ASSESS-HKH management

This research work is supported by the European Commission under the sixth Framework Programme contributing to priority "Specific measures in support of international co-operation, A.2.1. Managing humid and semi-humid ecosystems", STREP - specific targeted research or innovation project, contract number: INCO-CT-2005-003659.

ASSESS-HKH will address specific challenges of management, which are related to differences in culture between the partners, the long distance between the Asian and European partners, the complexity of the task and the unpredictability of certain parts of the work programme.

Each workpackage has a designated lead contractor, with most partners being responsible for the management of at least one workpackage. The lead contractor (also known as WP-manager) is responsible for the timely contributions of the other partners, although judgement of quality will be done on a group level. Planning, budgeting and management is taken down to the task level. A Steering Committee (SC) is consisting of one representative (or a nominated vice-rep.) per partner. The SC is a decision-making instrument in case of redirection of the research strategy or in case of occurring problems. The ASSESS-HKH management will be led by the co-ordinator, BOKU (Austria), and to some extent by UDE (Germany). The management will cover operative management including co-ordination of the technical activities, the implementing and controlling management and reporting infrastructure, as well as workshop and meeting co-ordination and moderation. The inter-Asian collaboration is facilitated by the HKH-FRIEND network through ICIMOD (Nepal).