Management and Reporting in Horizon Europe

Open Science and Data management in Horizon Europe

Open Science principles are to improve access to and re-use of research data generated by Horizon Europe projects, while taking into account the need to balance openness and protection information. Beneficiaries must provide immediate open access (i.e. at publication) through a trusted repository for peer-reviewed publications. Beneficiaries must develop and update a data management plan (DMP) and manage responsibly all digital research data generated in the action in line with the FAIR principles. Recommended DMP templates are available.

More information about Open Access and DMP on Funding and Tender portal online manual (H2020, not updated for Horizon Europe yet)

UiO's web pages about data management and DMP

Communication of the project and acknowledgement of EU funding

Beneficiaries of Horizon Europe funding must promote the project and its results, according to the dissemination activities promised in the proposal. Dissemination is part of the "Impact" part of the proposal and hence taken into consideration as part of the evaluation.

Read more about communcating the project at Funding and Tender online manual

Beneficiaries of Horizon Europe funding have the obligation to explicitly acknowledge that their action has received EU funding. For information about obligations and rights when communicating the EU-project, please refer to Nettsider for EU-prosjekter ved UiO (Norwegian)

Payments

In Horizon Europe, after the grant has been signed, the consortium will normally receive a float to start working on the project (normally, pre-financing of 160% of the average EU funding per reporting period (i.e. maximum grant amount/number of periods); exceptionally, less or no pre-financing). For actions with only one reporting period, it will be less, since 100% would mean the totality of the grant amount.

Note that payments will be automatically lowered if one of the consortium members has outstanding debts towards the EU (granting authority or other EU bodies). Such debts will be offset by the granting authority, in line with the conditions set out in the grant agreement (see Article 22). Also note that at the moment of the prefinancing payment, an amount ranging from 5% to 8% of the maximum grant amount will be deducted from the prefinancing payment and transferred to the mutual insurance mechanism. This mechanism covers the risks associated with non-recovery of sums due from the beneficiaries. 

This also applies to Lump Sum projects.

Eligible Costs in a Horizon Europe project

All the rights and obligations are specified in the General Model Grant Agreement. The annotated version explains and illustrates the legal text and includes the financial guidelines. Specific rules for some projects, like European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), are specified in Annex 5 to the Grant Agreement.

In order to be eligible the project costs must be:

• incurred by the beneficiary
• incurred in connection with the action
• incurred during the project duration
• identifiable & verifiable in the beneficiary¡¯s accounts
• compliant with national law
• reasonable, justified, in accordance with sound financial management (economy & efficiency)
• indicated in the budget

In the project budget the costs are distinguished in the following categories: direct personnel costs, equipment costs, other direct costs, subcontracting costs, and indirect costs. 

UiOs budget template for Horizon Europe

Personnel costs in Horizon Europe

UiO's usual employment conditions, for example salary levels, shall be followed. 

Time worked under the action must be supported by "EU grants declaration of days worked on a project"  signed monthly by the person and their supervisor. Please see "Kodverk og skjema"- "Horizon - timeregistrering"

Declaration on exclusive work is not an option in Horizon Europe.

In Horizon Europe, daily rate approach for personnel cost is a fixed provision across all programmes except those projects based on unit costs such as Marie Sk?odowska-Curie.

Personnel costs calculation

The costs have to be calculated in accordance with the following method:

Personnel cost = daily rate X number of day-equivalents worked on the action (rounded up or down to the nearest half-day)

Daily rate calculation:

You have to calculate a daily rate per person for the reporting period.

The general formula for the daily rate calculation per calendar year (from January to December) is:

Actual annual personnel costs for the person divided by 215 days 

215 days are number of days for a 100% position a full year

However:

Many actions have a reporting period not aligned with the calendar year, or part-time work etc. The formula for calculating break down the annual personnel cost with a daily rate for any possible situation, you have to use the following formula:

Actual personnel costs during the months within the reporting period divided by maximum declarable day-equivalents

Day-equivalents

8 hours = 1 day-equivalent

Double capping:

- Horizontal ceiling: the actual number of day-equivalents declared accross cannot be higher than 215 per calendar year (or pro-rata)

- Reporting period ceiling: the number of days-equivalents to be declared is capped at the maximum declarable day-equivalents per reporting period

Equipment costs

For equipment costs, UiO's guidelines and systems for procurement have to be followed. Costs are depreciated with regards to UiOs usual practice. Only costs which are depreciated during the project period can be reported to the European Commission.

Other direct costs

These are for example travel costs, costs for holding meetings and conferences, costs for publications, and other consumables.

Subcontracting costs

Subcontracting costs must be defined in the Description of Action (Annex 1 of the Grant Agreement) and are just allowed for minor services which do not include research tasks.

Indirect costs

Indirect costs (overhead) will be covered by a uniform 25% flat-rate of all eligible direct costs. Eligible costs are reimbursed by 100 %.

Please note that Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions are budgeted as Unit Costs per person/month.

The Commission has published templates of periodic reports for Horizon 2020 projects (for RIA, IA, CSA and MSCA). Periodic reports in Horizon Europe will have two components: a technical (two parts) and financial report. Both templates are now available for viewing on the Funding and Tender portal in as single PDF document.

Exchange rate

In Reporting, use average of the daily exchange rates published in the Official Journal of the EU calculated over the reporting period. You may use the editable charts on the website of the European Central Bank.

Certificate on the Financial Statements and Audit reports

In Horizon Europe,, a Certificate on the Financial Statements (CFS) has to be provided in accordance with the schedule, threshold and conditions set out in the Data Sheet. Usually CFS has to be provided  for the next financial periodic report if the total requested EU contribution is equal to or over 430 000€ .

At UiO  the Internal Auditing Unit issues the Certificate on the Financial statements. The Project manager has to contact the Internal Auditing Unit four weeks in advanced to make an appointment for the Audit and agree on procedures and delivery of documents.

The European Commission may order an audit of your Horizon Europe grant during the project or at any time up to 2 years after the final payment. The audit can be conducted by the Commission's own staff or outsourced to external persons or bodies appointed by the Commission. On the basis of the audit findings, an audit report will be prepared. A draft audit report will first be sent to the beneficiary with a 30 day period where the beneficiary will be able to provide observations to the draft report. The auditors will then compile and reconcile any observations, and a final audit report will be prepared. Any claimed costs found to be ineligible will then be recovered or deducted from the next payment.