WP5 ACTIVITIES, OUTCOMES AND PROGRESS

5.1 Quality control committee (QCC)

Established at the project kick-off meeting held in February 2020 and has been convened at each Steering Committee meeting.

5.2 Quality Assurance plan development with EU experts

The project Quality Plan was collaboratively developed by all BRITAE consortium partners and approved by the QCC at the 3rd Steering Committee meeting held in November 2020.

5.3 Preparation of independent reports of evaluation

The Independent Evaluator has been appointed and the first independent evaluation of the BRITAE project is currently in progress (status as of September 2021).

5.4 Twelve-monthly self-assessment

The self-assessment exercise for year 1 was carried out in January 2021 and the corresponding report entitled Year 1 Self-evaluation and Implementation Monitoring report was produced in March 2021 and its findings reported to the 4th Steering Committee meeting held in March 2021

5.5 Monitoring of timely implementation of project activities based on KPIs by internal and external evaluators

Work Package leads have been tasked with regular (6-monthly) reporting of their implementation progress for monitoring purposes against the project schedule and Quality Plan indicators. 2 rounds of implementation monitoring have been carried out to date.

Other – Based on the findings of the Year 1 Self-evaluation and Implementation Monitoring report WP5 team has published an extended abstract to Ruhuna QA Sessions 2021 entitled: How the COVID-19 Outbreak Affects the Quality of International Research collaborations – A case study of EU ERASMUS+ funded Building Resilience in Tropical Agro-ecosystems (BRITAE) project