize this opportunity to meet face-to-face and discuss the project kick-off, including events leading up to the kick-off, and possible synergies with other IoT LSPs and activities. We'll distribute a Doodle for you to sign up. (If you're not going to Bratislava anyway, don't worry; but we'll try and set up an online bridge for this who want to join virtually.) On Thursday, September 22, I've been invited to meet with the other coordinators of IoT LSP projects under GAP. This will give SynchroniCity the opportunity to better align efforts across the IoT LSP portfolio, which consists of 5 LSP and 2 Coordination and Support Actions (we anticipate). One of the things we will explore is the possibility of offering our January 12 Connected Smart Cities Conference as a platform for the cities and related activities. This would follow our foreseen kick-off on January 10-11 (save the dates, all three!). I'll keep you informed about the developments, and this can be a topic for the September 27 meeting. This is all for now. Thank you for your patience and devotion. Please continue to work with Emilia, Eva and the team to get all admin flags cleared swiftly, and be ready to give the lovely DoA yet another read. We should soon be ready for take-off. Cheers, Martin -- landing in Dublin -- Martin Brynskov, Ph.D. Associate professor, interaction technologies Aarhus University Chair, Open & Agile Smart Cities // oascities.org<http://oascities.org/> Research director, AU Smart Cities // smartcities.au.dk<http://smartcities.au.dk/> Director, Digital Design Lab // ddlab.dk<http://ddlab.dk/> Participatory IT Centre // Digital Urban Living // CAVI Tel. (+45) 3068 0424<tel:(+45)%203068%200424> More info: http://au.dk/en/brynskov@cavi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.fiware.org/private/fiware-oasc-iot-lsp-cities/attachments/20160912/55e17268/attachment.html>
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