ERC Grant Management Workshop - 14 December 2011, Brussels Questions & Answers

Transcription

1 ERC Grant Management Workshop - 14 December 2011, Brussels Questions & Answers N Questions Answers Topics 1 Could you clarify the implication of the names indicated in the proposal (PI, authorised rep., Host contact) with respect to: a) information about Evaluation, b) invitation to negotiation and c) roles in NEF. ERCEA.C.1 Grant Preparation a) Feedback further to the evaluation is ed to the Principal Investigator. Proposal b) Invitation to preparation of the Grant Agreement is ed to the Principal Investigator and to the Host contact. As a consequence, they are requested to provide input allowing to producing the Draft Grant Agreement to be signed by the authorised representatives. c) The link to NEF online tool is sent to the Host Contact. A preliminary check is made with the Principal Investigator prior to allowing access to NEF, in order to guarantee that the session is accessible to the right Contact Person as changes might have occurred since the proposal has been submitted. 2 Do you require that the contact person for administrative, legal and financial issues entered in the GPF must be other then the PI? We ask for an administrative contact person from the HI, because we strongly recommend that the HI remains involved/informed during the grant preparation stage. In this way it will be able to keep the Principal Investigator informed of all the particular finance /admin/ contractual rules and regulations inside the HI/GA. GPF - Contact Person 3 Why does the contact person for administrative, legal and financial issues and not the PI appear as contact in the grant agreement? The implication of this role with respect to reports and their signature should be made clearer in the preparatory stage. 4 Why is the role Participant contact (or coordinator contact) for running grants different than the beneficiary contact person defined in the GPFs and in the GA? To be the legal and admin contact as indicated in the GPF. But in the Participant Portal the role of participant contact is linked to the contact person entered in the proposal instead. Fig 1: print screen from the PPortal: the right to edit roles is assigned to the participant contact that is not mentioned in the GPFs. The respective roles of the PI and of the Host Institution are defined in Section 1 of Annex II to the ERC Grant Agreement. THE ERCEA contracts with the HI. The PI leads the research project. The "investigator driven" principle is the core of the Ideas Programme. Indeed, various terms are used to designate the contact person for the ERC Grant Agreement in the various tools. Thus, Grant Preparation Forms provide for an Administrative and Legal Representative of the Host Organization (form A2.4) all in accordance with FP7 general practices, while Article 8 of the ERC core Grant Agreement calls this agent a contact person. GPF - Contact Person GPF - Contact Person

2 5 Starting date of the project: in which cases do you change the indication made in the GPF for a fixed starting date? The start date information is very important for all our internal approval procedures (from the employment procedures to the financial management and costing) and it is very annoying when the date is set as the first day of the month after the signature by the Commission, as the beneficiaries administration has no influence on it and must be ready to start the project on day 1 but also one month later. The starting date is validated by the Host Institution when approving the Grant Preparation Forms. If it is your/ PI preference to have a fixed start date it can be accomodated as long as the 6 month timeframe is respected. Any date, if duly justified, after the closing of the call is acceptable. Usually projects start after the granting has ended but not later than 6 month after the invitation was sent. Project Start Date 6 Would it be possible that GAs where the start date is the first day of the month after the signature by the Commission, are sent to the beneficiary already signed by the ERC? 7 Is there a minimum reaction time for the ERCEA to guarantee the signature of the GA within the same months as the signature by the beneficiary? Or more specifically: if you receive a GA on the 25 th (signed by the beneficiary), can the ERC sign in time to assure the project start on the first day of the following month? In accordance with the Financial Regulation currently in force, Grant Agreements are first signed by the beneficiary before signature by the Commission or by the ERCEA. In principle yes, as three working days would be necessary provided the mail has been effectively delivered in the premises of the ERCEA. Grant Agreement 8 How do you assign officers to proposals in the negotiation? By panel? By country? 9 "Could the obligation to have a separate bank account for the pre-financing be amended for non-eur currency countries? Our own internal principle for ERC single-beneficiaries projects is to transfer the EUR pre-financing to the project account held in CHF; there is no way around for us because otherwise there would be a CHF-cash issue as well as a FX risk (the EUR/CHF rate having decreased dramatically in 2011) if we would keep the pre-financing on a separate EUR bank account! Credit interests are nevertheless accounted (with the CHF banking interest rates) and this is the only important point at the end from our point of view. Therefore, we would like to have more specific guidelines for non-eur currency countries taking into account our constraints." Assignment is made on the basis of the best match between the issues to be dealt with and the finance officers (language, Host Institution, work load ) Your current accounting practice (transferring received EUR pre-financing into CHF and earning CHF interest) is perfectly acceptable. There is no need to have a separate EUR bank account by ERCEA project (cash pooling etc. is acceptable practice and reconciliation by project with excel as well). Project Officers Bank Account

