2.2 Financial and Contractual Conditions
3.2 What are the Evaluation Criteria for a Proposal
Acknowledgement of Receipt Form
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This guide to a set of non-domain specific Preparatory, Support and Transfer Actions forms one part of the Information Technologies Programme Information Package. The guide needs to be used together with the Esprit Work programme, published separately, which outlines the technical coverage and priority research and development themes for the programme.
It provides guidance for organisations considering making a proposal for:
The RTD objectives or projects in these actions should clearly relate to the Esprit programme, but may be in any of the programme domains.
The Guide needs to be used with the:
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FROM MEMBER STATES
The programme is open to all legal entities - i.e. people and organisations - established and carrying out RTD activities in the Member States of the European Union (industrial firms - both large companies and SMEs, universities, higher education institutes, research organisation, etc.), and to the Joint Research Centre.
NoE, UGs, WGs and CAs must contain organisations from at least two different Member States or one Member State and an associated and financially contributing state.
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FROM ASSOCIATED AND FINANCIALLY CONTRIBUTING STATES
Participation in this programme, with financial contribution from the EU, is open to any legal entity established or carrying out RTD activities in a third country associated with and contributing financially to the implementation of this programme.
At printing of this package these states are Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. It is expected that Israel will join this group in the first half of 1996, while later in 1996 this might also hold for Switzerland.
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FROM OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND AUSTRALIA
Legal entities established and carrying out RTD activities in third countries (non-EU and not financially contributing as described above) may participate in the programme on conditions that:
These states are at printing date: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Moldavia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Ukraine, for which financial support by the EU may be provided from funds other than the IT Programme budget (an explicit request for such funding has to accompany the proposal).
Swiss1 and Australian organisations may participate under the above conditions, but without funding from the EC.
It is expected that agreement with Canada will be reached in 1996 so that Canadian organisations may also participate under the above conditions without EC funding
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ORGANISATIONS FROM OTHER STATES
Legal entities established in states other than above listed, may participate on conditions that:
Organisations from Canada2, Israel3, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and the USA are not eligible for funding from the EU.
For organisations from other countries financial support by the EU may be provided from funds other than the IT Programme budget, an explicit request for such funding has to accompany the proposal.
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INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
International organisations may participate on conditions that:
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IMPORTANT NOTE
If you are considering the inclusion of legal entities from third countries in your proposal, you are strongly advised to obtain the latest information concerning the status provided in corrigenda available for each call.
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If your proposal is successful in the evaluation and is selected for further negotiation, the Commission services will contact you for finalisation of the Project Programme and budgetary aspects.
The Project Officers assigned to be the responsible Commission official will provide you with the necessary documentation. The time needed in this phase depends on the complexity and evaluators' comments, but normally negotiations would take between 4 and 8 weeks if the work is well planned by the consortium.
NoEs, WGs, UGs or CAs are not funded for direct RTD work or training activities. Its members would normally carry out such activities for which funding could come from other sources, e.g. industry, national programmes or EU RTD (Esprit) programmes through an independent application.
Allowable costs are restricted to labour cost for administration and management by the organising participant (coordinator), travel, meeting and communication costs. The last category may include the cost of setting up a communication infrastructure between network nodes.
Labour cost would include actual salaries and social charges and limited overhead costs.
Funding will be up to 100% of allowable costs.
The contract will be a simplified version of the model RTD contract, in particular with respect to Intellectual Property Rights and allowable cost provisions. It will normally be concluded with the coordinator only. The other participating members in the action will have a relation by simple bilateral agreement with the coordinator only.
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All proposals are evaluated by especially selected experts who are all bound by a confidentiality agreement. The evaluation will be exclusively based on the criteria set out in this section and will be carried out under the responsibility and coordination of the Commission.
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The evaluation of proposals for NoE, WGs, UGs and CAs will be conducted in one step only.
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All proposals should answer the following questions:
Your proposal must answer all these questions by fulfilling the criteria detailed below. These will be used by evaluators to assess the proposal.
Criteria address different aspects of a proposal, and assess how it answers the basic questions above, while conforming with the scope and objectives of the programme and showing the necessary European dimension.
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THE WHY
The industrial relevance of the activities within the action, opportunities, the state of the art in the RTD field and the need for coordination or networking.
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THE WHAT
Which activities are foreseen and which concrete results will be the outcome. Are benefits related to a wider community than participants.
