Applying for EC funding
The Applications Group is here to help with all aspects of applying
for research funding in EC FP7. The application process can be
time-consuming and complicated, and we would be happy to help at the
earliest opportunity. In addition, there are often complex contractual
and IP issues involved in conducting EC-funded research, and we would
urge you always to seek advice before putting together an application,
particularly one where it is Cambridge who will be the coordinator. If
you are thinking of coordinating a project then a useful outline guide
to your responsibilities
can be found here.
The menu below gives you access to key information that you should
consider before putting together an application, the rules for applying
under FP7 are generally consistent between schemes and have been
written assuming that the University of Cambridge is acting as a
partner in a Collaborative Project (CP), please speak to your
Administrator.
The Application Process
Most of the hard copy form filling has been replaced in FP7 with a
number of online systems; this section of the website gives an overview
of the initial stages of applications under the new framework.
Contains important information on the University in an easily
downloadable format, which needs to be included in all FP7 applications.
Costing a proposal
Gives guidance on what sort of costs you can expect to be reimbursed
for and what the new framework’s costing methodology means in practice
to you and your project. In this section you can also find advice on
audit costs and further pFACT advice.
Contains a helpful presentation which details how to complete your pFACT.
Submission process
This section details the internal procedures involved in applying to
the EC, including what you need to provide to your department and what
the coordinator will expect from you in terms of specific information
for the new online application system (EPSS)
What happens next?
The coordinator has pressed the button on your application and it
has all gone quiet, look here for advice on what you can expect to hear
in the coming months and the next step in the application process –
Grant Preparation Forms (GPFs).
Contains all the vital information on the legal status and
various contacts for the University your coordinator will need after
the electronic application has been accepted.
The Application Process
To apply as a coordinator for an FP7 EC grant (including Marie Curie
and European Research Council), you must use the Electronic Proposal and
Submission System (known in short form as the EPSS). This system is the only
permitted submission route under FP7. You will need to register to use this
service, using your own personal information, plus the following information for
the University of Cambridge:
"The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge
The Old Schools Trinity Lane Cambridge CB2 1TN "
Participant Identity Code (PIC) = 999977172
THIS INFORMATION IS VITAL: EVERY CAMBRIDGE ACADEMIC WHO WISHES TO APPLY FOR FP7
FUNDING MUST USE THE SAME REGISTRATION DETAILS.
Please note that the Registration process for EPSS and completing the
application are two separate steps, it is essential to ensure that you register
with the system at the earliest opportunity if you are acting as the
coordinator. The EPSS consists of roughly two parts – the administrative forms
(Part A) and the proposal itself (Part B). This sections is concerned primarily
with Part A, for further information on completing the proposal itself you can
find guidelines on the FP7 information website, CORDIS,
which can be accessed from
here. Guidance on how to complete the Part B can be found in Annex 4 of the
Guide for Applicants which can be accessed by navigating onto the call page.
For a guide on how to complete your EPSS registration
please click here.
If you are simply being named as a partner on an FP7 project then the
initial EPSS registration process is not necessary as only the coordinator
will require an account, they should, however, supply you with a ‘Partner’
log-in to allow you to access information on yourself and all of the other
partners and to allow you to fill in part of the administrative forms.
A list of FAQs for the EPSS system
can be
downloaded from here.
How to cost your proposal
To cost your proposal accurately, you must use the pFACT costing tool. You
should already have a pFACT login to use; if not,
please
contact the pFACT helpdesk who can arrange for a training and registration
session.
Alternatively, we have prepared slides of the key steps in putting together a
pFACT for EC FP7 and how this should be reflected on the EPSS system,
which can be downloaded from here. These have been prepared by costing a
proposal from the ‘ground up’, however, sometimes you will have been given a
budget to work to by your coordinator. It is still important to use pFACT as
this may throw-up possible future discrepancies between what your coordinator
believes is a fair budget and how much the actual cost may be.
If you would like one-to-one assistance with costing your proposal, or training
on using pFACT, please
contact the pFACT helpdesk or your Research Operations Office Applications administrator who can
arrange this for you.
At present, the University supports the costing of EC proposals using the Direct
Costs model, this is referred to by the name of ‘Special Transitition Flat
Rate’. The EC Template in pFACT has been set up to record these costs in
accordance with the EC model. Under this model, for Cooperation Programme
proposals, the Commission will pay overheads at 60% on all direct costs of the
research (not including subcontracting costs which include audit costs - the
100% costs of these will be met without overheads). It is anticipated that the
UK Universities will, later in the programme, adopt a full fEC costing model and
the EC template will be modified accordingly at that stage.
In the meantime if you are intending to apply to a scheme where the 60% overhead
rate does not apply, please contact your Research Operations Office administrator for advice.
