Karsten Gerloff gerloff@fsfeurope.org wrote:
On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 06:47:47PM +0200, Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos wrote:
Hello, I was made aware of the following fosdem talk about EU research funding and free software: https://fosdem.org/2014/schedule/event/eu_research_funding/
My experience with EU projects is that it is infeasible for any small project to manage the bureaucracy required by the EU. Could FSFE assume that role? As far as I know all EU projects include funds for secretarial work, so that could be assumed by paid positions within FSFE. What do you think?
tl;dr: Participating in EU projects usually isn't an efficient way for FSFE to achieve its goals. It makes sense for FSFE only when the project is 100% aligned with what we're trying to do; and even then, the administrative overhead is a big problem. We usually don't participate in such projects unless there's a compelling reason to do so.
[...]
And boy, is there a lot of paperwork. I hear that things are supposed to have gotten slightly better with Horizon 2020, but it's still *a lot*.
That's fine if you're working at a decent-sized university department or a company. There's usually a staffer there who handles everyone's paperwork for EU projects. But if you don't have such a person, then the paperwork will kill you.
Sounds like the FSFE should have a staffer for this.
Fabian