START is an initiative aimed at

•  Disseminating aeronautics and space experience and heritage of the following Central and East European countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Rumania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey

•  Stimulating their research and technology in aeronautics and space in order to increase their participation in the current and future European Framework Programmes and particularly in proposals for integrated projects and networks of excellence.

START objectives are:

• To map the aerospace area in each of the above mentioned country and create a detailed database of researchers, research organizations, universities, industry parties, small and middle enterprises (SMEs), going down to single individuals, involved in aerospace activities or possessing aerospace expertise;
• To create, maintain and update an Aeronautics and Space Portal (ASP), containing the above mentioned database. This new portal will not duplicate the existing ones like CORDIS, EASN, AECMA etc. because ASP will be the first and only one that will contain in one place the entire aerospace information for the above listed countries;
• To strengthen the network of NCPs, researchers and liaison officers in these countries though the organisation of brokerage events and seminars ;
• To edit and publish an electronic Newsletter as a medium for the aerospace community in these countries;
• To save the aerospace experience, resources and heritage of these countries and favour their association and interactive cooperation in the shortest time possible and in a lasting and sustainable way;
• To promote the entry by SMEs, Women, and Graduate Students in aerospace research and industry enterprises;
• To contribute to the European Space Policy (White paper) objectives.

Project management

In charge of START management is the project coordinator STIL-BAS.

The main goal of the project management is to provide the successful co-ordination among work tasks so that they will follow the logical phases of the project's life cycle and for the strict observation of the delivery dates as well as to help for the allocation of resources.

In the management activities, the project coordinator is supported by two formal bodies:

•  Plenary Assembly and

•  Management board.

Each partner is represented in the Plenary assembly . Every partner has one equal vote, independent of project funding. The Chairman has the casting vote. A quorum is 50% of the project partners and votes are carried by simple majority. The Plenary assembly meets once a year during one of the seminars or brokerage events and has the following roles:

•  Inclusion and removal of member from the Management Board, if necessary;

•  Decision about including new participants, representing new countries or the existing;

•  Discharge of Management Board;

•  Updating of Consortium Agreement.

Management Board is the second body. Members of the Board are the project coordinator (chair) and another two participants in the project. The Management Board meets normally twice a year in person and performs telephone conferences every several months. Meetings in person are adjacent to other project events for keeping travel costs as low as possible. The Management Board has to:

•  Help project coordinator in management of the financial resources in order to meet schedules;

•  Ensure the quality management of the project;

•  Track costs related to budget;

•  Solve conflicts;

•  Ensure compliance with legal and ethical obligations.

The members are chosen according to their working time resource level within START. They are:

•  Tsvetan Dachev, STIL-BAS, Project Coordinator

•  David Zammit-Mangion, Brokerage events organizer

•  Sebnem Dogan responsible for the publication and distribution of START Newsletter

In order the project management to be successful the project co-ordination will try to maintain all the partners completely informed about the project planning and development. All the information (meeting minutes, visitors informs, tasks informs, interesting publications, etc.) will be placed on the project portal under the supervision of project co-ordinator. This communication strategy will lead to the maximum transparency of everybody involved in the project and will increase the co-operation synergy. The virtual management meetings and technical meetings will take an important role into the communication strategy.

Any query of the data and their interpretation will be clarified between the partners. All decisions concerning the modalities to carry out the project successfully will be discussed by all partners involved. In case of different unplanned in the project description issues, final decision will be carried out between the co-ordinator, management board and the participant involved.

 

Quality Management

The Project Quality Manager is responsible for the quality control in the project. He circulates a draft Project Handbook for the project priory to the first Management Board Meeting. The project handbook contains, as a minimum, procedures for documents procedures, standards and control; communication procedures; corrective actions; exceptional control; conflict resolution; meeting draft agenda; format of meeting minutes etc. Dr Thilo Schonfeld, representative of Centre National de Recherche Technologique Aeronautics & Space (CNRT-AE), Toulouse, France was appointed as quality manager.

START's dissemination plans are aimed at:

•  The Aerospace community and

•  The Strategic decision-makers:

•  regional development agencies,

•  governmental bodies,

•  user organisations, policymakers,

•  regulators and research funding bodies;

•  etc.

Thus, the project will affect and contribute to a broad spectrum of the community representatives, ranging from the policy-maker to the researcher. This broad targeting strategy will allow the optimal exploitation of the initiatives of START and thus maximise its impact on the community.