Within the SD-WISHEES project, the Water Research Institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR), as the Coordinator, leads the Work Package (WP) of management of the consortium. CNR coordinates administrative, human, legal and financial resources of the project along with the relations with the European Commission as the granting authority of activities. CNR oversees the respect of ethical and gender issues of the project, ensuring a human rights-based approach, with the support of the associated partner Project Aid. Above all, the Coordinator guarantees cooperation and strong internal communication amongst partners, which is essential for the flexible, smooth and productive running of the project.

During the first 12 months of the project’s life, two meetings in presence with the entire partnership and nine officials’ meetings with the Work Packages (WPs) and tasks leaders were organized by CNR to foster participants interactions and coordination of activities.

In March 2023, the 16 partners coming from 12 different countries had the opportunity to meet for the first time in the Italian city of Bari during the kickoff meeting. Recently, in November 2023 over 30 consortium members met again – in hybrid mode – at the General Assembly in Paris (France) to discuss the progress of the first tasks on stakeholder mapping and literature review, which involved the great effort of all partners.

During the monthly-based Core Team Meetings, organized and chaired by CNR, the WP and tasks leaders update on the progress and implementation of activities and share common challenges, obtaining support and advice from each other. In order to guarantee an efficient and regular communication among each partner, the Coordinator in the first months worked on establishing communication channels and tools.

Regarding the management of the project, CNR supported in identifying for each WP the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which are used to measure the progress towards project objectives. It participated also in developing the Risk Management Plan that details procedures to anticipate, assess, handle and control potential risks that may ultimately jeopardize the achievement of project goals.

About the sensitive topic of data management, at the beginning of the project the Coordinator developed the Data Management Plan, which describes which types of data are generated by the project, and how that data is collected, handled and stored.