Lars Josephsen

The Network Council held its third meeting in Kaunas (Lithuania), the 19^th - 21^st May 2008. Kaunas University of Technology hosted the meeting, and dean Viktorija Barsauskiene welcomed the Network Council to Kaunas and to the University. 12 out of 15 CINEFOGO countries were represented at the meeting.

Status of membership and division of CINEFOGO obligations

By 1^st September 2007 three new institutions joined the network as new members:

• Orebro University (ORU 50)
• Kaunas University of Technology (KTU 51)
• Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University (NSM 52)

Claire Wallace (UNIABDN 47) is appointed as the new national coordinator for UK.

SoE responsibilty

As the SoE platform has expanded within the last year the division of labour has been further refined:

• SoE coordinator: Martin Potůček, Charles University in Prague,
  
• Responsible of Outcomes Database: Marcela Janečková, Charles University in Prague,
• Scientific communication: Marta Nachtmannová, now at Roskilde University.

Relations to the Commission

Angela Liberatore has been reassigned to other tasks. Our current project officer is Jean-Francios Dechamp. Also the financial officer assigned to CINEFOGO has been replaced during the recent month.

Review of 2^nd year

The international coordinator presented highlights of the second year Review Report (RR), written by external experts Klaus Armingeon, Marisol Garcia and Susanne Verney.

Extracts from the Review Report

The RR acknowledges that the CINEFOGO Network undertakes a particularly large and complex project. The coordinators should be applauded for the way in which they have been able to keep it essentially on track, despite some problems with under performing partners.

During the reporting period, the NoE has advanced considerably in pursuit of its objectives. It has been very active in organising conferences and successful in integrating researchers, but less successful in promoting broader debates on citizen participation. Judged by the original promises of the NoE, more participation of non-academic actors would have been expected.

Thematic integration has been strengthened by making the three guiding themes (Identities, Values and Civic Culture; Civic Participation and Social Protection; Multi Level Governance and Civil Society) more prominent and relating work packages to them. However, beneath the common roof of the themes, there is a wide variety of work packages, which are only loosely coupled.

In the first annual report, the reviewers supported decentralization even at the cost of efficiency. The reviewers applaud the organizational decentralization and serious attempt to integrate partners especially from post-communist countries which has taken place. As anticipated, this has come with a price as some partners have been less active than originally expected.

The integration of ‘Spreading of Excellence’ and ‘Integrating Research’ has been strengthened, specifically through the creation of interlinked websites. However, a closer look at SoE suggests that the main focus has been the websites, which is a standard for distributing information to a wider audience. In other areas, the publication record needs strengthening, particularly in terms of articles in academic journals.

The Review Report offers a number of recommendations, concerning (a) integration of researchers, (b) academic content, (c) organization and (d) dissemination (cf. minutes).

Financial situation and WP activities

The managing director gave a status of the project’s financial situation and presented some examples of problems at the work package level. There was a call for further integration between WPs, and it was stressed that all WP teams should be represented at least at one of the two final conferences in spring 2009 (WP44 and WP45).

Reaching the stakeholders

There was a short discussion on how to reach stakeholders, and it was underlined that information on which stakeholders WP leaders have addressed, should be submitted along with all the other conference material to the international coordination team.

The NC agreed that it is important to make an effort to reach out to national policy makers in many member states. This would be particular important in relation to the final conferences, which should be relevant for policy makers and politicians at national as well at EU level. It was further agreed to introduce a stakeholder’s corner at the website, which would be an integrated part of www.cinefogo.org.

Policy briefing papers is another way of reaching the stakeholders, and NC agreed that such papers should be written by relevant WP responsibles already this summer, and they should - at the latest - be submitted together with activity report 1^st September 2008.

TRANSAACT training

It was suggested that the next TRANSAACT training should focus on how each WP could produce a Policy Briefing Paper based on their work.

The 3^rd year reports

The manager Inger Vibeke Dorph briefly outlined the requirements for the annual 3^rd year activity report and the management report, and reminded the Network Council members that an audit certificate for the 3^rd year is not required. The next audit certificate should be delivered in September 2009 covering the period from 1. Sept. 2007 – 31. August 2009.

Deadlines for Activity and Management reports: 15^th September 2008

The final report

To frame the discussion of last year of the Network the manager briefly outlined the re-quirements of the final report by going back to the original intentions of the EU work programme which CINEFOGO is a part of. Further details can be found at ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/fp6/docs/wp/sp1/g_wp_200202_en.pdf.

The final reporting requirements resemble the previous annual reports but in addition a number of items are needed.

• A summary which accumulates the project activities and results
• Final plan for using and disseminating the knowledge
• Summing up all publishable results year 1-4
• Final science and society reporting questionnaire
• Final reporting on the implementation of the gender action plan
• Final socio-economic reporting questionnaire

The network as a unit – thematic integration

3 items constitute the CINEFOGO Network:

• Websites. They are our face to the world – The CINEFOGO homepage, Student Corner, Outcomes Database
• Publications. They illustrate the major outcome of the Network’s work.
• Thematic integration of the WPs. Will be highlighted at the Final Conferences and through the coordination of activities during the last year.

The 3 thematic areas plus the WPs and their activities were briefly outlined by the thematic coordinators and it was discussed how to further integrate the WPs.

Spread of Excellence – scientific communication

Marta Nachtmannová gave a brief survey on how information about events is circulated: The WP responsibles submit the conference programmes, presentations, abstracts, working papers, and press releases to the international coordination team. Outcomes are then fed into the Outcomes Database and are thus made available to the public. The material is further distributed via the IconnectEU website to other related projects and simultaneously spread via Cordis at the EU level to reach the policy makers.

At WP level some cooperation with other network is taking place. Cooperation has also taken place with a number of other projects. Some examples: Recwove (WP13), Demonet (WP30), ISTR, EMES (WP34) and SUS-DIV (WP47).

The Outcomes Database - the CINEFOGO ‘Library´

The Outcomes Database administrator Marcela Janečková gave a presentation of the Outcomes Database, that is now available to the general public. (More details, cf. the minutes).

Ph.D. activities and Student Corner

These issues were briefly presented (Thomas Boje / Pernilla Hultén) and discussed.

The European Programme In Civil Society Leadership - EPICS (WP40)

The development of the EPICS programme was presented by Filip Wijkström and Stefan Einarsson. The aim of the programme is to to strengthen and enhance the strategic and analytical capacity of European civil society organisations. This is done by targeting civil society people with practical experience and offer opportunities to connect their actual experience with a theoretical basis concerning civil society and management.

CINEFOGO offsprings – the legacy and sustainability of our network’

At the NC meeting sustainability of the CINEFOGO Network was discussed and different core activities were mentioned as our offspring. (The EU funding for CINEFOGO NoE terminates 31^st August 2009).

Thomas Boje made one suggestion in relation to sustainablity of the Network activites: Creation of an ‘International Centre for Citizenship, Participation, and Civil Society’. Carlo Ruzza, who will be moving to Leicester University (UK) in 2009, is considering setting up a Research Centre there as well.

No call for new activities within CINEFOGO

There will be no call for new activities as such. As the CINEFOGO budget is allocated in accordance with activities some changes to the budget is likely to happen. Thus there will be a small surplus of funds to allocate to new activities. Activities which will have priority in distributing extra funding are activities which integrate or merge different WPs. Some of these extra available resources will be spent on producing the manuscripts accepted for publication in the Book Series and in organizing the Working Paper Series.

The complete minutes can be found at the Network’s website (cf. www.cinefogo.org) and at the CINEFOGO library, the Outcomes Database (cf. http://cinefogo.cuni.cz ).