Trayss Prime

Period covered from – to: 01/01/2007 – 30/06/2008
Start of project: 01.01.2007
Duration: 18 Months
Project coordinator name: Mr Frank Graage, SteinBeis Team Nordost
Co-Funding by: EU FP6

TRAYSS PRIME was intended to raise awareness among young scientists from the Baltic Sea Region in the opportunities and challenges of the management and commercialisation of research results, as well as the potential from international cooperation and EU funding within FP7.
During eight workshops, and one week long spring school, TRAYSS PRIME 262 participants were taught state-of the art management tools, including Research Management, Project Management, Intercultural Management, Innovation and Intellectual Property Management and the Management of FP7 Proposals and Projects. The courses were open for young scientists, and other interested knowledge workers in the entire EU and associated countries.

During the workshops, TRAYSS PRIME aimed at establishing personal contacts between the participants in order to initiate a network for future international cooperations between young scientists from the Baltic Sea Region. In addition, a virtual platform was established which included a web based forum, a newsletter and a website. This was hosted by the well established and highly visted ScanBalt website, in order to continue the contact between the participants, establish new contacts and attract further scientists. The website had also a key role in the dissemination of the collected knowledge and thus made the results and the contents of the project accessible to the wider community.

A continuous evaluation process during the entire duration of the programme was done to provide a better knowledge of the needs and problems of young scientists concerning project management, IP management and international research cooperations. The result will be the development of optimised modules for the future training of young scientists. These modules will be used by the consortium members in future workshops, to be held after the termination of the TRAYSS PRIME project.

Furthermore the project group has used Total Quality Management tools in order to optimise customer focus as well as the quality of the services. In addition, the knowledge acquired in the evaluation process was collated in a public report including recommendations for future actions in order to improve the situation and education of young scientists and to thus boost EU competitiveness in the Biotechnology field. It is intended to continue TRAYSS PRIME after the projects end as Top of Europe Research Management Network (TOE-RMN2) within the ScanBalt project Campus.

Result summary

• Creation of an overview of scientific conferences in the Baltic Sea Region from 2007 to 2008 and its organization teams,
• Organisation of four workshops in the field of EU FP7 application management (FP7/Cooperation) in Hamburg, Copenhagen, Gdansk and Turku,
• Organisation of two workshops in the field of research project management in Lapino/Gdansk and Berlin
• Organisation of two workshops in the field of commercial exploitation in Cracow and Copenhagen,
• Organisation of a one-week spring school in Erkner/Berlin that has covered all three topics plus bioethics, time management and conflict management,
• Organization of excursions to the pharma company Bayer-Schering AG and the German Parliament as integral part of the spring school,
• Training for 262 participants during eight seminars in the Baltic Sea Region and one one-week summer school,
• Articles on TRAYSS PRIME in important scientific and science-related publications, e.g. ScienceCareers.org and CELL
• Formulation of a strategy to implement a summer school (or similar) in the field of research management to the activities of ScanBalt Campus,
• Elaboration of a position paper draft about the importance and necessity of management knowledge for scientists in an early career stage, to be presented to the EC.