| Dear reader, Our training season has ended, which means we are going on a well-deserved summer break to return with full batteries for the autumn courses. We’ve welcomed over 4000 professionals from many parts of the world, including the EU, UK, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Ukraine, Armenia, Türkiye, and New Zealand. We delivered over 16 in-person and online courses and 10 free webinars and several in-house courses to various clients between January and June 2024 and had incredibly interesting discussions with our participants.
Our experts Gabor, Ömer, Gabriella, Jelena and Krisztina shared that some of the most discussed topics in Horizon Europe proposal development were the length and complexity of the data management part as well as the time needed to develop a lump sum budget. Other common subjects included finding and reviewing successful proposal examples, understanding how to identify impact KPIs and whether the plans should include a separate ethical work package.
When it came to Horizon Europe project management, some of the most pressing issues were identifying and justifying deviations in the period reporting and determining how much percentage was acceptable. Moreover, participants of our courses were taught how to monitor the partner performance in lump sum projects since certain financial information, such as the person-months spent, couldn’t be requested. Lastly, another important element discussed was the possibility of partners facing cash flow issues due to the low pre-financing rates in lump sum projects, where the work packages were not divided into reporting periods, leading to the EC contributions arriving only towards the end of the project.
Finally, due to the high request by our community, we introduced the first-ever course on personnel cost calculations in EU funded projects. During this course our financial expert Gabor had in-depth discussions with the participants on various aspects of this type of financial reporting. Firstly, they addressed the pros and cons on the period reporting-based personnel cost calculations versus the recently added calendar year-based option, particularly in the context of long (e.g. over 12 months) reporting periods and concerns around the closing of the fiscal year. Secondly, they discussed the severe effect of the switches between full-time and part-time employment during the reporting period to the eligible personnel cost, including scenarios when the parental leave and/or long-term sick leave causes a “disturbance in the force”.
Moreover, they found solutions to the nonsensical (!) article in the Annotated Grant Agreement on banning the adjustment to the 215 days when long-term sick leave or sabbatical occurs. They also covered the absurdity of a time recording using the all-new template, underlining why keeping the good-old H2020 hourly-based timesheets was still the best solution. Finally, they delved into the labyrinth of day-equivalent conversion to explore which option had what effect on the participants’ reportable employment costs. They also carried out an extensive analysis of who should apply for the all-new unit cost for personnel cost (PUC) option, and why, which was added to the GA from May 2024 onwards.
What about your key learnings? Would you have anything to add to this list? Let us know by answering this email or engaging in a conversation on this LinkedIn post! |
