Horizont 2020

Congratulations, your project proposal has been selected for funding!

In the contract negotiation phase, the grant agreement with the Commission is prepared and concluded. For this purpose, a so-called "Declaration of Honour" must be signed in a timely manner. The Presidium is authorized to sign EU contracts. The signature is done electronically in the participant portal.

Parallel to the Grant Agreement, the Consortium Agreement regulating internal procedures and intellectual property rights must be negotiated between the project partners in the consortium and, if necessary, bilateral agreements must be concluded. The contract negotiations are conducted for the TU Clausthal by the legal department. The EU Funding Advisory Service is available to provide advice on all questions regarding the process, preparation for the start of the project or regulatory requirements.

Internally at TUC, the project details must now be checked by the Third Party Funding Department, the Human Resources Department, the Legal Department and, if necessary, other stakeholders (e.g. faculties, IZC) so that the project can start smoothly.

Therefore, contact the EU Research Funding Department immediately and submit verifiable documents together with the updated third-party funding notification, if applicable, to the Third-Party Funding Department.

General information on contract negotiation for EU projects can be found at:

• Guide of the Commission on contract negotiations
• Legal documents and Rules for Participation in HORIZONT 2020
• IPR Helpdesk of the Commission
• Draft consortium agreement - DESCA

The project management of EU projects is decentralised at TU Clausthal and the project management is responsible for the implementation of the projects. Vis-à-vis the EU, the project is handled via the participant portal for "Grant Management".

The EU Funding Advisory Service is available for questions during the project duration and project completion, in particular for:

• Specific requirements of the EU in H2020 projects, e.g. time recording and release of staff.
• Resource planning
• Budget shifts
• Contract amendments, e.g. in the case of term extensions

On request we can provide working tools for cost statements (Excel sheets) and time recording of project staff (timesheets).

For all scientific peer-reviewed publications based on results from H2020 projects, Open Access publication is mandatory, either

• the so-called "golden road", publication in an Open Access journal,
• the "green route", making the publication or accepted manuscript available in an open access repository, in parallel with the "classic" publication of the article in a journal.

There is no general obligation to publish results if, for example, the results are to be exploited industrially. The EU Commission also calls for the data on which the publications are based to be made available so that the published results can be checked and reproduced. The European Commission has published guidelines for dealing with Open Access to scientific publications and research data in Horizon 2020.

If the project is part of the "Pilot on Open Research Data", all data generated in the respective projects should be made accessible. For this purpose, a Data Management Plan (DMP) must be drawn up, which should describe the collection, processing, storage and access rights of the data throughout the entire project cycle.

For further information and advice please contact the colleagues of the university library at Open Access and Research Data Management.

Further information:

• Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data in Horizon 2020.
• Guidelines on Data Management in Horizon 2020
• Sample template for a Data Management Plan in H2020of the TU Berlin
• Guidelines on OA Publications in H2020 at the TU Clausthal

Reports on the progress of the project and the settlement of costs (periodic reports) must be submitted to the EU on a regular basis; these periods are specified in the grant agreement. The consortium has 60 days after the end of the period to submit the reports. Usually, the coordinator will communicate significantly earlier internal deadlines for the financial reports, as the individual reports of all partners have to be merged and jointly submitted to the EU.

1. The financial report will be generated by the working group in the Participant Portal and submitted electronically to the Third Party Funding Unit, SG14 for internal review and approval. Please start preparing the financial reports early and submit the "Financial Statement" together with the accompanying documents (e.g. gross personnel cost lists) to the Third Party Funding Department at least 14 days before the internal deadline.
2. The Where-Used List is approved electronically by Mrs. Röneke via electronic signature; this signature is also associated with forwarding to the coordinator.
3. The coordinator collects the financial reports of all partners and submits them via the participant portal to the EU for review.

If the sum of all invoiced direct costs without subcontracts exceeds € 325,000, an external economic consultant must check the accounts ("audit") at the end of the project and issue a so-called "Certificate on Financial Statements" (cf. Annex 5 of the Grant Agreement). This certificate must be submitted to the EU together with the accounts for the last period.

If you foresee that you will exceed this cost limit in the course of the last reporting period, please contact the EU Funding Advisory Service early in the process so that an auditor can be appointed in consultation with the Third-Party Funding Administration.