In August 2008, the European Commission launched an open access pilot in FP7. Under this pilot, grant recipients in seven areas (energy, environment, health, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures, science in society, and social sciences and humanities) will be required to:

- deposit peer reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their FP7 projects into an online repository;
- make their best efforts to ensure open access to these articles within either six (health, energy, environment, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures) or twelve months (social sciences and humanities, science in society) after publication.

A related special clause will be added in the grant agreements.

More information.

As previously announced, the EC launched several calls on 3 Sep 2008. Now open are:

Research for SME associations
Science in Society
5 x ENERGY
HEALTH
ENVIRONMENT

All open calls, the related work programmes, guides for applicants and all other relevant documents as well as the submission deadlines you can find on the call page of Cordis.

We will be happy to support you in the preparation of a proposal and to be on your side as your management partner from the first project idea to the final report. Just give us a call or contact us by email :-).

Some clarification on equipment depreciation from the Finance Helpdesk:

Assuming that you are claiming under eligible costs, equipment necessary for the project can be depreciated and the can be claimed against the project. How you claim for the equipment depreciation should be according to the normal accounting principals of the organisation. If depreciation is 20% per annum, the charge will be 20% per annum (probably on a daily or monthly basis) from the date of purchase or use in the project, whichever is the later. If the normal depreciation rate for the organisation is 50% per annum then that will be the cost on a daily or monthly basis. If 100% depreciation is the norm within the organisation, then 100% depreciation will be charged on the date of acquisition/use within the project.

Of course, the claimed costs have to be in proportion with it’s usage on the project.

A warning from the Finance Helpdesk:

A major change in FP7 is that it is an explicit requirement for the first time that all charges (direct and indirect) to the project must appear in the organisations book of accounts. It is how they are actually recorded that determines their eligibility. For example if your accounting department automatically records travel as overhead, they are not a direct chargeable cost. As previous years books of accounts will be closed by the end of a specific project and thus unalterable, any such deviations cannot be corrected as was the case in previous Framework Programs.

Its is recommended that you ensure your cost recording system is compliant with these new more stringent rules and perhaps implementing changes so things such as travel can be split depending whether it is classed as a direct cost or not. One also must remember that items can only be recoded once.

The Finance Helpdesk warns that these changes have not been highlighted sufficiently and with the removal of need for most Audit Certificates, such errors may not be picked up until subsequent external audits. Thus organisations may have large future liabilities they are unaware of.

You would like to find your participation identification code PIC in the online database of the Unique Registration Facility? Or verify other data concerning your FP7 registration?

The website of the Unique Registration Facility (URF) now provides a search engine which allows to query legal name, city, country or VAT number.

In August 2008, the European Commission launched an open access pilot in FP7. Under this pilot, grant recipients in seven areas (energy, environment, health, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures, science in society, and social sciences and humanities) will be required to:

- deposit peer reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their FP7 projects into an online repository;

- make their best efforts to ensure open access to these articles within either six (health, energy, environment, parts of information and communication technologies, research infrastructures) or twelve months (social sciences and humanities, science in society) after publication.

More information