Narrative Ecology – Blog of Ron Donaldson – fACILITATOR, TRAINER AND COACH

It has been an exciting week in which I spent two days, alongside Alan from Argenta-Europ in Brussels meeting the other members of the consortium. After waiting months to hear, it has finally been confirmed that we have been successful in our bid to deliver an FP7 project on behalf of the European Union. Our particular project is “Empowering European Aeronautical SMEs to Participate in EU Research” for which the abstract explains:

SMEs [Small – Medium Enterprises] and SOs [Small organisations] are often the hotbed of innovation but harnessing the potential to drive the European Aerospace business forward in line with Framework strategy is no easy task. This project tackles the shortfall in SME/SO participation in innovative collaborations with industry primes and FP7/FP8 projects by tailoring proven methods of improvement into the SME-AERO-POWER project.

This is my first ever foray into EU projects which is a complete new world of collaborations, partnerships and funding streams. Run over two years this will be a great opportunity to travel, meet, facilitate and share learning across the SME-Aero community as it already exists and as it emerges from our efforts over the coming months. My biggest thrill was to see the words and offers we (Argenta) had added to the bid appear with such high profile in the project summary slides.

I hope to blog our progress throughout and share any lessons learned, so watch this space.