3 10 Special Clause 10, joint research units: difficult to separate costs between the two host organizations. There is no need to separate costs. 11 What is the procedure taken when a given ERC grant -Starting or Advancedis awarded to a HI but the PI decides to opt for the portability to another HI before the signature of the Grant Agreement. Will be the project be evaluated again? What if the portability is asked after the GA is signed? Only the Director of the ERCEA can take the decision to accept a request for change of Host Institution immeadiately after the selection by the evaluation panel. To this end, the Principal Investigator is requested to provide motivations, the "old" Host Institution has to accept the change and the "new" Host Institution has to take an equivalent commitment as that the "old" Host Institution took at the moment of the submission. Portability 12 Which criterium is used in order to establish whether an Institute is considered as "at risk" and thus having to report on a 9 month basis? 13 Can the wording of the Support of the HI be changed so that it does not conflict with internal policies? Under FP7, when needed, the assessment of the financial viability check of a legal person is deducted from ratios (liquidity, financial autonomy, profitability, solvency) which can be found in CORDIS (Financial Viability Check Tool V4). Based on this assessment, the decision on measures to take is made by the Head of Department C. It should be noted that even if the rate is found "weak", the reporting periods are unchanged (18 months basis). To be discussed. The performance obligations of the beneficiary are defined in Section 1 of the Supplementary Agreement Model which has been decided by the College of Commissioners. A case by case discussion can nevertheless take place. 9 Month Reporting Performance Obligations 14 Reserve list: when is the decision taken and on the basis of what? The decision is taken by matching the scientific ranking with the budget availability, Reserve Lists 15 Eligibility: can a PoC be running parallel with AdG or StG? Yes. Eligibility 16 PI submitted ERC-2011-PoC, can he submit to ERC-2012-AdG and run both projects if granted? The 2012 Ideas Work Programme states that a Principal Investigator may hold only one grant from the ERC at any time, but Principal Investigator can apply for additional proof of concept funding while holding or applying for an ERC grant. Eligibility 17 What is the maximum time allowed for the ethical review of the proposal during the Negotiation? No maximum time is allowed for the ethical review of the proposal during the preparation of the ERC Grant Agreement. Only, budget rules impose that the signature by the ERCEA takes places lately at the end of the following year. Ethical Review

4 18 How do we change the person in administrative charge of the project later on? Is it possible to do it online, or do we have to apply for it? During the preparation phase, it is always possible to change the contact person following the Host Institution's request. Administrative Person 19 Is the next call of the Starting grants going to include a negative list of referees? No, this has been allowed for the next Advanced Grants only. Starting Grants ERCEA.C.2 Grant Implementation N Questions Answers Topics 1 How to manage including an additional beneficiary during the project? Is it possible to employ staff, who were mentioned in the DoW, at the premises of a newly involved beneficiary instead the host institution? If yes, how can we manage this issue? An additional beneficiary or third party identified at a later stage during the course of the ongoing project can be introduced by means of an amendment Special clause and change of DoW. The amendment request may be subject to exante Scientific approval. Entities carrying out part of the project (including core research), can be introduced into the Grant Agreement as subsequent beneficiaries via special clause 30 for ad hoc cooperation within and for the purpose of the ERC project, or via special clause 10 (for entities that have pre-existent, broad and externally recognised co-operation agreements with the Host Institution). Thirds parties making their resources available to the project, but not carrying out directly part of the research. This type of third parties makes their resources available either free of charge or on the grounds of reimbursement and will have to be mentioned in Annex I. As the circumstances can be very different from one project to another, it is recommended to get in touch with the responsible ERCEA team by (ERC-C2-Amendments@ec.europa.eu). 2 Do we have to submit the audit report together with the financial report or is it possible to submit the audit report later? (Usually the auditors need some time for their audits and start when the reporting period is finished.) 