CORDIS Archive : Help - Frequently Asked Questions

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

2. TRANSFER OF BUDGET

Transfer of budget between categories

QUESTION
In an Accompanying Measures contract it is possible to shift up to 20% of eligible costs allocated to a specific category to another category, e.g. from travel and subsistence towards other specific costs? The Commission should be informed in advance or afterwards?

ANSWER
The general model contract for Accompanying measures used for FP5 foresees the possibility to make transfers between cost categories of the planned project budget.

The rules regulating such transfer are stipulated under article 13.3 and 13.4 and can be summarised as followed:

Each contractor is authorised to transfer the budget set out in the table of the indicative breakdown of estimated eligible costs between categories of costs, provided that:

the Commission is informed of such transfer upon signing an agreement confirming that the scope
of the project and the conditions of participation are not fundamentally altered
and

the amounts transferred do not exceed 20% of the total amount initially allocated to that contractor.

If the amount transfered exceeds 20% of the total amount initially allocated to the contractor, prior written approval by the Commission is required. In the absence of observations within one month of the receipt of the request made by the coordinator/contractor, the approval of the Commission shall be deemed to have been given.

The budget for the costs for the protection of knowledge, "Other specific costs", travel and subsistence (outside EU) and subcontract (over 20% of budget, € 100.000 or third country) require prior approval by the Commission. A separate note on this issue exists.

QUESTION
If we want to transfer budget between categories of costs within the budget of a particular participant: does the 20% threshold relate to the TOTAL estimated budget of eligible costs of that participant or to the amount of money allocated to a particular cost category from which the money will be removed? For instance: we want to transfer money from travel costs (estimated costs: 40000 Euro) to consumables. Our total estimated budget for all cost categories for the whole duration of the project is 100000 Euro. May we transfer 8000 Euro or 20000 Euro?

ANSWER
Article 22.5 of the contract indicates that the same rule applies for transfer of budget being between participants or being between categories of costs for a single participant : the 20% rule refers to the total amount allocated to the beneficiary participant. In other words, authorisation is needed when the envisaged transfer of costs between categories is more than 20% of the total estimated contribution allocated to the particular participant.

Therefore in your example you may transfer up to € 20,000 (20% of total amount € 100,000) from travel to consumables without previous approval from the Commission if this does not alter the scope or objectives of the project (or the conditions of participation). (However the Commission scientific officer, should be "informed").