Annual Scientific Report 2015

Mark Green
EMBL-EBI Administration
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Internal
Auditors. At EMBL since 1997; joint
appointment with EMBL-EBI.
At EMBL-EBI since 2003.
Finance
In 2015 we welcomed a member of the EMBL Budget
Office to EMBL-EBI. This addition to our team
enhanced the services we can provide to Group and
Team Leaders, and improved the coordination of
Finance activities with the EMBL Grants Office. The
EMBL-EBI Grants Office put considerable efforts
into entering historical grant data into the Converis
reporting system, making the resource more useful,
accessible and standardised. Thanks to this work we can
now easily carry out meaningful queries about grants to
EMBL-EBI staff over time.
Future plans
We will continue to develop benefit and impact analysis,
and will release the results of work undertaken to our
major stakeholders, including the general public. This
will help shape the development of business cases
related to EMBL-EBI infrastructure. We will also
implement self-service portals for Human Resources
data, introduce an online travel and expense system and
improve our working processes and procedures.
The Finance and Purchasing Team has seen a steady
increase in productivity, up approximately 10% over
2014 in terms of the number of orders and invoices
processed. One of the team’s larger projects in 2015 was
the continued implementation of an “X-Flow” process,
which has been adopted by EMBL for the automated
processing of invoices.
Human Resources
We introduced flexible working arrangements for
EMBL-EBI staff in 2015, and began monitoring its
implementation and take-up. We also provided training
as necessary for managers who carry out annual
performance appraisals for their staff, a requirement
introduced in 2014. We implemented the online absence
recording system, precursor to the self-service portals to
be introduced in 2016.
The Human Resources team managed a nearly 20%
increase in recruitment during 2014. This increase
reflects both success in attracting external funds and
fluctuations inherent to the built-in staff turnover
scheme. The emerging ‘Cambridge biotech corridor’,
combined with an improving economy, also made it
measurably easier for our staff to find new jobs at the
end of their contracts.
Cross-team collaboration
All of the Administration sub-teams examined
processes and procedures in their immediate areas and
in activities that contribute to the overall development
of EMBL-EBI and EMBL. This led to improvements
that are deeply appreciated by those whom
administration serves.
2015 EMBL-EBI Annual Scientific Report 166