3 We have started our first ERC financed project in July Would you give information about the reporting? After the end of the reporting period the Beneficiary has 2 months to prepare and finalise the financial report. This period proved to be sufficient for the beneficiary and the auditors. If we do not receive the CFS together with the FR we would consider the submission incomplete. Please note that your first reporting period will end in 18 months and 15 days prior this date, you will receive an Advance Notice letter with all templates and instructions on how to report. Reporting requirements Reporting requirements 4 How are the POs assigned to projects? Do you try to group all grants of the same beneficiary under the same (group of) POs? This is happening where possible, as we are trying to have an even workload/workflow between PO colleagues both on a monthly and yearly timeframe. ERCEA organisation 5 Why is it necessary to send an official amendment letter for each of the grants when there is a change in one of the authorised signatories indicated for that project? Wouldn t it be sufficient that when the next official signature is required, the beneficiary submits a letter declaring that the person signing is authorised to do so even if it is someone else than the person that originally signed the GPF? Alternatively: a notification via the LEAR in the electronic system could be sufficient. For change in authorised representatives no amendment is needed, but an information letter acknowledging that change will be issued. It is advisable to communicate the change in due course, so that delays are not encountered when either a payment or an amendment is needed. In this case an information/ empowerment letter and a specimen of the signature of the new authorised representative (a template will be provided by the Amendment team, and the Amendment Officer will encode the change in the NEF system). The appointment of a new authorised representative has to be supported by an empowerment letter, or by any other proof (decision of Board, etc).

5 6 ERC Feed-back to the Scientific report: Can you present the procedures related to the approval of the scientific report? Our StG PI was disappointed that he did not receive any feedback to his scientific report. The PI interpreted this lack of feedback as: it is not read by a person with a scientific background. The ERC does not care about science but just about collecting the reports. Is it the normal case? The monitoring is done by Department B which assesses the report and provides feedback to the PI and the responsible PO in Unit C2 within 30 days (maximum 60 days). The scientific officer responsible (SO) of the monitoring report is the scientific officer who is the panel coordinator of the panel which took the granting decision. The responsible SO may assign the report also to colleague(s) with more relevant scientific background/interdisciplinary. The SO responsible prepares an ERC Project Monitoring Report which is sent to Unit C2. At the end of the process, the PI and the HI are informed of the completion of the scientific reporting by the SO. We understand that there have been some delays in providing feedback to the PI, therefore, please let us know when our assessmant has not been received yet. Scientific Report 7 Why do you require that the financial management report must be signed (in addition to the PI) by the official contact person indicated in the GA and not by the admin staff who is actually responsible for the report? (none of them are the authorised representative to sign the grant agreement). We think that it is an internal matter of each organisation to ensure that persons who sign documents are internally authorised to do so. The only names recognised in the GA /by our system are the authorised representative(s), the PI and the contact person. They re all clearly identified in the GPF and in the GA, We recommend that your HI reviesw its policy to identify authorised reps vis-à-vis ERCEA. In case your organisation has an authorised person who is allowed to sign reports, an official/empowerment letter, specimen signature is sufficient. 8 Amendments: in case of transfer, old and new host agree on an amended Annex I containing a redistribution of the budget. Is the amended Annex I taken into account when approving the final financial /management report of the old host? Is it normal that a large trespassing of the budget agreed 3 months before with the new host doesn t even generate the ERCEA request to the old host to explain? Can you confirm that the new host has no formal means to oppose to the approval of the financial reports, even if the old host trespassed his agreed budget share? (in our case the personnel costs where trespassed by Euro (+25%) compared with the budget amended 3 months before. In total we took over a grant that had become Euro smaller than agreed. It is the PI who has the overall autonomy to manage the budget according to the needs of the project (please note that the PI would have to sign off the Financial Reports of the initial HI). Otherwise, costs are eligible only if the conditions stated in Annexe II are fulfilled (real, relating to the project, within the duration of the project, etc). Therefore ERCEA will not consider eligible any costs that do not fulfil these criteria or which seem reckless (such as for example last minute purchases when the change of host was already known). 