Work Packages break down the project into manageable tasks and targets. Each work package represents a key activity area that will contribute to the overall objectives of your project.

To start, define your project’s components. Identify the major activities of your project, which are necessary to reach the intended impact, value and usefulness for your project’s determined beneficiaries. Then allocate these to distinct work packages.

Firstly, you will most probably have a separate work package on project management, including for coordination and administration tasks as well as the periodic reporting of the project for the European Commission.

Moreover, you will need work packages for the technical work of your project, i.e. activities which are necessary to achieve the project’s specific goals. Examples are a work package on citizen engagement activities, or on training and capacity building (within a CERV proposal), or a work package on the development of a prototype (in Horizon Europe or the LIFE Programme).

It will also be beneficial to assign a dedicated work package for communication and dissemination in your proposal. The EU usually explicitly requires a dissemination and communication strategy as part of project proposals, especially for programmes like Horizon Europe, LIFE and CERV. The European Commission assigns significant importance to the dissemination and exploitation of project results to maximise the project’s impact in order to ensure the uptake of the results by relevant stakeholders to enhance the projects’ sustainability.

Some further tips how to proceed when you are planning your work packages:

• Ensure that each work package directly contributes to achieving the project’s overall objectives. Each work package should have a clear purpose and be directly connected to one or more project goals.

• Assign responsibilities clearly to ensure the successful completion of tasks within each work package. Each work package needs to have a designated leader, i.e. either a project manager or a department. The responsibilities for the individual work packages should be allocated to partners with the most relevant expertise to allocate appropriate workloads and ensure resource optimisation.

• Clear timelines are important: Define when each work package starts and finishes and ensure that the work packages are scheduled logically, keeping inter-dependencies in mind. It is recommendable to use a Gantt Chart for the timeline, or a Pert Chart to also illustrate the relationships and dependencies between tasks.

• In the application form’s section on Risk Management, identify potential risks during the implementation of each work package, such as possible delays or obstacles. Describe suitable risk management strategies for each work package, outlining how to mitigate these risks.

• For each work package, you will need a minimum of one milestone and one deliverable, in practice usually more. The number of milestones and deliverables needs to be adjusted to the complexity of a project. Especially in larger projects a higher number of milestones and deliverables can be expected.

Finally, make sure that the work package align with the project’s overall goals and that they contribute to the expected impact and those EU priorities that are relevant to the Call for Proposal you are applying for. Therefore, the work packages should include activities that generate innovative solutions, recommendations, societal benefits etc. – in line with the Call’s requirements.