Innovation Project Manager

ABOUT US 

Helixconnect is a specialised international consultancy that works on research & innovation projects. We started the journey in 2020 and we now operate through two companies: Helixconnect Europe in Romania and Helixconnect Balkans in Serbia.

What we do, in plain terms: we help universities, schools, training providers, companies, NGOs and public bodies get funding for innovation & training projects, and then we help them run those projects properly. Sometimes we lead a project ourselves. Sometimes we are one partner among ten.

Our purpose is to connect organisations in Western Balkans and Eastern Europe with the wider European and global innovation and education system. In practice that means we spend our days writing funding applications, producing reports and training materials, running workshops, and keeping international partners moving in the same direction.

We are a small and flexible team. Most people here write proposals and run projects at the same time. There is no large administrative department behind us, which is exactly why we are creating this post.

WHAT OUR PROJECTS LOOK LIKE

We work mainly with Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe funding, plus related European programmes. A typical project lasts two to four years, has between six and sixteen partner organisations from across Europe, and produces a defined set of outputs: concrete innovations (i.e. new tools, products, or solutions to industrial and societal challenges), training courses, curricula, guidance documents, digital tools, policy recommendations, pilot activities and events.

The subjects change constantly. Recent and current work includes:

•   skills and certification for welding and advanced manufacturing

•   training for the maritime sector, including recognition of qualifications across countries

•   vocational education for aviation and aerospace

•   modernisation of universities, including a capacity building project with universities

•   sustainable and circular practice in the textile industry

•   inclusive design of public spaces for older residents

•   artificial intelligence, digital tools and wellbeing in education and youth work

•   and all this all over Europe and beyond ! 

We do not expect the new colleague to be an expert in these fields. What matters is being able to take unfamiliar material from a partner, understand it quickly enough, and turn it into something clear, correct and on time. Our year has a rhythm. December to April is the busiest period, because most application deadlines fall then and implementation continues at the same time. June to August is much quieter.

THE ROLE 
We are looking for a Project Officer to take responsibility for the administrative and reporting side of our project portfolio, and to carry out the more straightforward parts of project implementation.

This is the backbone role in a consortium. When it is done well, deadlines are met, documents are complete, partners know what is expected of them, and the senior team can concentrate on writing and on content. When it is missing, everything runs late and reporting becomes painful.

You will work across several projects at once, typically five to eight at any given time, at different stages of their life cycle. You will be in regular contact with partner organisations in a number of European countries, and with the national agencies and EU bodies that fund our work.

This is not a role where somebody hands you a finished list of instructions each morning. You will be given templates, rules and deadlines, and expected to keep things moving without being chased.

EXAMPLES OF TASKS 

Project administration and coordination
•   maintain the master calendar of deliverable, reporting and meeting deadlines across the portfolio

•   track progress against each project's work plan and flag slippage early

•   prepare agendas, chase inputs, take minutes and follow up on agreed actions for partner meetings

•   keep project files, folders and shared drives complete, current and audit ready

•   collect attendance lists, participation records, signed documents and evidence of activities from partners

•   act as the day to day contact point for partners on administrative matters

Reporting
•   draft interim and final reports for submission to funders, working from partner inputs and project documents

•   prepare internal progress reports for the team and for project coordinators

•   compile quality assurance reports, including running feedback surveys and summarising the results

•   check partner contributions against what the grant agreement actually requires, and send them back when something is missing

•   prepare dissemination and communication reports, including collecting figures on reach and participation

Financial administration
•   track budget consumption against the approved budget for each project

•   collect and check timesheets, invoices and supporting documents from partners

•   prepare cost tables and financial annexes for reports, in the format the programme requires

•   flag issues such as underspending, ineligible costs or the need for budget reallocation

•   liaise with our accountant, who remains responsible for statutory accounting

This is project financial administration, not accounting. You do not need a finance qualification, but you do need to be comfortable and accurate with numbers in a spreadsheet.

Project implementation
•   produce the more straightforward project outputs: guides, toolkits, summary documents, presentations and short reports

•   edit and standardise material written by partners so that a deliverable reads as one document rather than eight

•   carry out desk research and simple data collection to support outputs written by colleagues

•   support the organisation of workshops, training sessions, study visits and online events

•   help maintain project websites, newsletters and social media output

Proposal support
•   assemble the administrative parts of funding applications, including partner forms, declarations and mandates

•   maintain up to date partner profiles, organisation descriptions and expert CVs

•   check applications against eligibility rules, page limits and formal requirements before submission

•   over time, and if you want to, begin drafting sections of proposals yourself

Internal work during the quiet season
June to August is deliberately used to build internal capacity rather than to idle. In that period you would work on things such as:

•   consolidating our partner, expert and contact databases

•   building a reusable library of proposal text and standard organisation descriptions

•   cleaning up templates for deliverables, reports and quality assurance

•   assembling an archive of project results for reuse in future applications

•   tidying documentation so that any audit can be answered quickly

This work is written into the role on purpose, so that the summer is productive rather than aimless.

CANDIDATE PROFILE 

Essential
•   Excellent written and spoken English. You will write documents that are read by European institutions and by partners across the continent. We will test this as part of the selection process.

•   Organisation and follow-through. You can hold many parallel deadlines in view, work from a template, notice that an annex is missing, and politely chase a late partner for the third time.

•   Fast learning across unfamiliar subjects. You can read rough partner input on a topic you knew nothing about last week and produce a clear, structured text by Friday.

•   Tolerance for rules and detail. Programme guides, eligibility of costs, unit cost categories, documentation requirements. Some people find this satisfying and some find it unbearable. We need the first kind.

•   Confident spreadsheet use and basic numeracy. Comfortable building and checking budget tables in Excel or Google Sheets.

•   Diplomacy. You will often be a junior person asking professors, directors and public officials to do something they have not done. That takes tact and persistence in equal measure.

•   Ability to cope with uncertainty/ambiguity. You will often be subjected to lack of clear instructions/guidelines and will need to take decisions on your own.

•   Serbian at working level, for national activities and local partner contact.

•   A completed university degree (or towards completion) in any field.

Desirable
•   previous experience with EU-funded projects, from any angle: a university international office, an NGO, a development agency, a chamber of commerce, or a company that has been a project partner

•   familiarity with Erasmus+ or Horizon Europe rules and terminology

•   experience with reporting portals and project management tools

•   basic design or communication skills, for example producing a decent presentation, a leaflet or a newsletter

•   a further working language, particularly Romanian, Greek, German or Spanish

•   experience as a participant in an Erasmus+ or similar projects

What we offer
•   a full time position with a six-month initial contract, an explicit review, and the intention of a long-term relationship

•   a clear progression path. Year one is mostly administration, reporting and lighter implementation. Towards the end of year one you begin co-writing proposal sections. After that, ownership of a work package and eventually of whole projects

•   exposure to a wide portfolio of European projects and a large international network, which is unusual in a role of this level

•   a small team with short decision chains and no unnecessary hierarchy

•   flexible working arrangements and a realistic approach to the quiet season

•   travel to partner meetings and events across Europe

•   a true non-corporate environment

How to apply

Please send a CV and a short cover (motivation) letter in English, of no more than one pageelectronically. In the cover letter, tell us about one occasion when you had to organise something complicated involving other people who did not report to you. Shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a short written task. Helixconnect Balkans DOO is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all applications on merit.