9 Amendments: ERCEA should ensure internally that when a change of host institution has been approved, the payments are not made to the terminated host, but to the new institution. The old HI is entitled to receive the reimbursement of the approved incurred costs for the reporting period when the project was still hosted by it. The old HI transfers the entire prefinancing amount to the new HI 10 Change of Host: Has ERCEA any means to enforce the transfer of remaining funds from the old host to the new host? Yes ERCEA will act if the amount is not transferred to the new HI within the timeframe indicated, the amount will be recovered by ERCEA. ERCEA will than transfer to new HI. 11 Reports: what do you do with the information on the workforce statistic? Could you show examples? We were surprised that it was NOT required to send the Excel file, but simply a pdf, where the information was hardly legible. This table is used to voluntarily collect information which will support the assessment of the impact of ERC funding schemes. This will help the Scientific Council provide evidence on the outcomes of its funding activities and to further develop its funding schemes. We need to reach a critical mass of data before being able to prepare and publish a report. The template in the Financial Report clearly states that an excel table should be used for this purpose and a table is attached to the document. Reporting requirements

6 C:\Documents C:\Documents and and C:\Documents and Settings\elidrra\Deskt Settings\elidrra\Deskt 12 If the PI must be in his Host country more than 50 % of his working time what time is considered to be "out of the country". If he is travelling to various meetings / workshops, does this time also count towards being absent or is it time which he may spend in another Institute/University as a Sabbatical? Considering that the WP2012 is applicable, we must differentiate between time spent in the project and time spent in Europe (not limited to the Host country), and also between StG and AdG: The Starting Grant Principal Investigator is expected to devote at least 50% of their total working time to the ERCfunded project and spend at least 50% of their total working time in an EU Member State or associated country. The Advanced Grant Principal Investigator is expected to devote at least 30% of their total working time to the ERCfunded project and spend at least 50% of their total working time in an EU Member State or Associated Country. In the light of the above, time spent outside Europe might be counted towards the time obligation on the grant for as long as there is time evidence in this sense (e.g; timesheets). PI committment 13 Changes in Budget/ flexibility If minor changes in the budget are required, must they be simply notified in the periodical Financial report, or is a prior authorisation by ERC agency needed? Is there a flexibility rule (e. g detailing, percentages of costs that can be moved from one category to another) we can apply when dealing with changes within the same budget line or when dealing with changes between two or more different budget lines? Can a new budget item (e g costs for conferences & seminars) be inserted in the budget after the approval of the G.A, provided that this new budget item is strictly linked to the implementation of the action described in the DOW? It is sufficient to indicate the changes in the Financial Report, well explained and if the amount at stake is important then we would advise you to contact us in advance to discuss. New budget item can be inserted at any stage, provided that the item is strictly linked to the implementation of the action described in the DoW. 14 Changes in the DOW In case the PI has to change some features of the action, and provided that no substantial changes have to be introduced, do these changes require prior authorisation by the ERC Agency or can they be simply notified within periodical reports? Can new partners or sub contractors enter the project? If yes, does this contingency require an Amendment of the G.A? ERC grants are flexible. Not all changes lead to an amendment of the contract. Minor changes to the Description of Work (Annex I) or budget adjustments can be agreed by exchange between the beneficiary and the ERCEA and may be confirmed by the ERCEA via an information letter, depending on the case. While an amendment might not be necessary for a minor modification of the Description of Work, the change may be included on the occasion of possible future amendments. For changes that relate to the budget breakdown only and have no scientific impact, adjustments will be registered at the time of the submission of the Financial Reports. Beneficiaries are encouraged to contact the ERCEA for advice on a case-by-case basis, either the scientific department or the amendment officer directly or via to ERC-C2-Amendments@ec.europa.eu. After consultation with the ERCEA and where required, the Host Institution is requested to send any official changes via NEF, an electronic module used in the Research Participant Portal for negotiations, amendments and reporting of Grant Agreements. A NEF session can be opened here. An amendment is needed for introduction of subcontractors and third parties. 15 In the scope of big Institution such as CSIC, is there any possibility to make a general amendment to all projects in one go? For example, in the case where the authorized legal representatives are substituted by a new executive team. Yes, the request can come in one letter if the same amendment is requested for all the grants (i.e. same old authorised representative and same new authorised representative for all the GAs concerned). Same for our answer, if all data are identical for the different projects, then one letter suffice, but if the contact person different then we will need to send different amendment letters. 16 How do we change the person in administrative charge of the project later on? Is it possible to do it online, or do we have to apply for it? During the preparation phase, it is always possible to change the contact person following the Host Institution's request. Please also refer to Q5 abd Q7.

