In our projects, we want to conduct applied, innovative educational research and development in order to be able to master current and future challenges in the best possible way and at the same time enable individual further development. We work with a wide range of international partners such as universities, private research institutions, companies, agencies, chambers and many other important players to implement concrete ideas in projects.
The project cycle
Meist sind es bei uns mehrere Projektideen, die vor einer Einreichfrist zu Tage kommen. Am Puls der Zeit entwickeln wir Lösungsansätze für gegenwärtige und zukünftige Problemstellungen in Gesellschaft, Bildung und Arbeitswelt.
Das grobe Konzept wird kurz und spannend aufbereitet und es werden Partner für das neue Vorhaben gesucht. Da geht es vor allem darum, welche Expertise für die Umsetzung der Projektidee notwendig ist und wer dementsprechend ein guter Fit wäre. Den Auserwählten wird die Kurzbeschreibung geschickt und wenn das Interesse der Idee überschwappt… It’s a match!
Da viele Menschen voll von vielen Ideen sind, treten auch oft Partner an uns heran, um uns ihre Projekte vorzuschlagen und fragen, ob wir diese Idee mit unserer Expertise mitentwickeln und mitgestalten wollen.
Such a project with a duration of between 8 and 48 months requires appropriate financing, which we apply for through various funding channels. Funding bodies usually specify criteria for a call for proposals, such as duration, minimum number of partners and deadline for submission of a draft. This document usually comprises between 50 – 80 pages. Writing an application is actually a nice, creative job, but unfortunately it usually involves time pressure, because an application rarely comes alone.
After submitting the proposal, you have to be patient. It often takes 3-6 months to find out whether the submitted idea is worthy of funding. When you’ve almost forgotten what the project idea was about, you’ll get either a hurrah or a woe-is-me answer.
Now things really get going. All partners are invited to a kick-off event to get started with the project. After that, the individual activities in the project are worked through and concrete results emerge. Although a project proposal specifies all the steps in the project in great detail, there can still be changes every now and then. During the project, the aim is to communicate as much as possible about the project and the results so that the target group and the general public can benefit from it. Furthermore, prototypes such as digital tools, learning apps and new courses have to be tested and tried out in practice. In between, there are always project meetings in the different partner countries if it is an international project…a nice benefit in our job.
After the project is finished, there is usually a follow-up project or a new idea is developed in the partnership.
