The SRA Symposium - College of Medicine

Papers
• Revised implementation plan – to inform the EC of any deviation from the original proposal.
This must be completed before the deviation is made to avoid any abatement of future financial
claims.
• Revised Joint programmes of activity – to inform the EC of the redistribution of workload in
production of the revised implementation plan.
• Plan for using and disseminating the knowledge.
• Science and society reporting questionnaire.
• Reporting on the implementation of the gender action plan (only for Integrated Projects (IPs)
and Networks of Excellence (NoEs)).
• Questionnaire on workforce statistics (for all projects except IPs and NOEs).
• Socio-economic reporting questionnaire.
The frequency of these reports will be specified in the contract but will be a multiple of 6 months,
most commonly at 12 or 18-month intervals. This is unlike US reports which will be required no
more frequently than quarterly and at least annually.
Financial Management
The project Consortium management budget must be used to meet the cost of audit certification,
the cost of calls for proposals, obtaining any financial security such as bank guarantees when
requested by the EC, and any other management activities at the Consortium level not covered
by any other activity (such as coordination of intellectual property management and promotion
of gender equality within the project). This budget heading is limited to 7% of total budget for the
project. Any of these management costs in excess of each of the participating partner’s negotiated
share of the management budget will be regarded as non-eligible.
The EC regards all identifiable indirect taxes, including sales tax or import duties, as non-eligible
costs, so your systems must be able to separate out these elements of indirect taxes from the eligible
expenditure items to which they relate.
Timesheets
The US effort-reporting requirement is to monitor the percentage level of activity and the percentage
contribution of capped salary costs. The EC effort-reporting requirement is to monitor the
whole-time hours of effort for individuals involved with the project. Percentages are not acceptable
as these hours are then converted using a standard rate into person months. This evidence is
required irrespective of whether or not the EC is requested to pay some or all of the salary costs
relating to this involvement.
Audit
Within EC Framework 6, and it is likely Framework 7, more emphasis is being placed on the
responsibility of the University or Non-profit to evidence the accuracy of the cost statements
submitted than in previous funding rounds. The release of the next block of cash funds will not
be made unless the necessary audit certification has been received. Unlike the US value threshold
of $500k triggering the need for audit certification, in EC funding such certification is required to
accompany the periodic cost statement submitted irrespective of the value of award. Only in cases
where no cost statement is due within an annual reporting period, but the financial contribution
is in excess of Euro 750k (with one certificate required per partner in receipt of amounts above
this limit during the period), is the value of the award relevant. The audit certification is similar
for both EC and US funding and is deemed to be an “independent” certification as the audit firm
selected are independent of both the University/Non-profit and of the funder. A special Clause
39 has been recently added to provide organisations in receipt of less than Euro150k exemption
182 2005 Symposium Proceedings Book