LINQ is a research consulting firm dedicated to helping scientists realise and drive their projects towards successful completion. As an experienced project management partner, LINQ offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to assist research teams across the project cycle — from identifying the most suitable funding sources and enhancing the competitiveness of grant applications to managing and overseeing ongoing projects in diverse international programmes such as Horizon Europe, EDCTP, NIH, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, EIT Health, and IMI as well as national funding programmes in Germany and the United Kingdom.
At LINQ management, we appreciate that no two projects or institutions are ever the same, which is why we take great care to ensure that the services we offer are tailored to your particular requirements. Talk to us - we like to listen and are eager to find the perfect solution for you.
We keep things simple, enabling our partners to focus on the actual science, produce results that have an impact, and build networks that last.
We help you turn your ideas into projects, precisely align them with call requirements, and provide hands-on support in setting up competitive grant applications. The LINQ team can help you in every step of the proposal stage, by structuring the process, allocation of tasks and responsibilities, and reliable time management. We work with scientists to shape the project itself and the way it is being presented, and with administrations to complete forms and budgets. We set up management structures that match the complexity of the project and include all relevant bodies, define processes that allow inclusive and efficient implementation, and write the related proposal sections. Carefully designed dissemination and communication plans help optimise project impact. We are familiar with the different proposal platforms and manage them for you, do consistency and spell checks, and provide graphic support to ensure an impeccable appearance of the final proposal.
Always one step ahead, our work begins well before a project even starts: As soon as a grant has been awarded, we help you get ready and handle all things practical — we support you in responding to the funder, prepare contracts, manage paperwork, collect information and signatures, and make sure that the first payments are processed smoothly. During the project we stand by your side as a reliable partner that helps you focus on your research activities and maximise project outcomes. We set up workflows that make sense, create safe project workspaces, and manage external stakeholders. We understand the importance of clear internal communication, ensure that everyone knows their tasks and timelines, provide all necessary templates, ensure continuous documentation, and manage the reporting process — working closely with the admin departments of all partners. Our careful monitoring processes allow early identification of risks and challenges and help find innovative solutions. The LINQ manager is always within reach, for every individual involved in the project.
As a partner in your project we provide dissemination and communication support as well as guidance on the exploitation of results. To ensure that your project gets the visibility and attention it deserves we design tailored communication strategies for internal and external stakeholders and implement them with a hands-on approach. The plans we make include carefully-thought-out objectives, target audiences, tactics, channels, and tools. We coordinate dissemination and communication activities and ensure that all channels (website, social media, intranet) are in place and active. We craft copy for the website and social media, news articles, and press releases, with great attention to detail. By producing clear visual guidelines in the dissemination toolkit, we ensure that all project material has an appealing, professional, and coherent style. In addition, we help consortia lay the base of effective, project-wide exploitation strategies to maximise the exploitation of project outcomes.
Going beyond individual projects, we provide tailored advice, guide strategy development and support networking for your optimal approach to international research funding. We provide expert advice on global funding trends, identify funding opportunities that match your needs and help our partners find complementary expertise for their research endeavours. With our strong ties to renowned scientists and industry leaders in Africa, Europe and North America, we are well-positioned to tap our global network and create synergies. With our long-standing experience in publicly-funded research, we are also sought-after consultants when it comes to the implementation of funding programmes and work directly with funders to help optimise workflows, set-up new internal processes and improve programme guidance documents.
We love passing on our knowledge and experience through on-site or virtual trainings, ranging from workshops with hundreds of attendees to smaller, tailor-made events for individual grant holders or institutes. Our trainings and coaching sessions are either implemented directly with or for the funders or as part of our projects: Training on presentation skills or leadership courses for young scientists are offered as part of capacity building programmes. We facilitate best practice exchange with fellow managers and administrative units from partner universities, set up mentorship programmes, and introduce career or personal development plans for young researchers in our projects. Often these measures build on each other and are continued over several generations of projects. In addition, we offer specific trainings on our core competencies, which can be implemented independent of a funded project for a single customer, virtually or on-site, and optimally tailored to specific needs.