Story

Mastering the unfamiliar: leadership in a land of complexity

The Challenge

Engaging with the European Commission through EU consortia projects or structural funds offers government agencies major benefits. It enables early access to EU policy developments, helping shape agendas that directly affect Ireland. Financially, it brings in non-Exchequer funding, supports co-investment and eases budget pressures. These collaborations also foster international partnerships, raise institutional profiles, and provide access to cutting edge expertise and innovation.

The EU system is vast, technical and difficult to penetrate without prior experience. This makes accessing EU programmes for the first time particularly challenging, requiring knowledge to navigate complex EU funding systems and bureaucracy, plus the networks, profile and credibility needed to be successful in highly competitive funding applications.

The Approach

Leading this agenda as the CEO of a State agency, Futurus partner Paul Healy invested considerable time simply understanding how it all worked: the funding streams, the jargon, the compliance rules, while also building internal capacity from scratch. He appointed an executive lead, stood up a new team and aligned the narrative of the agencies work with the priorities of the EU. Rather than applying to lead projects, he joined existing consortia and partnered with more experienced organisations to learn from them. Managing this complexity, across unfamiliar systems, institutional silos and cross border collaboration, required patience and importantly, tenacity.

The Shift

Progress felt slow and often uncertain, but gradually credibility was built, new networks were established and a foothold was gained in the EU space. All told this resulted in the agency becoming a major Irish player in EU structural funding, securing a €56M ESF package, a €26M Brexit Adjustment Reserve package and a participant in a host of EU consortia projects spanning 24 EU member states and valued in multiples of millions.

What were the lessons?

1. Acknowledge the Complexity. Then Lean Into It.

• Complexity is real: EU engagement is not just about funding, it’s about systems, rules, profile building, politics, networks and of course alignment.
• Leaders must acknowledge the scale of the complexity honestly, without downplaying it, nor letting it paralyse decision making.
• Embracing complexity means understanding it’s not a linear process, you’ll need to tolerate ambiguity, dead ends, setbacks and delayed results.

• 2. Start Small, But Think Long Term

• Momentum matters more than scale at the start. Build credibility through manageable first steps, joining, not leading; listening, not selling.
• Think of early efforts as capacity investments, not just project bids. Success comes from layering on several small wins over time and building organisational muscle.
• Keep the long game in view: EU engagement is strategic, not transactional. Leadership means protecting that ambition even when tangible outcomes seem few.

3. Build Internal Resilience and Ownership

• Complexity requires an internal champion who can hold the vision, and carry it through leadership transitions, operational distractions and crises.
• Empower staff with trust, not everything needs to be perfect before you begin.
• Internal learning, culture building and accepting mistakes are often as valuable as the funding outcomes.

4. Don’t Go It Alone, Use the System

• Collaboration must be deliberate: EU projects thrive on partnership, not isolation. Being seen as a reliable, constructive partner is often just as important as your technical expertise.
• Build relationships early and steadily, even if opportunities aren’t immediate, these connections often open doors down the line.
• Look beyond traditional boundaries; in these contexts, even perceived competitors can become collaborators when common goals align. Be sensibly open minded.