The Finance Hekpdesk informs that on 24 Jan 2011, the European Commission adopted new measures that affect current and future FP7 Grant Agreements.

The Commission adopted three measures with immediate effect on the management of EU research grants in the current EU research programme (FP7):
· Allowing more flexibility in how personnel costs are calculated so that EU research grant-holders can apply their usual accounting methods when requesting reimbursement for average personnel costs. They will no longer need to set up entire parallel accounting systems just for this purpose;
· SME owners whose salaries are not formally registered in their accounts can now be reimbursed, through flat-rate payments, for their contribution to work on research projects.
· A new steering group of senior officials from all the Commission departments and agencies involved will remove inconsistencies in the application of the rules on research funding.

In line with these changes, Annex II of the FP7 Grant Agreement has been updated. The new version is available here.

The Finance Helpdesk also published an interesting list of FAQs around this topic, enjoy reading their related newsletter.