Cătălin Ştefan, Project Manager for POSDRU projects, co-financed by European Structural Funds, within SIVECO Romania, speaks on the rules to be complied with, in order to access structural funds, during an interview given to www.wall-street.ro.

What has a company to do in order to win a project financed from structural funds? Which is your experience in this field?

Cătălin Ştefan: SIVECO Romania has both the quality of applicant to POSDRU projects, co-financed by European Structural Funds, and the partner role. Such a case is the "Rural-Manager" project, developed in partnership with the National Foundation of Young Managers and the project "Training the trainers: a need for aligning to EU standards regarding the professional training in the railways sector", developed in partnership with CENAFER.

Based on the experience we acquired so far, we recommend to potential applicants for this type of projects to clearly define their ideas, based on the real needs of the target group. It is necessary that objective are SMART formulated (being Specific, Measurable, Approachable, Realist and Timely), to argue the financial sustainability and an integrated approach.

Summarizing, we can speak of three important rules:

First rule, and most important one, when transforming an idea into a project, is that the project is built in order to meet reality, as reality should not be disfigured in order to get a good project idea. Projects without serious substantiation in reality have big chances of failure during the implementation part. A project idea is feasible only if starting from there and imagining you have the financing contract already signed, you have enough arguments to see it successfully completed. A project/a project idea have to be based on a very solid documentation.

Second rule. Ever since the project idea phase, trust and clearly established collaboration rules have to exist between the project partners from the very beginning.

Third rule. It is feasible to take into account such a financing only if you can ensure a stable financial flow, starting from the reimbursement principle which says that you first make the expense and then retrieve it. The idea advanced by some consultants saying that there is money to be taken and it is easy to manage is totally untrue and does not quite apply in the real world of effective projects' implementation. When writing the financing application, one recommends the involvement of the future project manager ever since the beginning.

How did you manage internally, from the employees' point of view, the program "Didactical career in the knowledge society adapted to the NW region"?

Cătălin Ştefan: The implementation team of the project "Didactic career in the knowledge society adapted to the NW region" is composed of the management team (formed exclusively of employees of SIVECO Romania, experts in running complex projects), of the Partners' team (formed of members of the partners Didactic Staff House, institutions affiliated to the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sports -MECTS), the Trainers team (formed of experienced collaborators, dedicated to the training program developed within these projects).

In total, over 120 collaborators and partners work in the POSDRU projects mentioned above.

Up to now, did you encounter any logistical obstacle in running the projects? How did you manage it?

Cătălin Ştefan: We consider that, in order to successfully run the projects, a very good collaboration and communication with OIPOSDRU is necessary. Thus, it is important that the Project Managers' requests on projects currently under development should get an immediate answer from the OIPOSDRU officers, preferably in writing.

Also, given the novelty of these projects for Romania, there is a need for consistency regarding the rules set by OIPOSDRU and for coherent and sustained counseling of the projects' beneficiaries.

Last but not least, it is noteworthy the fact that running the POSDRU projects is affected by extrinsic factors. Thus, changes such as the name of the Ministry of Education brings along changes of the template documents necessary for releasing the accreditations for the target groups and leads inevitable to changes of some activities schedule.

Getting beyond such situations depends much on the partners' ability to manage difficult projects - a true art, which one gets to learn over time, under complex situations.

SIVECO Romania has in its portfolio numerous national and international projects where it has developed and improved the project management skills, at the highest level.