CLUB ORIZONT

TESTIMONIALS

 
 

I have been participating in the Club Orizont Club for nearly a year now. The experience has been very positive. I would say that the key advantages are the openness between members, the willingness to adapt, deliver bespoke services and improve as the programme progresses. The variety of sessions and participants prove a useful mix to suit individual needs.

Professor Nik Bessis, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Edge Hill University

 
 

Membership in Club Orizont workshops allows its members to be more familiar with how grant managements works, how to be the most successful in applying for a project grant, and dealing with finances. On the other hand it is a unique way to meet people from abroad in similar situations, furthermore opens up a potential university partnerships and worldwide internationalization. 

Daniel Nemec, Moravian Business College Olomouc

Being a member of the Club brings us a unique opportunity to get more familiar with various funding schemes in Europe and worldwide. It is also a great chance for us to meet colleagues from different universities and contexts whilst sharing the same passion for international collaboration.

Vit Paszto, Moravian Business College Olomouc

 

Club Horizon it is one of the most interesting initiatives of CCG. For Romanian-American University it was (and is) a great opportunity to find new partners, to explore new areas of interest, to be part of different workshops, to learn from partner’s experience or to share our own experience in different topics. On the other hand, our experience with CCG representatives it was a very nice one: proactive people, very supportive, professional approach.

Ovidiu Folcut, Romanian-American University

 

A view from the jungle of EU funding

Recently the lesser spotted bid writer has been spied successfully working with universities on Horizon Europe and Universities Alliances application. With the hide of a rhino, the patience of a Komodo dragon, the humour of a laughing hyena, yet as fierce as a red lynx, the lesser spotted bid writer was, like a mountain gorilla, in danger of extinction, but could be tempted down from the trees to work with universities.

As that bid writing team, working as part of Club Orizont in the Cormack Consulting Group, we bring some essential things to applications and to the consortia working on the application:

  • We are impartial and can take decisions that others would struggle to make sometimes, because of the consortia team dynamics - you may have worked together for years and don’t want to offend

  • We can even act as a referee where required

  • We can take conceptual thoughts and workings and develop outline objectives and a technical work plan. In many cases, academics struggle with turning the concept into the sausage factory that is Eu funding (objectives, tasks, activities, milestones, deliverables)

  • We can write all the non-technical aspects of the application, and bring a shopping bag of tools, resources, and techniques developed over years

  • We take a secretariat role, chasing up teams within universities for documentation, CVs, research specialisms, accounts etc.

  • We can find new partners and build up the consortium, strengthening the skills and expertise

  • Coming from a project management background, we are able to understand and empathise about delivery and remove any dogma.

Speak to any of the university consortia we’re worked with and they’ll tell you that we got it done, we submitted it successfully on time, we worked hard together (often with tight deadlines), but there was a lot of humour and mutual respect.

So if you see the lesser spotted bid writer, invite him or her in; you might end up with a successful Horizon Europe application as a result.

Roger Horam, Club Orizont trainer