Anamaria Magri Pantea with participants
Sheena Bassett (PIN) and Holly Wright (ADS) attended a two day training course organised by COST in Brussels last week as part of the SHADE CIG in order to learn how to prepare the business plan for the future of the ARIADNE RI. They both found the sessions led by Anamaria Magri Pantea very stimulating and useful for focussing on the key aspects to be addressed. In addition, it was good to meet the researchers from the other projects and find out some more about their specific areas and ambitions. One team had developed technology for early warning systems for earthquakes and tsunamis, another was involved in aerogels which have a very wide range of applications, another team of scientists were producing reference materials for use in calibration of air quality monitors and the fifth team had developed quality assurance protocols for family support services, i.e. a social science application. Whilst there has been a previous project funded by the COST Innovators Grant from the Heritage sector which provided solutions for metal conservation, SHADE is the first project from the archaeology domain.
The training involved each team analysing different aspects to be considered such as who the customers were, how these might be segmented, what their needs are and what products and services was being provided by each project (and if there is a good match!). Several different types of business models were presented and it was apparent that the ARIADNE RI is actually more advanced than the other CIG projects in this respect as the basic subscription membership model is already established. The next steps are to build up this membership and provide the services required by the members, such as increased automation for data mapping and ingestion into the Portal. COST are providing further support and guidance over the next few months to develop the business plan which is one of the key outputs of SHADE.