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THE WHO
The proposers and possibly wider target group for coordination and dissemination. The synergy and European added value should appear.
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THE HOW
The precise plan of activities proposed with explicit results. Duration and resources should be addressed and management procedures described.
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Expert evaluators will assess the proposals using the criteria derived from the above broad themes and set out in detail in this section. The criteria are designed to provide a fair, practical and consistent way of establishing to what extent proposals meet the goals of Esprit. The same set of overall criteria are used in all evaluations of proposals for these actions. Note however that sub-criteria might sometimes be different for the four action types.
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CONFORMITY WITH THE SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROGRAMME
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EUROPEAN DIMENSION
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INDUSTRIAL RELEVANCE
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OBJECTIVES, INNOVATION AND RESULTS
For NoEs, the long term technological goal should be convincingly addressed.
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THE PROPOSERS
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DISSEMINATION PLANNING
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WORK PLANNING
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ACTION MANAGEMENT
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DURATION AND RESOURCES
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PREPARING A PROPOSAL
Each proposal should be presented in two parts (see section 4.2 for more detail):
Each proposal must have a coordinating proposer. This section of the information package is primarily directed at the coordinating proposer. Normally, the coordinating proposer will become the project coordinator, if the proposal is ultimately successful.
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CONTENT OF PROPOSAL
The content of the proposal must be prepared according to the criteria and format definition as given in this specific information document. You should carefully check that your proposal matches this structure and genuinely satisfies all the criteria. Evaluators will be asked to assess proposals according to the same criteria, and the required structure will help them to find the various elements of the proposal. It goes without saying that evaluators are best helped in conducting their task if the information provided is concise and well structured. Any irrelevant information should be avoided.
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SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS TO OTHER PROGRAMMES
Proposals should only be submitted once nor should proposals which are essentially the same be sent to different domains of the IT Programme or different programmes. However where the proposal is related to other existing or propsed work in other domains or programmes you should indicate this in the proposal itself or in an attached covering letter.
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ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION
A project proposal will require forms, of which examples, with explanation, are given in the Annex and on the accompanying diskette.
If you use the diskette provided with this information package this will make it easier to fill in the correct data in the right format. You can also make clear print-outs and it will help us to quickly enter your data in our database. Of course, you may also complete the paper forms, or the forms as they are provided by other programmes for RTD Project proposals, as these contain the same questions. However, in each case, please follow carefully the detailed instructions.
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SUBMITTING YOUR PROPOSAL
Proposals should be submitted by the coordinating proposer, who will be responsible for the internal management and administration of the proposal and for liaison with the Commission.
You should submit one full original of each proposal plus 6 copies, unless otherwise specified. This includes the forms and any useful information you choose to include, as long as it is relevant and limited in length.
You may submit proposals in any official language of the EC. However, it is advisable to supply at least the summary in English. This will assist the evaluation of proposals.
It is your responsibility to assemble the proposal and you should submit it in one parcel.
It is also your responsibility to ensure that your proposal is delivered at the appropriate address before expiration of the deadline.
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DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION
Proposals for NoEs, WGs, UGs and CAs can be submitted at any time. Evaluation is usually done in batches depending on the number received. Normally evaluation should be conducted within 3 months after receipt.
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DELIVERY OF YOUR PROPOSAL
Your proposal should be sent by courier or postal services or delivered by hand to:
IT Programme Office
Boulevard du Souverain, 191-197
B - 1160 Brussels
Belgium
You must clearly mark on the parcel:
"Confidential: Proposal for the programme for RTD Information Technologies"
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IMPORTANT NOTES
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RECEIPT FORM
You should include - in the parcel in which the proposal is delivered - a separate envelope containing the official "Acknowledgement of Receipt" from (given in Annex). On this you - the coordinating proposer - must put your organisation's name and address and the title of the proposed project. This will ensure that the acknowledgement is returned to you correctly addressed.
Before it is returned, however, the Commission's reception staff will record the date of receipt and a unique reference number on the form. This reference number must be used in all subsequent correspondence relating to the proposal.
You should ensure that all proposers are given the proposal reference number and use it in all contacts with the Commission.
If you do not receive an "Acknowledgement of receipt" within wo weeks after the closing date of the Call, or the date of submission in case of a continuous Call, you should send a fax to the IT Programme Office (+32/2-663.72.00) indicating the acronym, title, domain, type of action and coordinating proposer of the proposal. You will receive an answer by fax within one week.
