János Vajda

15+ years' experience in project management

My involvement with EU's framework programmes for research and technological development started when Hungary became and associated member of the 5th Framework Programme and I started working as a Programme Co-ordinator at the University of Debrecen and assisted researchers, research teams, SME's, etc. in participating in the 5th and later in the 6th FP.

I moved to Belgium in 2008 and worked for a consultancy where I contributed to the administrative management of EU-funded projects, the most prominent of which was U-BIOPRED an IMI-funded project

Currently, I work as a freelance Project Manager. My biggest assignment is PACE, a flagship project financed by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, FCH JU where I am responsible for the financial and administrative co-ordination in support of COGEN Europe, the coordinator of the project.

In addition to EU grants, I also work as a freelance Localization Project Manager for Medtronic, one of the world's largest medical technology companies.

I have worked on a large number of EU-funded projects/assignments in different thematic fields and in different roles. Below is a selection of the latest ones.

PACE

The project

is a € 90 million public-private project co-funded by Horizon 2020

PACE is a five-year project that will deploy more than 2,800 of the next generation Fuel Cell micro-Cogeneration units in 10 European countries by 2021. The project brings together the five leading European suppliers (BDR Thermea, Bosch, SOLIDpower, Sunfire and Viessmann), and will focus on customer homes and small enterprises.

My role in the project

is to support the coordinator, COGEN Europe in managing all non-technical aspects of the project. This includes among others
  • being the single point of contact between project partners and the donor organization, the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen 2 Joint Undertaking
  • managing the budget of the project including the coordination of financial reporting and making payments to partners
  • coordinating the technical reporting of the project including the preparation of templates
  • following up on the status of deliverables and the submission of completed deliverables
  • organizing regular project meetings (both in-person and via the web)
  • advising partners on applicable financial regulations (e.g. costs eligibility, time recording, etc.)
  • carrying out all other tasks needed for the progression of the project

Innovation and Business Management Training

The proposal

is a tender submitted in response to a call by EASME-Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. This tender has been submitted recently and the evaluation process is currently ongoing.

My role in the process

I was tasked by the coordinator to make sure that the tender meets all eligibility criterie set forth in the call for tenders. As part of this assigment I
  • prepared a budgeting tool that allowed the quick, project-level integration of costs prepared for specific tasks in a bottom-up approach
  • collected all the supporting documents (financial viability, tecnhical competence, etc.) required in the call text
  • supported the coordinator in all other tasks

Diana Hresko

Over 20 years of experience in EU funding project management in broad range of EU funding schemes (Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 and previous FP`s from FP5; Interreg NWE, Erasmus+, Life+, JU ECSEL, former JTIs, etc.) in different environments from large industry, universities to SMEs (example of clients: University of Eindhoven, Maastricht University, University of Rotterdam, NXP, Signify, Thales, Cogen Europe)

Small scale and complex projects: consortium management, technical, financial reporting, financial planning, monitoring, development of tools, audit, EC audit, project admin, status assessment, communication, risk management, deliverable  management, chairing consortium meetings, etc.

Leading compliance advisor of in-house Subsidy Offices

Supported and successfully closed more than 120 EU-funded projects, prepared/reviewed more than 400 financial statements

As a Senior Compliance Advisor at PNO Consultants (the Netherlands), I provided project management, EU compliance services, advice for different organisations (large industry, research organisations, universities) on different EU-funded projects (as an external expert or seconded consultant) from small scale to large scale complex projects which included:

  • consortium management issues,
  • financial and technical reporting, monitoring methods, tools,
  • contract amendments, financial management,
  • preparing financial statements, audit, EC audit,
  • set up project quality processes, internal project management, status assessment in different schemes FP7; JTIs –ENIAC-ARTEMIS – FCH; CIP IEE, Eco-innovation, Life+, Erasmus +, Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 and previous FPs FP7&FP6; Interreg NWE

Throughout the years I got the  opportunity to gain extensive experience in executing projects in different environments, with different players, I have learnt to speak the languages of different stakeholders and I could be part of the constantly changing challenges of the grant management practice between 2003-2024.

I have been always enthusiastic about my job and trying to find good approaches to tackle challenges with mutual agreement of several stakeholders.

I have recently joined Tilburg University as a project manager where, among others, my main tasks cover to support grant applications from implementation point of view
and to manage ongoing funded projects.