SUPERVAL, ICONIC and CONFETI at the Catalan Research Managers Forum
Communication managers from the three projects participated in the session “Management of complex projects”, explaining the experience of being part of a Portfolio.
On June 17, the 13th Catalan Research-Managers Forum convened over 400 specialists at the auditorium of the University of Barcelona for a day of sharing practices and debating on European funding. During the first parallel session of the morning, “Preparation and management of complex projects”, communication managers Arnau Jordà from SUPERVAL and ICONIC‘s Marta Martín presented the EIC ‘CO₂ & Nitrogen Management & Valorization’ Portfolio, focusing on practical approaches to coordinating EU projects with large numbers of partners.
A shared digital backbone and clear management in the EIC Portfolio
Jordà and Martín argued that the portfolio’s success depends on having a simple but well-defined governance layer. Each project chooses a Portfolio Manager, Innovation Manager, and Communications Manager. The three people make up a management team that can efficiently manage all eight projects. They said that this structure makes sure that important decisions, planning for how to use the data, and messages to the public are all done in a way that makes sense, but without making things too hard for the researchers.
The speakers illustrated how everyday collaboration is anchored in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint workspaces. This ‘virtual office’ is where work-package groups meet, documents are stored and version-controlled, and spending is tracked transparently. Externally, the portfolio maintains a single window for the public and policymakers: eic.co2nitrogen.eu. Its website offers interactive tools, videos, and a newsletter that comes out every three months. The newsletter shares interesting scientific facts and stories about how these facts are used. According to Jordà, this unified storytelling “multiplies visibility while letting individual projects keep their own identities”.