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The proposal must address all criteria given in section 3. The proposal should follow the structure and include all the information mentioned below.
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PART 1: FINANCIAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE DATA
To complete Part 1 of the proposal you need to complete the forms provided on the diskette or in the Annex. These provide detailed information on the proposed project partnership.
Forms
All proposals must contain the duly completed forms as given in the Annex.
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IMPORTANT
Please note that the Commission cannot edit or reduce the synopsis any way. If the summary is longer than 1,000 characters, all characters above this will be lost automatically.
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PART 2: DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED ACTION
All proposals must contain a detailed description of the proposed action. The size should not exceed 20 pages.
This description must satisfy the criteria outlined in Section 3. It should cover the following items:
Summary (one page)
The summary should concisely address the essence of the proposal:
Objectives
The proposal should specify the objectives which the action seeks to achieve. NoE must include the long term technological goal. The description should indicate how:
See Evaluation criteria on page 6
Industrial Relevance
All actions should include:
See Evaluation criteria on page 7
The Proposers
See Evaluation criteria on page 7
Plan of Activities
This section should provide a concise description of the planned activities. It should contain:
See Evaluation criteria on page 7
Project Management
This should be specified including
See Evaluation criteria on page 8
Duration & Resources
The duration and resources should be presented
For these actions the funding will be 100% of the actual allowable or eligible costs of the action. This usually excludes RTD work and full overheads on labour. It includes management and organisation costs, travel costs, meeting costs and communication costs.
These actions aim for broad coordination and dissemination activities where networking is important. NoEs start typically with around 20 members which might eventually be extended to 100 or more. User Groups might be relatively small depending on the users to be represented.
Section 5 explains how to submit a proposal and gives you an indication of the format and length required. However you should bear in mind that the evaluators will need sufficient detail to support both the rationale for the action and the activities and funding you propose. Try to write as succinctly as possible, concentrating on providing the information which will give an evaluator an accurate but rapid insight into your project.
Action management is a decision for the whole partnership. It is important that the organisation who acts as manager has a substantial stake in and commitment to the goals of the action. They should possess a sufficient range of skill and resources to manage the action and most importantly should have the confidence and support of the other partners. Managers will need past experience of transnational working.
Sub-contractors are organisations which provide services for one or more of the participants. The results are owned by the purchasing participant(s) - the Partner(s). The contract with Esprit used for funding requires approval of sub-contracts in some specific situations.
Yes. The model contracts are available on request from the Esprit Information Desk: tel. 32 2 296 85 96, fax. 32 2 29683 88, or e-mail esprit@dg3.cec.be.
We are not able to give any information or indications during the evaluation period, however the results will be communicated to you as soon as possible after the evaluation has been completed.
The results of the evaluations are generally available 2 to 3 months after submission, depending on the number of proposals and frequency of evaluation. At this point you will receive a letter and summary evaluation report. The result will either be that your proposal is recommended for funding or that it is rejected. Being recommended for funding does not necessarily mean that it will be funded; it simply means that the result of the first independent evaluation is positive. After this it will be considered in the light of the available budget, Esprit's strategic objectives and potentially selected for contract negotiations, which may lead to funding.
If you have sent a proposal under the continuous submission rules you should receive your acknowledgement 2 weeks after submitting. If you have not received your acknowledgement within the specified time scales you should contact the IT Programme office immediately by fax 32 2 663 72 00. You should state the project acronym, title, domain, type of action and name of co-ordinating proposer. You will receive an answer by fax within one week.
In this case, a definite decision has been made that funding will not be considered. However, proposers can reconsider the proposal taking into account the evaluation results. You may then decide to re-submit a revised proposal for another call for the relevant Work Programme Task.
The next step is the decision by the Commission to select the best proposals recommended for negotiation and eventual funding. This selection is based on the evaluators recommendations and the budget allocation.
Proposal should only be submitted once and proposals which are essentially the same should not be sent to different domains of the IT Programme or different programmes. However where the proposal is related to other existing or proposed work in other domains or programmes you should indicate this in the proposal itself or in an attached covering letter.
If in other programmes different advice is given, you should always indicate clearly to which programmes your proposal is sent.
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The URL of this document is http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/networks.htm
It was last updated on 15 March 1996.