Strategic Counselling

Reviewing of the concept is the very preliminary step. Purpose of this initial phase is to analyse the feasibility of concept and to develop your long term sustainability strategy.

Activities will include:

•    Discussion around your current solutions and innovation roadmap.
•    Search the literature to identify concepts and innovation projects relevant to your R&D activities.
•    Identify existing and future suitable funding opportunities and potential partnerships.
•    Elaborate a report which will become the blueprint for possible grant applications.

Writing of the proposal is an important gating phase, that has to clearly communicate the potential of the innovative idea to allow easier access to financing.

We support you to:

•    Gather all the relevant official documentation with reference to: call for proposal and/or tender, work programmes, guidelines, regulations and law.

•    Understand European or national grant schemes, how the schemes work and the requirements in terms of partners, deadlines, etc.

•    Properly formulate the project according to the relevant grant criteria, identify any area of improvement and highlight the strengths underlining your innovative idea, in order to make the project attractive for funding.

•    Create the partnership with whom to undertake the project. CF consulting can advise on which organization and stakeholder could help to make the application successful, this includes for newcomers, support in the validation of partners. CF consulting can suggest forms of collaboration which do not prejudice your company’s competitive position.

•    Prepare the proposal template and the other relevant documents, in order to turn them into a competitive application. Writing of an application within deadlines can be a complex process around a proposal continuously elaborated in an improvement path, particularly for EU applications to be submitted with in depth details. CF consulting elaborates the initial draft of the project proposal starting from information gathered by the consortium, for subsequent amendments and final approval. These activities also include competitive benchmarks, work planning and resources allocation, financial planning, knowledge management, dissemination and exploitation planning.

•    Finalize with the appropriate Commission officials the Grant Agreement, and with the partners the Consortium Agreement and/or Joint ownership agreement preparation. The project coordinator and partners will be accompanied through all phases of the contract finalization.
This also includes elaboration of the technical annexes (project revision from a technical/scientific angle), the administrative and financial plan and all required legal documents.

Exploitation of the project results is another important pillar for the success of any R&D activity. CF consulting provides counsel to elaborate an exploitation plan aimed at spreading and sharing the project’s results (IPR management, new products, services, procedures, processes…) in order to facilitate the introduction into the field of application.

Among the major objectives for a EU funded project there are Innovation, Economic Growth and Employment creation within the European boundaries. Hence it is clear the importance of a professional exploitation of the project’s results, and it is fundamental to outline a comprehensive exploitation strategy at the proposal stage. CF consulting supports you to exploit your intellectual property (IP) resulting from the project’s activities, and assist to elaborate the exploitation plan and the business strategy, activating the network to attract the stakeholders belonging to your ecosystem.