Contractual issues
FP7 checklist
If you are already involved with a FP7 project, or are looking to become involved, why not use FEAST’s FP7 checklist in to help you. You can access it at: www.feast.org/members/fp7checklist.
Grant Agreement
The rights and obligations of participants (including submission of reports, termination, etc.) are established in a Grant Agreement between the European Commission and the Coordinator of the project and applies to each participants that accedes. This agreement is common to all projects in FP7 (based on this standard text, separate texts will be established for the “People” Programme and for the “Ideas” Programme). Each grant agreement includes a set of Annexes specific to a project , and will identify:
- what part of the EU financial support contribution is based on reimbursement of elligible costs, lump sums or flat rates
- which changes in the consortium require prior publication of a competitive call
- specific provisions for certain types of actions (in particular IPR)
Participants implement work jointly towards this contract and must carry out the work of a defaulting partner unless the European Commission relieves them of that obligation. However, unlike FP6, partners no longer have collective financial responsability. Instead, the Commission has established a participant guarantee fund to cover these risks.
Tip: the grant agreement, being standard for FP7, only needs to be reviewed once by the legal office of your organisation.
Consortium Agreement
The signature of a Consortium Agreement between partners is obligatory unless excempted by the call for proposals. The Commission will publish guidelines on the call content.
Reporting
- Periodic reports to be submitted by coordinator 60 days after end of period: progress of the work, use of resources and financial statment (Form C).
- Final reports to be submitted by coordinator 60 days after end of project.
The European Commission has 105 days to evaluate and execute the corresponding payment. There is no tacit approval, but after recieving the report, the commission can approve the payment, suspend the time limit requesting revision/completion, reject (leading to possible termination), or suspend the payment.
Cost reporting of direct and indirect costs:
- Participants may charge direct and indirect costs
- It is possible to use a simplified method to calculate its indirect costs
- For indirect costs, flat rate is an option. This flat rate will be determined in the grant agreement.
- Non-profit public bodies, secondary and higher education establishments, research organisations and SMEs may opt for a flat rate equal to 60% of the total direct elligible costs for grants awarded under calls for proposals closing before 1 January 2010 and no lower than 40% in 2010–2013, only for Research and Demonstration activities.
Certificates for all financial statements (audit certificates in FP6) are compulsory for each participant receiving a grant equal to, or above, €375,000, except for lump sums and flat rates.
Financial aspects
Forms of grants
Three forms of grants are proposed for the EU’s financial contribution:
- reimbursement of eligible costs (preferred method , particularly at the beginning of FP7),
- lump sums (if option provided in work programmes and for NoE), and
- flat rates (can be based on scale of unit costs but also includes flat rates for indirect costs).
One form of grant can be used to cover the entire grant, or a mixture of grants forms may be used.
Maximum funding rates
The Community’s financial contribution will cover:
- a maximum of 50% of eligible costs for research and for demonstration activities, with a top up of a maximum of 25% (75% of costs) for research activities for SMEs, public bodies, secondary and higher education establishments, non-profit research organisations and for some security related research;
- 100% of ‘frontier research’ actions for all entities.
- up to 100% for all other activities, including management of projects, coordination and support actions, and training and career development of researchers, for all entities.
Receipts (i.e. other revenues, or co-financing) are taken into account to determine the final contribution from ther European Commission.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
The coherence of dissemination and publication requirements has been improved, with prior notification of the Commission for publication of results eliminated.
For intellectual property rights (IPR) FP7 aims for as much continuity as possible with FP6. The main changes, to allow more flexibility and based on experience from the implementation of FP6, are:
- remove most of the obligations for participants to finalise conditions prior to their accession to the EC contract, and
- remove most obligations to request prior approval from the Commission for publication, transfers of ownership and provision of access rights to third parties, where all other partners agree.
Changes to the definitions are:
- ‘background’ replaces ‘pre-existing know-how’ and no longer includes side-ground,
- ‘foreground’ replaces ‘knowledge’.
| Access rights to background | Access rights to foreground resulting from the project | |
|---|---|---|
| For carrying out the project | Royalty-free unless otherwise agreed before acceding to the grant agreement | Royalty-free |
| For use (exploitation & further research) | Either fair and reasonable condition or royalty free-to be agreed | |
Foreground from all other indirect actions shall be the property of the participants carrying out the work generating that foreground.
In general, restrictions on transfer of ownership and access rights have been loosened in order to encourage use and dissemination of results.
The IPR-Helpdesk can assist potential and current contractors taking part in FP7 on IPR issues.
www.ipr-helpdesk.org
Dissemination of results
Resource not yet available.
