Application Success to the Start of your European Project
FP7 Negotiations
Negotiation
The Commission will invite you to negotiate which means:
- Possible re-costing of budgets
- Checking Grant Preparation Forms (GPF's). These are the legal documents and have to be forwarded to the Research Support Office for checking and signing.
- Once the GPF's have been signed you are able to advertise (but not recruit) for any staff required on the project- see the Employ section.
Consortium Agreement (CA)
This is a legally binding document between all partners in a collaborative project and and should be in place before the contract is signed with the Commission. This document should be sent to the Research Support Office for checking and signing.
Grant Agreement (GA)
This is the contract which is signed by the Commission and the Coordinator on behalf on the consortium. Each partner then has to sign legal forms to acceed to the contract. This form should be sent to the Research Support Office for signing.
The GA will specify the start date of the project and once we have received a signed copy of the contract you can appoint staff - see the Employ section.
University bank details should be given to the Coordinator so that the pre-financing can be sent, please contact the Research Support Office for these.
Are you the Coordinator?
If you are the Coordinator then we are responsible for:
- Reallocating the project budget if cuts have been applied in consultation with the partners.
- Amending partners GPF's in NEF (the Commission's on-line system for negotiation). For more information see the Users Guide to NEF (pdf) on the Cordis website.
- Putting the Consortium Agreement in place. The EU Team in the Research Support Office can draft this for you.
- Signing the Grant Agreement on behalf of the Consortium. This will be signed by the University's legal representatives in the Research Support Office.
- Ensuring that all of the above points are completed within the deadlines set by the European Commission.
- Sending pre-financing to all partners. The Research Finance Section of the Research Support Office will assist with this.
- Organising the Pre Kick-Off meeting. UKRO have a meeting room in Brussels that you are able to use free of charge.
Non FP7 and Other European Funding
Contracts will be signed between the funding body and the University. Please forward the contract to the Research Support Office for signing. However, in some cases only the lead partner signs the contract with the funding body and in this case, supplementary agreements are needed between the other parties involved in the project. The documents issued by the funding body will mention whether these are mandatory or optional.
Reporting the Award
The budgets on your new project will be internally reported at a standard University exchange rate. The budget will be updated inline with current exchange rates during the lifetime of the project.
Costs are not eligible until after the start date of the project.
All legally binding documents have to be approved and signed by the University's legal representatives in the Research Support Office.
