Interview to Isella Vicini for domini.it

On November 5th, our Dissemination Manager, Isella Vicini, was interviewed by the Italian domain provider Register.it to talk about SINTEC project and the importance of a good online presence for EU funded projects. Here is the full translation of the interview published on the blog Domini.it!

Good morning Ms. Vicini, can you tell us a little about your company and what you do?

Isella Vicini: Warrant Hub, part of Tinexta Group, is a company that for 25 years has been providing counseling to companies for subsidized finance operations and in support of innovation and development projects. In particular, the Business Unit of Warrant Hub, European Funding Development, which I have been managing for 12 years now, aims to assist companies in accessing research and innovation calls promoted by the European Commission according to the rules of the various programmes: at the moment Horizon 2020, and Life Programme, and from next January 2021 Horizon Europe.

We have also developed, also to help our customers, the ability to enter directly into consortia by carrying out various roles from Project Management to IPR Management up to the management of communication and scientific dissemination activities. This is the case, for example, of the SINTEC project, finalist at the 2020 .eu web awards, on which we have worked since the concept and in which we participate as managers of communication activities as well as administrative management.

Why did you decide to register a .eu domain?

Isella Vicini: Often, within the projects we participate in, we are responsible for the communication activities and development of the related websites. We always use the .eu domain to give our sites a clear European identity and guarantee them visibility that goes beyond national borders.

How important do you think it is to have an online presence for a European research project? What are the opportunities of the web and the risks of not being online?

Isella Vicini: Being present online, even for a research project, is essential. The European Commission is very attentive to the activities of promotion, communication and dissemination of the results that are done online because it is essential that everyone, from the expert in the sector to the ordinary citizen, knows that the public funds made available by Europe are used to obtain benefits and technologies usable by the community.

The web offers the opportunity to reach different targets related to your research project and to communicate with them quickly and with a dedicated language; on the other hand, the risk is to turn to the wrong target, who is not interested in the content you share, investing time and resources in a wrong and inefficient way. The online presence and the English language, used in all the sites of our projects, are characteristics that allow us to break down national borders and create a sense of unity and belonging to a common place: Europe.

How has your business changed during the lockdown linked to the Covid emergency?

Isella Vicini: Our business, which in any case was already mainly carried out online, with the lockdown became completely online. In the beginning, several events were canceled; now, instead, we organize virtual events that have become the norm. The relationship with the customer has also changed: we were already used to organizing remote meetings with our foreign customers but with Italian customers, on the other hand, we preferred to maintain relationships in person. With the lockdown, everything became virtual.

You are among the finalists of the 2020 .eu Web Awards: how did you find out about the competition and why did you decide to participate?

Isella Vicini: We learned about the competition from social networks: we saw posts from European projects sharing their participation in this competition and we thought we could try one of our sites too. The SINTEC project website was selected in June 2020 and in just 2 months it received so many votes that it was among the finalists. The fact of being appreciated by the public is already an excellent result; we look forward to December 16th to meet the winner, fingers crossed!

What are your future projects on the internet?

Isella Vicini: For the SINTEC project, we have recently started a blog and we will make a series of videos that will show the tangible results produced by this project. We also have several events scheduled for 2021 that we plan to organize in attendance but we are still evaluating an alternative plan to carry them out online. Moreover, since few days we have learnt that some projects presented months ago have been funded: for these projects, we will begin to develop a differentiated and targeted communication strategy that will focus on online activities and will include the development of dedicated platforms, obviously .eu!