How FEUGA Built a Flexible Foundation for Growing European Innovation Programs
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PodioChallenge
As European projects and innovation services expanded, FEUGA needed remote access and a flexible way to connect projects, contacts, meetings and opportunities while improving reporting and tracking activity across its programs.
Solution
- Configured the Podio platform around FEUGA workflows, reducing the need for complex software development and extensive process redesign
- Connected 11 applications supporting project promotion, client management, activity reporting and organizational knowledge management
- Linked projects, opportunities, clients, contacts and meetings to preserve historical context across teams and departments, delivering a source of truth for the organization
Result
- Expanded from four initial users to 34, supporting collaboration with more than 300 external partners and clients
- Retained more than 10 years of structured, searchable organizational knowledge accessible across teams and departments
- Tracked 1,500 deals, more than 75 funded projects, 10,000+ meetings and 5,000+ events
Full Story
Challenge
Keeping Innovation Work Connected
At FEUGA (Fundación Empresa-Universidad Gallega), European project management connects many moving parts. The nonprofit foundation supports European funding, innovation initiatives, project development, proposal preparation and collaborative research involving universities, companies and public institutions. Nuria Rodríguez Aubo, Head of Innovation and European Programmes, leads a department of more than 20 professionals overseeing these initiatives.
Around 2015, FEUGA began negotiating a collaboration agreement with Galicia's Regional Ministry of Education to encourage university research groups to participate in European research and development programs. The initiative introduced more activities to track, including outreach to research groups, promotional efforts, meetings and advisory sessions, project ideas, submitted proposals and funded projects.
The team was also spending significant time traveling across Europe to meet researchers, universities and other stakeholders. Information needed to be accessible beyond the office. Team members needed a straightforward way to access and update it remotely.
FEUGA already had a customized information management system based on a traditional solution. It worked as a database, but offered limited flexibility for managing processes, tracking activities and reporting. Connecting related information across projects, contacts, meetings and opportunities was also difficult.
As FEUGA's activities expanded, these limitations became more apparent. The organization needed to turn a growing volume of individual activities into connected, structured information that could be monitored, reported, analyzed and retained over time.
What makes Podio unique for us is that we never had to adapt our processes to fit the software. Instead, we built a system around the way we work. That flexibility has always been one of its greatest strengths from day one, and it continues to be just as valuable today.
Nuria Rodríguez Aubo
Head of Innovation and European Programs at FEUGA
Solution
Building the System Around How FEUGA Works
Nuria arrived at FEUGA in 2014 with previous experience using the Progress Podio platform. When FEUGA sought a more flexible way to manage its expanding European projects and innovation initiatives, Nuria’s experience provided a useful starting point. The team was looking for a system it could customize around its processes without requiring complex software development.
FEUGA began using the Podio platform extensively in 2016 with four users. Rather than adapting established processes to a fixed system, FEUGA configured the platform to support its existing workflows. As Nuria explained, FEUGA "built a system around the way we work," with flexibility remaining valuable as its requirements changed.
That philosophy is evident in the main FEUGA Innovation workspace. It contains 11 interconnected applications that link information across different activities and stakeholders.
For European project promotion and monitoring, FEUGA registers project opportunities, tracks proposal preparation and funded projects and records interactions with researchers, universities and companies. Client and opportunity management links business opportunities and service agreements to responsible team members and prior promotional activities. For institutional reporting, structured information helps FEUGA monitor indicators required by public programs and agreements.
The same connected model supports knowledge management. Projects, contacts, meetings and activities can be retained historically instead of existing as disconnected records. According to Nuria, connecting information across applications is one of the team's most valued capabilities, providing historical context for projects, opportunities and client relationships.
That flexibility has allowed FEUGA to adapt the Podio platform as its needs have evolved, without replacing the system or undertaking major development projects.
Result
From Activity Tracking to Organizational Knowledge
The biggest change is not simply how much FEUGA tracks. It is how much of that information now remains connected and available to the organization over time.
What started with four users has expanded to 34 paid users across several departments, along with more than 300 non-paid users, including collaborators and clients. FEUGA reports more than 10 years of accumulated organizational knowledge stored in a structured, searchable format.
There is considerable scale behind that knowledge base. FEUGA has recorded 1,500 deals spanning services and projects, along with more than 75 funded projects in which the foundation participates as a beneficiary. Its environment contains records of more than 10,000 meetings and more than 5,000 events, alongside databases exceeding 4,000 organizations and 5,000 contacts.
For FEUGA, those numbers translate into several operational changes. Common workflows and data structures have helped teams manage information more consistently. Improved traceability makes it possible to follow opportunities, projects and client relationships over time and identify the activities and interactions associated with particular results. Connected information also provides context for operational management and strategic planning.
Knowledge retention may be the most lasting effect. FEUGA says critical organizational knowledge is no longer dependent on individual employees - it can remain accessible and interconnected across teams and over time.
That is a substantial evolution from the problem FEUGA originally set out to solve. Podio software was initially adopted to meet reporting and activity-tracking requirements. FEUGA now describes it as a central business platform supporting process management, knowledge retention, decision-making and collaboration across multiple departments.
About FEUGA
FEUGA (Fundación Empresa-Universidad Gallega) is a nonprofit foundation with around 50 employees. It supports European funding opportunities, innovation, project development, proposal preparation and collaborative research initiatives involving universities, companies and public institutions.
Many tools come and go, but Podio has remained valuable to us because we can continuously adapt it to our changing needs.
Nuria Rodríguez Aubo
Head of Innovation and European Programs at FEUGA