The European Commission has updated its guidelines for "Submission and Integration of Partnerships Data XML FILE" to version 2.5. Compared to the previous version (2.4, dated October 2022), the document has been revised following the feedback received by the Commission from the Partnerships during the last months.

ERA-Learn has published two new guidelines covering two distinct yet highly relevant topics: synergy creation and international cooperation.

Guidance on synergy creation for European Partnerships

Leveraging synergies allows partnerships to increase their impact, improves access to resources and can foster collaboration among the R&I system actors. To provide meaningful entry points for synergy creation, the guidance provides six general purposes for synergy creation: Exploring needs and opportunities, uniting behind common goals, developing shared governance, leveraging internal and external resources, scaling impact and accelerating transitions. Every section features common mechanisms and good practices by European Partnerships in this area.

Guidance on international cooperation for European Partnerships

European Partnerships are important players in the internationalisation of European R&I activities, and there is no one-size-fits all approach in this area. The new guidance aims to help Partnerships to navigate through the complex landscape of international cooperation. It covers aspects such as underlying values and principles of international cooperation, new framework conditions in Horizon Europe, as well as specific examples and good practices among European Partnerships.

After a survey (for the members of the PKH), launched in March on this topic, the European Commission, together with ERA-LEARN, co-organised a physical workshop with the aim to gain a deeper in-depth understanding of the current administrative burdens faced by the European Partnerships. The physical workshop took place in in Brussels and was targeted to the members of the Partnership Knowledge Hub (Member States and Associated Countries representatives) and the observers therein (Co-funded, Co-programmed and Institutionalised partnership representatives).

Participants discussed the current administrative processes for European Partnerships and how occuring burdens could be limited both in the current and in the next Framework Programme (FP10).

The report and the presentations of the workshop as well as the results of the survey are being finalised and will be uploaded to the website soon.

The European Commission has published a first full version of the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA) on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. The AGA complements the Model Grant Agreement (MGA). It provides explanations and examples for each article of the MGA. The document now published is the first version of the AGA that is no longer a draft.

Unlike previous versions, it now includes explanations for all articles of the MGA. The AGA also includes information on articles that were previously missing, such as reporting and project reviews. The Commission has also made adjustments and additions to the explanations for articles already explained, for example in the definition of the different eligible costs.

A rough overview of the new changes can be found in the list of changes on page 2f of the linked document.