7 17 Is the next call of the Starting grants going to include a negative list of referees? Not yet only in AdG. 18 Definition of Equipment vs. Consumables The classification of goods as Consumables or Equipment will depend on the HI's own internal accounting/ procurement procedures. Referees Equipment 19 Definition of Equipment vs. Consumables Equipment costs will be determined according to the University s usual accounting practice and depreciation costs used for the project will be charged in each relevant periodic report. My question is: which is the reference for the calculation of depreciation that we should apply if the equipment is bought, for example, on the day 10 of the month? Is it the month (1 month) or should we use days (20 days)? We use the following formula for the calculation of the depreciation of all equipment purchased in our University (the reference for us is months ). Will this reference be accepted? E= A / B x C x D Where: A = the period in months during which the durable equipment is used for the project after invoicing, for the relevant reporting period B = the depreciation period C = the actual cost (excluding VAT) of the durable equipment D = the percentage of usage of the durable equipment for the project for the relevant reporting period E = direct eligible cost The date of purchase of equipment is the date of the invoice of the purchased equipment. As regards the starting date of depreciation calculation it should defined according to the HI accounting practice. For beneficiaries working on accrual accountancy basis, the date when the costs are incurred is the date when they are entered into the books according to the applicable accounting rules. For beneficiaries working on cash based accounting basis, the date when the costs are incurred is the date when the payment is executed. Equipment N Questions Answers Topics 1 Is Maintenance of equipment an eligible cost (equipment bought for ERC project use only and equipment bought prior to the project but used within the project)? ERCEA.C.3 Audit Management and Implementation Maintenance costs are generally considered as indirect costs and are therefore covered by the 20% flat rate. However if it is the usual accounting practice of the HI: maintenance of equipment bought specifically for the ERC project is an eligible cost. It is important to ensure that if the equipment is not used 100% by the project that only the proportionate cost in terms of percentage usage is charged to the project. The same applies for Maintenance costs for equipment bought prior to the project. Equipment 2 How do we handle Travel costs of personnel working on the project but not claiming personnel costs? 3 How to handle internal service invoices which include a portion of work provided by an external provider? Travel Costs of members of the team (employed by the HI) must be reported in the 'Travel' section even when they are not claiming a contribution towards their. Internal invoices which include a portion of work provided by an external provider should be handled in a consistent manner. An auditor would request to see proof that such costs e.g. renovation work undertaken by a framework contractor, are charged in line with the Internal Procedures and are always charged out to projects in the same manner. It is important to ensure that VAT and HI overhead cost items are excluded from the internal invoice. Travel Costs Internal Invoices

8 4 Is Business Travel eligible? Economy travel should be used as much as possible. However, exceptions may be made for exceptional reasons e.g. when no other tickets are available, flight of a long duration etc. and it is clearly in line with the HI's own internal travel procedures. It has to be considered whether it is not more economical to allow for an extra day of travel if economy is chosen. Travel Costs 5 How to handle discrepancies between % time devotion and % time recorded in time-sheets i.e. Is it possible to devote 70% time to a project but complete only 60% on the time-sheets. 6 How to manage changes in the accounting system, time recording system and organizational processes of the host institution during the project time? Can we deal with the applicable version and implement a new one from the day it will be valid? If yes, do we have to adjust the data of the previous reporting period according to the new rules? The timesheets should reflect the actual number of hours worked. If the PI/researcher wishes to claim less hours then a footnote should be added to the timesheets stating that only a certain percentage of the hours are being claimed. Changes to the accounting system, time recording system and organisational procedures should be handled directly i.e. on the day of implementation of the new systems. As for all financial systems a bridge/ explanation to the previous system should