Guidance Notes for Beneficiaries and Auditors: Update available

On 3 September 2009, the European Commission issued a revised version of the Guidance Notes for Beneficiaries and Auditors on FP7 audit certification issues.

The objective of these guidance notes is to give an overview of the requirements and provisions which are of importance in claiming costs for reimbursement and hence in the Certification on the Financial Statements and on the Methodology. The document is composed of Part I dealing with the Certificates on the Methodology, Part II covering the Certificates on the Financial Statements and Part III which is a common glossary for both types of Certificates.

This is the second update of the document. The following modifications, product of experience, new developments and feedback from users, have been introduced:

– the adoption by the Commission on 23 June 2009 of the acceptability criteria for the assessment of average personnel costs methodologies (Part I - 5.4 and Annex II)
– the particular case of average personnel costing methodologies for physical persons and SME owners who do not receive a salary (Part I – 5.3.4)
– additional information/explanations and/or rewording further to questions raised through the Research Enquiry Service.

Download here.

New info sheet available: FP7 3rd Country Involvement

Experience with the first calls in FP7 shows that the administrative and legal aspects related to the participation of organisations from so-called Third Countries are often a particular challenge for consortia. Not least, this can lead to significant delays in grant negotiations.

The Commission has therefore prepared a quick guide that focuses on the cooperation with third country participants in the 7th Framework Programme. The guide was prepared to assist future consortia in submitting proposals and to speed up the negotiation process. It can be downloaded from the Euresearch site.

Funds to develop alternative solutions to animal testing

The European Commission and the cosmetic industry match research funds to develop alternative solutions to animal testing.

On 30 July 2009, the European Commission launched a €25 million call for proposals in this field and the European cosmetic industry, represented by the European Cosmetics Association (Colipa), committed to match the funds. As a result, up to €50 million will be allocated to research projects laying the scientific foundation for future safety testing methods with a higher predictive value, and that will be faster and cheaper than animal tests.

With this call, the European Commission is seeking proposals for research projects involving a wide range of scientific partners across Europe and focusing on the following topics:

- development of organ-simulating devices;
- use of human-based target cells;
- definition of new toxicological endpoints and intermediate markers
- computational modelling techniques
- exploitation of approaches developed in systems biology; and
- integrated data analysis and scientific services.

Through the co-operation between the European Commission and Colipa, the projects selected can be funded up to 100% of their total eligible costs.

More information can be found in the related Europa press release of 31 Aug 09.

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