Introduction

Before launching a call all major milestones have to be thoroughly addressed and decisions need to be taken.  In particular the following aspects need to be covered:

  • Call administration: call secretariat, call documents
  • Overall time frame: call start, call end, time for evaluation/decision
  • Submission of proposals: proposal submission service, helpdesk
  • Evaluation of proposals: transnational and/or national procedures, consensus meeting
  • Funding modes 
  • Financial commitments: reliable and well balanced commitments reflecting the expected demand
  • Start of funded projects: national decision processes, common start date
  • Monitoring: common transnational monitoring, monitoring of funded projects, monitoring of call implementation

Special attention should be paid to ensuring appropriate financial commitments from each funding agency participating in the joint call. Committed budgets should be in balance with the demand, ie. should be reasonable with respect to the expected number of submitted proposals. If the committed budgets are not in line with the requests from the local research communities problems will arise when it comes to the joint funding decisions.

Another important aspect is the overall time frame of the call. This should be well thought through taking into account the individual steps involved in the call procedure.

Advice for Co-funded European Partnerships: The final payments to all funded projects needs to be done before the end of the particular GA of the Co-funded European Partnership.

Advice for ERA-NET COFUND: All final payments to projects funded from the co-funded call must be made before the end of the ERA-NET COFUND GA.