 Let's explore how to design a strategic partnership project that would make sense for project partners, ensure efficient implementation and achieve the expected results. There are many approaches to designing a project, and each consortium of partners relies on their previous experiences with similar projects. Usually, strategic partnership projects are implemented by organisations that have previous experience. So, partners know what works well and what does not when creating a structure of project activities. If you have never implemented a larger-scale project, do your research on the existing approaches to project design. There is no ideal fit-for-all project design. A good project design should most importantly be relevant to the project objectives, methodology, partners' experiences, duration and available resources. Project partners should first choose the best way to achieve the defined project objectives and create a project design based on it. Project partners may apply methodology used in a particular industry related to the nature of the output partners are aiming for. For example, if partners are creating an online product, they may want to apply a human-centred design approach. In this case, the development process should be broken down into five phases – Empathise, Define, ID8, Prototype and Test. If the whole consortium follows the same design thinking approach, then all products will be developed in this order. Activities like partner meetings, staff training or multiplying events would be naturally integrated in this approach and would take place when they are needed and support design-thinking-based project implementation. When using this framework, partners must identify when it makes sense to have the initial partner meeting, when the next meeting should take place to review the achieved results and prepare for the next phase. Partners must identify specific milestones of the project and decide when partners need an in-person meeting and when an online meeting is enough. Partners have to make an estimate of the project duration based on previous experiences or available knowledge about the development of similar projects. It is recommended to divide the development of intellectual outputs into more granular steps to realistically assess the required number and profile of staff members and resources necessary for the tasks planned. If the consortium or partners identifies the need for staff training, they should define when this training activity should take place within the entire project design. Training may be needed at the beginning of the project, if key staff members have to improve their competences for the development of intellectual outputs. Or, partners may need training for testing the new product or building competences to use that product in their daily activities. In this case, a training activity would rather be in the middle of the project. Project design is also influenced by a number of processes ongoing throughout the entire project. Communication among partners and with external audiences, monitoring, reporting, project visibility and dissemination of the results achieved. Let's take a look at the example. A good tool to visually design a project is the so-called Gantt chart, named after management consultant Henry Gantt. It allows defining activities within the timeframe. Let's imagine that a project lasts 24 months. One partner meeting could be planned during the first months of the project and one partner meeting at the end, which would be a moment to review the project outcomes and evaluate the project. Let's say we have two intellectual outputs, each broken down in three smaller phases, research, development and testing. It would be good to have one meeting towards the end of the first intellectual output and just before the beginning of the second one. Let's add a short-term staff training activity before the piloting phase of the first intellectual output to enable all staff members to get competent in testing the first output. Even when reporting should happen based on the management and reporting strategy. If you are producing intellectual outputs, you may ask for extra funding for multiplying events, which will give you extra opportunities for dissemination. A multiplying event takes place when intellectual outputs are ready. Partners need to decide if a multiplying event should happen locally or involve international community. Should it take place in one country or more? These are the decisions you must make when planning your strategic partnership project design. Make sure it is relevant and justify your design logic in the project proposal.