be available during an audit. In the course of the reporting, closed periods remain closed. for reconciliation inside a reporting period contact your project PO. Control Systems 7 Is it acceptable to calculate the interest generated by the pre-financing (based on the reported eligible costs and real bank interest rates) rather than taking the bank statement? This is especially needed because of exchange rate issues, or when the cash flow from the bank account differs from the costs) 8 If the PI is not paid by the ERC but is working a minimum of 30% on his project, must he complete Time Sheets in order to prove this? Interest generated by the pre-financing can be handled via a simple Excel sheet. Eligible expenditure should be deducted from the remaining balance as/when it takes place. It is sufficient enough to carry out the interest calculations on a monthly basis. However, the applicable bank rate should be applied to the remaining balance. Timesheets are the easiest way to prove that a PI is working a minimum of 30% on the project (even if not claiming costs). If timesheets are not available, alternative e evidence may be required by the Scientific Department (this will not be checked by the Financial/Audit teams). In accordance with Annex I, the PI has an obligation to be able to demonstrate the compliance of his/her prescribed percentage of time assigned to the project. Interest 9 Are banking and transaction costs related to the handling of any financial resources eligible costs under management activities of the project? Banking and transaction costs are normally deemed to be covered by the 20% flat rate for indirect costs. Exceptionally, they can be charged as a direct cost if the normal accounting practise of the beneficiary is to considers them as a direct cost. The charging of such costs to other projects will also be tested. Finance 10 Liability Are the P.I and /or the Host institution held responsible for: errors, claiming of non eligible expenditures, mishandling of funds, carried out by other beneficiaries or co PIs? According to ERC - ANNEX II Multi-Beneficiary, II.20: The financial responsibility of each beneficiary shall be limited to its own debt. Except third parties linked. PGF, max 1 % Finance 11 Co financing of equipment What are the documents necessary to make the depreciation of such an equipment eligible? According to the conditions mentioned in Article II g, depreciation costs "must be indicated in the estimated overall budget in Annex I" According to the Guide on Financial Issues: "The amount of use (percentage used and time) must be auditable" the beneficiary has to provide reliable sufficient evidence in case of audit i.e. the same documents as for the equipment purchased solely for the project have to be available. Depreciation

9 12 Do persons (PI; PhD, PostDoc etc.) working 100% on the grant need to fill in timesheets? ERC is trying to be a bit more flexible in these cases and time sheets may not be necessary if: - a person is working 100% on a project and a specific contract/job description to this effect and, - there is appropriate alternative evidence to support the declared working arrangements and this is compliant with the usual accounting practises of the beneficiary. Timesheets are the easiest solution! 13 Reporting of audit costs, when (with the current reporting period or with the next?) The costs of the Certificate on Financial Statements should be reported in the subsequent reporting period e.g. audit certificate costs for P1 need to be reported in P2. Exception last RP, report estimate according to Art II14.1.a Certificate on Financial Statement 14 As we cannot pay taxes with the EU money, we do have to do rebooking from different bank accounts to cover the tax. If this takes several days, the account balance is incorrect until the respective booking has been done. This affects the interest rate: for a certain period we get less interest on the EU bank account. Are there any rules how to proceed in such cases? Actual interest earned on pre-financing shall only be declared. Interest 15 Regarding timesheets: Is it still required to fill out timesheets about 100% of the working hours, even if a person only works t.ex. 30% on the project? This is pretty impossible for an institute's director 16 Regarding timesheets: do people that work on the project (e.g. a project leader) but do not get paid on the project have to fill out timesheets as well? According to Guide on Financial Issues, page 53, (a.1) Time recording system: general conditions : "In cases where personnel work on several projects during the same period the time ecording system must enable complete reconciliation of total hours per person, listing all activities (EU projects, internally funded research, administration, absences etc.)." Similar to question N 8 see the response above.