The EC reimburses RTD activities (Research, Training and Development) at 75%, so
for a standard project where Cambridge is NOT the Co-ordinator, the project will
be funded along the following lines:
Direct costs = 100,000
Overheads = 60,000
Total budget = 160,000
Amount payable by Commission = 160,000 x 75% = 120,000
The above worked example does not include audit costs because under the seventh
framework the EC have changed their rules on audits and for projects which cost
less than 375,000 EUR no audit is required. If you would like further
clarification on when to expect an audit please speak to your Applications administrator.
£2000 per audit should be costed into the grant.
Please note that subcontracting costs are not included in the above model and
would be reimbursed at 100% without overhead. Management activities (i.e. a
project where Cambridge is the Co-ordinator) would also be reimbursed at 100%
but would attract overhead so the actual funding would be different in these
cases. The Demonstration activity is only funded at 50% so please make sure that
you or your applications administrator has a chance to look at the budget before
agreeing to the submission,
The University will use some of the overheads to cover all the direct costs of
the project (much in the same way that it covers the ‘missing’ 20% from UK
Research Council income), and the balance will be split between the University
and the Department in accordance with the “University Policy on Division of
Research Grant Income under Full Economic Costing”. One important factor to note
here is how the EC treat all local taxes, if you are preparing to purchase large
items of equipment please take into account that VAT is an ineligible cost under
FP7 – to cover this shortfall your department will have to meet the difference
from its share of the overheads. Please bear this in mind when costing your
proposal and leave off the VAT (unfortunately the pFACT report will still show a
‘VAT’ amount, but this is simply the program stripping out an imagined VAT
calculation.)
Please also bear in mind that your pFACT should be completed in GBP and then
converted into Euros, there is a currency button on the left hand side of your
pFACT, for the latest University Exchange Rate
please refer
to the pFACT log-in front page here.
Eligible costs include staff, travel, consumables, equipment etc, plus the costs
of any permanent staff employed on the project (PI time). Please note that if PI
time is included, the Commission has stipulated that this must be supported by
timesheets. We would recommend that you manually build-in a figure of 3.5% to all
non-staff costs to cover any inflationary increase as some projects can last for
many years.
Lastly, no starting date is required to be specified for EC projects at
application stage. However, as the lead-time between application and project
start can be very long, we would recommend that you work on at least one year
between the application deadline and receiving the first monies.
Submission Process
Although the coordinator submits the proposal, the Research Operations Office is required to review the
Administrative (A1 – A3) forms prior to submission to ensure that it is properly
completed and costed. In practice different coordinators work in different ways,
some will release the partner log-ins to allow you to look at, and edit , UCAM
details, but some rely on sending out various forms which require the
coordinator to ‘double-key’ the information into the EPSS. We would always
advise UCAM partners to insist on having access to the partner log-in details as
this will ensure that you have the most up to date version of the proposal (the
Part B)
NB: All costings must be constructed using pFACT. Once the Research Operations Office have approved your
proposal they will confirm this, either by letter or email to the Principal
Investigator and the relevant Department Administrator, and the PI can then
"press the button". Your proposal forms can be sent to your Research Operations Office administrator by
email, and your pFACT will be automatically forwarded to the Research Operations Office via your
Department's internal authorisation route.
What happens next
If your project is successful the coordinator will be contacted by the EC
project officer directly, as a partner all contact will have to go through the
coordinator (normally listed as partner number one on the application) and the
coordinator will be requested to fill in an online form which captures some more
information about all the partners. This online form is called the Negotiation
Form (or NEF for short) and it produces a pdf file of something called the Grant
Preparation Forms (this is normally shortened to ‘GPFs’ and a similar form
existed under FP6 called ‘CPFs’). Only the coordinator will have access to the
NEF password and the mechanism for filling out all of their partners information
differs depending on the coordinator. To simplify matters the Research Operations Office has produced a
sheet of information (downloadable
from here) which can be emailed to the coordinator. The GPFs also contain
updated budget information and your applications administrator will need a pFACT
to match closely the revised budget contained in the GPFs, once we have received
a set of GPFs which match our standard information and the budget matches the
pFACT one of the Universities authorised signatories at the Research Operations Office will be able to
provide you with signed originals of the GPFs for sending to the coordinator.
The coordinator will also be required by the EC project officer to contact all
of the partners and produce something called a Consortium Agreement. This will
probably be needed to be produced before the EC project officer will agree to
the grant being awarded and signed off – the consortium agreement (CA) will
finalise how the consortium will work in practice and covers voting rules,
meeting agendas and other such important matters to ensure the smooth operation
of the project. Once the subject of the CA has been brought up you should
contact your Research Operations Office Contracts Manager (for a list of contacts,
please click here). As only
the coordinator has direct contact with the EC it is vital that any draft of the
CA is forwarded to our Contracts team so that your project is given the best
possible chance of proceeding smoothly.
Once the GPFs and the CA are complete the coordinator will receive a Grant
Agreement which once signed by the commission, and by the coordinators
authorised representative, will signify the start of the project.
