Hiring an EU Funding Consultant requires careful planning. Clients must consider how they will work with the Consultant and other project collaborators to make the most of the time invested in their application for funding. It helps to understand that Funding Consultants cannot do all the work themselves. Clients need to set aside time to discuss their goals, answer technical questions about their work, evaluate suggestions from the Consultant and produce and execute a strategy based on those discussions.

General Tips

There are general aspects of proposal development that you need to consider when writing an EC Proposal for Funding

The EU provides funding for a broad range of projects and programmes covering areas such as regional and urban development, employment and social inclusion, agriculture and rural development, maritime and fisheries policies, research and innovation, humanitarian aid.

Winning EU Funding is an extremely competitive process. While an outstanding project is an absolute must, the skills to sell an idea to the funders and knowledge of the EU policy context are equally important, as well as managing and delivering a project when it has been financed.

Evaluators are experts in charge of evaluating proposals, including ethics review experts. The evaluator provides individual scores and comments for each evaluation criterion that are described in the call documents and work programmes. The evaluators may also be invited to consensus meetings where the awarded scores are discussed and a consensus report is prepared.

Corruption in Ukraine remains endemic – Transparency International ranked Ukraine as the world’s 142nd most corrupt country out of 175 in 2014 – but the tide has started to turn.

Public Tenders

The size of kickbacks is currently at around 15% in 2015. In 2014 two islands of corruption in state procurement remained – that was [state-owned gas producer] Ukrgazvidobuvanie and Ukrainian Railways.

Rent seeking schemes

As globalisation progresses, urban regions are emerging as key players in the world economy. Therefore, the pursuit of competitiveness in urban regions has become a major local and national policy objective. Cities increasingly compete with one another, and with other cities around the world, to attract innovative investments and knowledge activities. Meeting the challenge of competitiveness requires certain conditions, among which:

Out of 175 countries

Key Principles

1. Acknowledge that there is no magic formula
2. Acknowledge the luck in having the right people, at the right place at the right time in government, and be prepared to capitalize on opportunities that come up
3. Be patient, as change happens slowly. Policy change can require persistence and a lot of hard work
4. Cultivate positive relationships

Three Steps

1. Research the political and public policy context which your issue fits

1. London Metropolitan Area : 13,709,000 (Pop)
2. Paris Metropolitan Area : 11,175,000
3. Ruhr Area (Essen-Bochum-Dortmund) : 5,376,000
4. Madrid Metropolitan Area : 5,263,000
5. Milan Metropolitan Area : 4,136,000
6. Barcelona : 4,082,000
7. Berlin : 4,016,000
8. Athens : 3, 761,000
9. West Midlands (Birmingham : 3,683,000
10. Rome Metropolitan Area : 3,190,000
11. Rhein-Nord (Düsseldorf-Neuss) : 3,073,000
12. Rhein-Süd  (Cologne/Bonn Region) : 3,070, 000
13. Katowice Metropolitan Area : 3,029,000