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3. Management of a European project
This section describes the process of negotiation and management of a project. It is also important to be aware of the cost of management, in terms of time and risk, associated with the commitment to a European project.
Negotiation of the contract
The Commission may also suggest modifications to the proposed project in the light of the result of the evaluation, or suggest grouping it or combining it with other proposals.
The negotiations may cover the budget, as well as technical, financial, legal and other aspects. Once they have been completed, the Commission will send a contract to the coordinator. The work to be carried out during the life cycle of the project will be specified in Appendix I.
Rights and obligations of the contracting parties
The main obligation of the contracting parties is to carry out the project, to submit the reports and deliverables specified in the contract and to exploit and disseminate the results. For its part, the Commission undertakes to contribute financially to implementation of the project and, subject to approval of the required reports and deliverables, to refund a percentage of the costs of the project. Within the same project, different partners and different activities may be reimbursed at different rates, depending on their cost ratio models.
Since there are no different categories of participant, all partners have the same rights and obligations, including intellectual property rights. Only the coordinator has additional contractual responsibilities.
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Project management, monitoring and feedback
The contracting parties in a project must appoint one of their number as the project coordinator. As an intermediary between the contracting parties and the Commission, the coordinator has additional obligations - to ensure that the contract is signed in good time by the other contracting parties, communication with the Commission, receipt and distribution of the Community financial contribution and maintaining the accounts of the project. Under certain conditions, the project management costs incurred by the coordinator and the other contracting parties may be reimbursed up to 100%.
Subcontractors are not regarded as participants in a project. In some cases, the Commission may reimburse the cost of their services if the work has been assigned to them in a transparent and fair manner. Subcontractors do not benefit from any intellectual property rights over the results of the project.
For further information, refer to the sections of Part 1 dealing with integrated projects and networks of excellence, and the section of Part 2 dealing with intellectual property rights.
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Monitoring procedures
To allow the Commission to verify performance of the contract and to ensure that it is in accordance with the conditions governing the financial participation of the EU, the contracting partners must submit (through the coordinator) intermediate reports and a final report, together with statements of the costs incurred.
The various departments of the Commission will analyse these reports in accordance with the contractual requirements, and decide whether the Commission will continue to support the project and under what terms. Changes in knowledge or of a technological nature may lead the consortium or the Commission to propose modifications to the project along the way. Any change proposed by the partners must be approved in advance by the Commission. (In certain cases, such approval may be given tacitly - if the Commission makes no objection to the proposed change during a given period, the change is deemed to be accepted.) In the case of integrated projects and networks of excellence, the detailed work programme will be updated annually.
In addition, the Commission will monitor exploitation of the results of the project. A robust control of the results of the integrated projects and networks of excellence will include annual evaluations and a final assessment of the impact of the project on the competitiveness and social requirements of the EU. Mid-course or "intermediate" assessments resulting in a decision to discontinue the project are also possible.
The Commission may call on the services of independent experts at all stages in this monitoring process and also carry out more specific scientific, financial or technological audits.
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Payment
The Commission will contribute financially on the basis of reimbursing the eligible expenses of the contracting parties and subject to approval of their reports. The contract will specify the maximum contribution of the EU according to the estimated work by activity and by partner. The consortium will have considerable freedom to manage its own financial affairs.
Appendix I to the contracts for the new instruments will provide the detailed implementation plan (for integrated projects) or the common programme of activities (for networks of excellence) for the first 18 months of the project, together with the relative estimated financial plan. The latter will give an estimate of the costs incurred by each participant during this period, broken down by type of activity. Implementation plans and common plans and programmes of activities are updated annually.
In the majority of projects (e.g. integrated projects) an appendix to the contract will contain an overall description of the project and a detailed plan of execution - together with an estimated funding plan with cost estimates broken down by type of activity and participant - covering the first 18 months of the project only. An advance payment equivalent to a maximum of 85% of the Community contribution provided for this period will be made on start-up of the project.
Source: European Commission, Participating in European research programmes; 2nd edition, February 2004. | 
