During the global COVID-19 pandemic, project implementation plans have become excessively difficult to execute as initially planned. The workload, giving the impossibility of meeting other team members, has been postponed and outcomes have become difficult to achieve within the specified time-frame. Project managers’ endeavors to possess better performance are under increasing scrutiny during global disruptive events. Therefore, several contingency measures should be taken into account in order to tackle and mitigate the effects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research seeks to fill this void. In particular, by taking the BENEFIT “Boosting Innovation in Education and Research of Precision Agriculture in Palestine” project as a case study, this research potentially attempts to explore how to manage project resilience during uncertain events, as well as identifying the different mechanisms to ensure project success.

BENEFIT is an international cooperation project funded by the Erasmus Plus of the European Union (Project #: 609544-EPP-1-2019-1-PS-EPPKA-CBHE-J). It seeks to facilitate knowledge transfer between European (Slovakia, Greece, Bulgaria and Czech Republic) and Palestinian Higher Education Institutions in the field of “agriculture”.

The research provides a practical understanding of how to manage international cooperation projects during uncertain times, and a guide for further similar actions. It is concluded that the project consortium engage in a number of practices in order to keep the project on track during uncertain situations, those are: revision and approval, adaptation, and goal-oriented monitoring. The findings also suggest that international cooperation projects can sustain resilience through maintaining efficient communication, information exchange, and flexibility across the project consortium. These mechanisms allow project partners to find constructive ways and context-specific approaches to carry out project activities, alleviate any raised problems, while addressing the negative implications caused by global issues such as COIVD-19 pandemic. The results of this case can be considered a modest step toward a more efficient and resilient project management of international cooperation projects during uncertain times.  

Conference Title

INTED2021: 15th annual International Technology, Education and Development Conference. INTED2021 Proceedings

Conference Country

Spain

Conference Date

March 8, 2021 - March 9, 2021

Conference Sponsor

Oracle Academy

Additional Info

Conference Website