• Eligible partners: Check first that you and your partners are eligible for participation in the Programme (for example: your organisation must have a registered legal existence, there are minimum consortium conditions etc.) and also that you are eligible for the particular activity involved (some activities may be reserved e.g. for SMEs, organisations in particular sectors of industry ….etc.)

• Specific actions and RTD objectives: Check that your proposed work does indeed address an activity included in the current Call. Ineligible proposals, or proposals not addressing activities open in the Call, will be excluded from evaluation.

• Selection criteria: Any proposal evaluated below the thresholds will not be considered for funding.

• Management: Clearly indicate ability for high quality management adapted to the size of the project.

• Content: Good proposals show consistency with the five selection criteria.

• Ethical issues: Clearly describe any potential ethical aspects and applicable regulatory aspects of the research to be carried out and the way they are dealt with according to national regulations.

• Presentation: Good proposals are drafted in a clear and easily understandable way. Good proposals are precise and concise, not "wordy" - evaluators judge on content, not on number of pages.

• Results: Good proposals clearly show the results that will be achieved, and how the participants intend to disseminate or exploit these results.

• Completeness: Proposals must be complete, as they are evaluated only on the basis of the written material submitted. Follow the format of the Proposal Submission Form. You are highly recommended to use the ProTool software supplied free of charge by the Commission to proposers.

• Partnership: Partners should discuss and agree beforehand their respective roles and responsibilities.

• Contract: Check that the model contract conditions for the type of work which you are proposing are acceptable for your organisations.

• Competition: There will be competition, and a weak element in an otherwise good proposal might make it lose out to others. Therefore edit your proposal tightly, strengthen or eliminate weak elements.

Last but not least:

Arrange for your draft proposal to be evaluated by experienced colleagues before sending it, using the evaluation criteria described in the Evaluation Manual and, if appropriate, in Part 2 of this Guide. Use their advice to improve it before submission.