Horizon Europe Grant Agreement Model
It is expected that the simplified version of the model grant agreement, the legal document setting out the terms and conditions of EU grants, will be an essential resource for applicants who have difficulty understanding the legal language. This time, the Commission decided to use the same model grant agreement for all programmes in order to simplify its work. The aim is to “ensure consistency, also to ensure that we have a uniform interpretation of the common rules, and also with the aim of creating synergies between the different EU programmes,” said Julien Dulot, an official in the Legal Service of the Commission`s Research Directorate. The EEA has recently highlighted the changes that have taken place in the framework of Horizon Europe. Among the innovations is the fact that the use of daily rates has been described by the European Commission as a simplification, although it would have been more practical to offer beneficiaries different options. The choice of a “corporate grant agreement”, which forms the basis of all EU funding programmes, limits any possible flexibility. Nevertheless, the document addresses the EEA`s concerns regarding the recording of staff costs and measures to limit the additional administrative burden on higher education institutions. Universities should also note that the excellence part of the evaluation of the project will now include the quality of open science practices, including the sharing and management of research results (with the exception of calls from the European Research Council). After months of delay, the first calls for Horizon Europe were published earlier this month. However, as there is no introduction to the legal details of the grant agreement for possible future projects, researchers are in a precarious position. The 188-page document, marked as a preliminary draft, covers the main articles of the model grant agreement, including the sections on staff costs. At the European Research and Innovation Days, held at the end of June, Commission officials said the full annotated grant agreement would be published in September. The first part explains the main details of the award procedure, such as.
B, the calculation of personnel costs, security, protection of intellectual property rights and confidentiality clauses. This is not the first time that the publication of the commented grant agreement has been delayed. Seven years ago, when the previous Horizon 2020 research programme started, the Commission struggled to get the document on time. For years, there have been calls to simplify the rules. The Commission`s latest attempt looks promising, but until it is put into practice, it is unclear whether the new model grant agreement will be simpler than its predecessors, Estermann said. The lessons learned from Horizon 2020 lead us to a Horizon Europe focused on promoting participation by simplifying and optimising the overall administrative burden. Like Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe projects will be preceded by the start of the project throughout the preparation phase of the grant agreement. Our hosting team has successfully guided dozens of cooperation projects in their funding preparations, starting with FP7 and throughout 2020. We welcome the changes and improvements to the new Horizon Europe MGA and are well prepared to support you in the preparatory phase of your many successful Horizon Europe grants through the grant agreement. On 23rd July the European Commission published the long-awaited annotated grant agreement, which is geared towards guidance for Horizon Europe applicants. While the first calls under the programme were launched at the end of June, the guidelines were still lacking after the publication of the 2021-2022 work programme.
This has led to uncertainties for future beneficiaries, in particular with regard to changes to the rules of participation. The new model grant agreement for Horizon Europe essentially follows the example of Horizon 2020. There are some changes in terminology and the specific parts of Horizon Europe are now all listed in an annex. If your proposal is selected for funding under the EU Framework Programme, until last year Horizon 2020 and since this year Horizon Europe, you are invited to prepare the grant agreement (GA). This funding contract is concluded between the European Commission (the funding agency) and the project consortium. It includes the general conditions of the act/grant as well as the rights and obligations of the parties concerned. The grant agreement and its signature by all parties are a prerequisite for starting the project. Guidance on the legal details of Horizon Europe grant agreements will be published in part between July and the end of the year A simplified explanation of the legal detail package in Horizon Europe grant agreements will be published gradually in the second half of the year, with the first published in July.
Estermann says the European Association of Universities has advocated more than one way to calculate personnel costs, but he has refrained from evaluating the new model before it is tested. The EU`s new research and innovation programme Horizon Europe is now launched and with all this enthusiasm comes a question to which everyone is looking for an answer: What will change compared to Horizon 2020? Is there still a grant agreement and, if so, what does it look like? The immediate answer is YES, the GA remains mandatory and indispensable! The good news is that it has been developed with a more user-friendly structure and readability. The European Commission conducted an online consultation and around 67% of respondents agreed that a single model grant agreement would facilitate synergies between all managed funding programmes. Let`s take a look at the main changes brought about by the Horizon Europe model grant agreement: the EEA will now focus its attention on the quality of implementation and call on the European Commission to implement Horizon Europe in the spirit of simplification and performance heralded as the main narrative of the programme. Specific clauses for Horizon Europe will be included by DG RTD (ongoing) in the General AGREEMENT or in Annex 5. “We are currently working on completing it, hopefully this year,” said Simona Maria Staicu, a lawyer at the Commission, at the Commission`s flagship event, the R&I Days. The French NCP has published in this article (in French) various tables comparing the legal aspects of this corporate MGA with Horizon 2020 and the rules of participation. Andreia Cruz, DG BUDG associated with the research and innovation project, adopted, by Decision C(2020)3759 of 12 June, the new grant agreement for the business model, to be used by all Commission Directorates-General from 2021. “A good practice would be to have everything beneficiaries need ready at the start of the programme,” Thomas Estermann, director of governance, funding and public policy development at the European Association of Universities, told Science| Matter. “Many of the challenges that beneficiaries face are understanding the rules, their complexity.
More emphasis should have been placed on preparing for the start of the programme. The biggest change is the way personnel costs are calculated. Various ways of calculating personnel costs are replaced by a daily rate formula. The daily rate is calculated by dividing the annual cost for each person by a fixed number of days, 215. Horizon 2020 provided a general model financial assistance agreement (general GPA) for research and innovation actions (RIA), innovation actions (IA) and coordination and support actions (CFAs), while specific models of financial assistance agreements (specific MGAs) were adopted for specific programmes such as the ERC, the CSIA and the SME Instrument. In order to enable users to better understand and interpret the grant agreement and to provide answers to common questions and questions, the European Commission has also proposed the Model Annotated Grant Agreement (AGM), which explains the details of the General Agreement and the General Agreement on The General Agreement on Subsidies. As it is intended to be comprehensive and covers all possible options provided for in the 58 articles of the various grant agreements, it has more than eight hundred pages and is continuously updated with new examples and explanations. Although the objective of this document is very relevant and useful, it highlights the high degree of complexity associated with managing a European project.
The first results of the audits conducted on H2020 projects show that many adjustments would likely be required due to incorrect calculations of production hours, incorrect compensation costs and a lack of adequate documentation. .
Recent Comments