Further details
Grant Agreement
The rights and obligations of participants (including submission of reports, termination, etc.) are established in a Grant Agreement between the European Commission and the Coordinator of the project. This agreement is common to all projects in FP7. Each grant agreement includes a set of Annexes specific to a project:
- Core part — Grant Agreement parameters
- Annex I — Description of Work
- Annex II — General conditions
- Annex III — Specific provisions related to the funding scheme or activity
- Annex IV — Form A — Accession of beneficiaries to the grant agreement
- Annex V — Form B — Request for accession of a new beneficiary to the grant agreement
- Annex VI — Form C — Financial statement per funding scheme
- Annex VII — Form D — Terms of reference of the certificate on the financial statements and Form E — Terms of reference for the certificate on the methodology
The European Commission has adopted on 10 April 2007 the model grant agreement for research projects funded under FP7 and applicable under the ‘Cooperation’ and ‘Capacities’ Specific Programmes. It consists of a core text and several annexes. There is also a list of special clauses to be introduced in the grant agreement where necessary.
The following links provide access to these documents and to more information about grant agreements:
- All documents in PDF format: cordis.europa.eu/fp7/calls-grant-agreement_en.html
- Grant Agreement documents:
- Grant Agreement
- Annex II — General Conditions
- Annex III — ERA-NET+ actions
- Annex III — Specific provisions for transnational access activities
- Annex III — Specific provisions related to “Research for SMEs” or “Research for SME Associations”
- Annex IV — Form A — Accesion of beneficiaries to the grant agreement
- Annex V — Form B — Request for accesion of a new beneficiary
- Annex VI — Form C — Collaborative Project
- Annex VI — Form C — Coordination and Support Action
- Annex VI — Form C — Combination of Collaborative Project and Coordination and Support Action
- Annex VI — Form C — Network of Excellence
- Annex VII — Form D — Terms of reference for the certificate of financial statements
- Annex VII — Form E — Terms of reference for the certificate on the methodology
- List of Special Clauses
- Rules for participation, Subsection 3 Implementation and grant agreements
Separate model grant agreements will be adopted and published soon for the ‘People’ (Marie Curie) and for the ‘Ideas’ (European Research Council) Specific Programmes.
Participant guarantee fund
In order to manage the risk associated with non-recovery of sums due to the Community, the Commission manages a participant guarantee fund. The contribution to the Fund by a participant receiving a grant shall not exceed 5 % of the Community financial contribution due to the participant. At the end of the action the amount contributed to the Fund shall be returned to the participant, via the coordinator, subject to some conditions.
When a participant is faulty, the Commission may, either: transfer the amount due from the Fund to the coordinator of the project if it is still on-going and the remaining participants agree to implement it, or recover effectively the due amount from the Fund should the project be terminated or completed.
Further details about the FP7 EC Guarantee Fund.
Consortium Agreement
In FP7 Consortium Agreements are mandatory for most FP-funded research projects. The purpose of a consortium agreement is to regulate critical aspects of project governance not covered by the grant agreement between the Commission and the project consortium. Key aspects covered in consortium agreements are typically:
- the internal organisation of the consortium (e.g. membership of management bodies, voting rights, settlement of disputes between partners);
- the distribution of the Community financial contribution (e.g. when should the project coordinator distribute advance payments from the Commission to the other partners?);
- management of intellectual property and access rights to results (e.g. when, and on what terms, should access to results be provided to other partners and their affiliates?)
- liability and confidentiality arrangements between partners (e.g. the extent of liability of the partners to one another and towards third parties)
The German Liaison Office (KoWi) with other European teams have developed a simplified Consortium Agreement for FP7. The result of their work is available from: www.desca-fp7.eu.
Reporting
Forms of grants and maximum funding rates are detailed in the following document:
Rules for participation, Section 3 Community financial contribution.
Financial aspects
Forms of grants and maximum funding rates are detailed in the following document:
Rules for participation, Section 3 Community financial contribution.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
- ‘background’ means information which is held by participants prior to their accession to the grant agreement, as well as copyrights or other intellectual property rights pertaining to such information, the application for which has been filed before their accession to the grant agreement, and which is needed for carrying out the indirect action or for using the results of the indirect action;
- ‘foreground’ means the results, including information, whether or not they can be protected, which are generated by the indirect action concerned. Such results include rights related to copyright, design rights, patent rights, plant variety rights or similar forms of protection;
Rules for participation, Article 2, definitions.
Comparison between IPR provisions under FP6 and FP7 proposal: Main changes.
Dissemination of results
Resource not yet available.
