Supervisory Board

The FOCAL project relies on a set of bodies that ensures the technical and managerial implementation and monitoring of the activities. The technical management structure is composed of 5 main bodies:

• The Supervisory Board (SB),
• Work Packages Leaders (including technical WP Leaders, and the Training and Dissemination Coordinators),
• The Project Coordinator and the Project Manager,
• The external Advisory Board (AB),
• The Innovation Management Board (IMB).

The role of the Supervisory Board

The Supervisory Board, meeting twice yearly, is the ultimate decision-making body of FOCAL. It is responsible for:

• Resolving conflicts and addressing cases of scientific misconduct,

• Supervision of Doctoral Candidates: Recruitment, continuously monitor Doctoral Candidates research progress and provide them with feedback and comments,

• Overall progress monitoring and,

• Ensuring the scientific and technological training is balanced with transferable skills appropriate to the Doctoral Candidates.

The Supervisory Board will also be responsible for financial decisions at the consortium level, including use of budget to ensure mobility, implementation of the network-wide training events and the participation of invited speakers.

Composition of the Supervisory Board

The Supervisory Board is chaired by the Project Coordinator, Ali Khalighi, who has extensive experience in coordinating collaborative projects and an established collaboration with all FOCAL beneficiaries.

The Supervisory Board is composed of:

• Representatives from each of the Beneficiary and Associated partner organizations.
• Two representatives of the Doctoral Candidates: elected through vote. The Doctoral Candidate delegates will animate a forum for Doctoral Candidates to compare experiences and provide the SB with requests for Training and Scientific actions.

Finally, the Supervisory Board will be supported in its day-to-day management by the PMO, the Training Coordinator (Prof Robert Schober – FAU, WP5 leader), and the Dissemination Coordinator (who is also Ali Khalighi – ECM, as the WP6 leader), who will all report to the Supervisory Board.