igor.razbornik Sometimes you need to go outside of the box with thinking to show what is really happening in your life. Today we will play with the Lego cubes, and I’m going to show you why your application is not funded. And I will show it in a way that you will never forget it again …
In the past two years, I’ve been working with approximately 100 teams to help them prepare their Erasmus + application. When I first saw their applications, I had the feeling that somebody threw a bunch of Lego cubes at me and told me if I liked it.
Like what?
And then the answer came – can’t you see it? Here is a man, there is an animal, here is a building and the fence … everything is here. So do you like it?
At that point, I saw their problem. They are leaving evaluator to find the evidence about the project in their looooooooooong and unorganized text.
This means that you just missed the opportunity to make evaluator your fan.
So, how do you correctly present your project to the evaluator!
- 1. Start with the project vision.
In the beginning, start with your vision. Vision is everything; it is a structure of your project and evaluator needs to know what you want to achieve with the project. If you adequately start with your vision, everything will be much easier later.
- 2. Explain the context
Project applicants often forget that the evaluators maybe are not experts in the field or your project. Along with that, every evaluator signs a document where reeds: You should make an evaluation only based on the evidence provided in the application, not based on your knowledge and expertise. What does that mean? It means that you need to explain the project like you would explain it to your grandmother!
- 3. Explain the problem
If you are doing a KA2 project, that means that you are solving a problem. So explain the problem in a way that would be understandable. You also need to provide the evidence that shows the existence of this problem from a reliable source, from University Research or academic paper or maybe from statistics. If you fail that step, you will probably fail the complete project as well.
- 4. Who is the target group? Who is affected by the problem?
When you’re explaining the problem, you also need to say who is affected by this problem. That way, the evaluator will know whose problem you are solving and why you need to solve it.
- 5. The needs of the target group
Here the real project starts. When you describe the target group, you also need to explain what needs these target groups have. This is essential for later steps because it creates a foundation for your future intellectual outputs, your results.
- 6. What other projects already did in this field?
Probably you are not solving the same problem for the first time. You need to tell evaluators what other teams with their project already tried. It would help if you showed that you have a complete overview of the field, so you are capable of suggesting other options. Teams are often afraid to write about other projects because they think that evaluators might not like their project. But the truth is – the evaluators need to know that you are a capable player. And a capable player knows other solutions.
- 7. Now is the right time to explain your solution.
And don’t forget that you also need to explain why this solution is the best solution ever. Ultimately you will need to prove this statement with achieved indicators in the implementation. Still, it would be best if you were confident that your project is an effective way to overcome the problem.
- 8. Don’t forget to explain the consequences of your project.
That part needs to correspond with a vision of the beginning of the project. If you did everything correctly, the evaluator should see the connection between the vision, your solution and consequences which your project will have on the world. And that is a winning approach.
So, how do you like your projects?
Structured or ….?
