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Overview

Mackintosh Consultants has one of the best success records in Europe for helping clients obtain grants from the European Union. EU money is available to companies, individuals, NGOs and others through over 80 aid programmes. Sadly, funds are often not spent up because of lack of knowledge, experience or awareness on the part of the many individuals or organisations that are entitled to apply.

Framework Programmes are the EU's main instruments for R&D funding, and are the world's largest publicly-funded research and technological development programmes. They run in four-year cycles and are implemented through specific funding streams and mechanisms proposed by the European Commission in agreement with the European Council and Parliament.

A number of non-Framework programmes also exist, with most offering grants, networking opportunities or both.

EU Programmes generally last for a number of years and are managed by the various Directorate Generals of the European Commission through public tenders. These tenders are published in the Official Journal of the European Communities (OJ). The call for tenders is the first official step to initiate a programme. Each call contains the following:

• a description of the programme and its budget
• the procedures and timelines by which a proposal should be presented
• community contributions to a project
• the prerequisites needed to be able to participate in a programme
• the selection criteria
• key addresses, where one can obtain information documentation or the required application forms

Generally, the deadline by which a proposal should be presented is within three months upon publication of the call. In exceptions though, this deadline can vary between six weeks and four months.

Who can participate

Project proposals can be submitted by all natural or legal persons originating from the EU Member States (e.g. enterprises, universities, research institutes, public bodies, private bodies, NGOs, etc.) or others originating from countries participating in that particular programme.

One of the major prerequisites for the participation in European programmes is the transnational character a proposal should have. Normally, a project has to involve at least two organisations of two different Member States or at least an organisation from one Member State and another from an associated State to the European Union to guarantee the realisation of the requirement. Participants also have to prove a sufficient level of technical and financial reliability.

Participants' roles

In every project, one of the participants has to take on the role of the Coordinator. This participant has to have substantial experience in project management (but, if he hasn't, Mackintosh Consultants does have - and can therefore provide this function). In particular, the coordinator is in charge of all the financial operations (receiving the contribution from the Commission and distributing it to the partners within the project), and reporting on the advancement of the project and collecting data from the partners of the project. The Coordinator concludes the necessary contracts with his partners to realise the project. Every contract has to clearly describe the role, the rights, the financial requirements and the responsibilities of participants.

A Partner contributes to the project in one or more ways and in consequence carries parts of the costs. A Partner benefits from the financial contribution of the Commission according to the contract signed by the coordinator and the Partner. He is obliged to provide all the required (technical) information to the Commission. Furthermore, if subcontractors are used, it is the responsibility of the Partner to ensure that the bills have a clear reference to the project.

Looking for partners

Identifying partners is one of the main tasks in the first phase of a project preparation.

The first step is to examine the possibility to find appropriate partners amongst the organisations you are already in contact with: public bodies, clients, industrial concerns which are interested in a collaboration, universities in different countries.....

This solution would considerably reduce the preparation time of a project, as it would no longer be necessary to identify a possible partner, make a first approach without knowing the outcome. In this case prior knowledge is already given, competences are clear and the work methods are known.

You might be following the same objectives and therefore a dialogue is easy to construct on a basis of trust. A partnership is quicker, stronger and more effectively formed in this manner. If, on the other hand, you do not have contact with foreign partners, the Commission provides some instruments to find these, though Mackintosh Consultants also has extensive experience at finding good partners for its clients.

InfoDays

InfoDays are organised by the Commission around the Community programmes and involve representatives of companies, research institutes, universities and other organisations already involved in the programmes or those who wish to become part of it. This is a very good opportunity to create contacts with the functionaries of the Commission, the experts and to receive key information.

The international collaboration required by these projects is not always easy to implement. The management of the project throughout its realisation often becomes more complex and costly. The contact with new organisations of varying types and in different locations requires different contracts and relationships that often slow down the implementation of the work.

On the other hand, the international collaboration has definite advantages:

• a wealth of knowledge and information, previously unattainable
• extension of your network of contacts
• the splitting of costs amongst various partners gives these partners the possibility to think of projects of greater dimensions than if they were alone
• an optimisation of the usage of competences

Directly managed funds

There are two types of Community funds: those managed directly by the European Commission and those given to the Member States to manage.

In the first case it is the Commission who manages these funds and establishes the funding criteria for the various programmes, which in turn it also manages directly.

In the second case, the funds are assigned to the Member States, in particular to certain Regions, to alleviate the inequalities between regions and develop those regions in need through economic and social stimulation (Structural Funds). On the basis of a programme approved by the Commission, the regions may use the funds according national rules.

Financial contributions

The European Union partially finances projects. Hardly ever does this contribution cover all the costs though (normally the contribution varies from a minimum of 35% of the costs of a research project to a maximum of 85% of the projects presented by NGO's).

The contribution can only be used for the implementation of a project and cannot be used for the overall working of an organisation that is involved in implementing a project.