Digital Signature Legality for Travel Agency Agreement in European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature legality for Travel Agency Agreement in European Union

name is julian angelo so i'm working in the legal unit as peter said and i will be also a company with my um by my colleague isabel laroy that will uh also help me to answer your question afterwards you are asking this slide to slide the tool and yes indeed a colleague from the g badge nicholas ball will uh will also help me to do this presentation and we'll focus on daily rate calculation today so this will be our journey together i will focus on the main key legal and financial aspects stemming from the model grant agreement the horizon europe madeleine's agreement so i will try to give you um details and relevant information uh as much as possible but taking into account the the time of course we have for that and leaving enough time for slider question afterwards uh so we will start with um the so-called corporate structure raised on your advantage so how it looks like basically this model grant agreement you will sign if your project is successfully retained for funding and then you are at the end of the gap stage then we will focus on the type of participant that can be involved in the project then we will move to the personal cost aspect and especially the corporate so-called corporate daily rate calculation where my colleague the class from dj budget will tell you more about that then i will take over again and present you um the main features of the so-called project-based remuneration which is a specific we have in horizon europe in terms of a personal cost eligibility aspect and we will terminate this this little this little trick together by a couple of words on the certificate and financial statement so that you have a good overview of this main legal and financial aspect embedded in the model grant agreement for rise on europe so let's get started with um um the basics i would say but which is very important i think to to recall to all of you um i think you have heard already that we from previous presentation produce intervention from from us from the commission about this so-called corporate approach and corporate model count agreement so to get it short corporate you can replace this figure of speech of this wording by commission-wide model government agreement something to be used not only by one program but model grant agreement or master master file master model grant agreement to be used as a basis by all you you program under direct management and and then these these programs are of course able to customize a bit this this master document and and have it adapted for the needs of the specific policy they objective pursuing there will be a three main corporate model grant agreement three main master document if you if you prefer a so-called general corporate model grant agreement which is actually the one i would say commonly knew so far when we financed um a project especially in horizon before as in 2020 and and now in our eyes on europe so what is it it's basically um the model current agreement where we reimburse most of the costs on on on an actual cost basis so you declare your actual cost and we apply your investments rate on both actual costs but you may have also embedded in this model guns agreement alongside the actual cost some unit costs for instance i will give you a simple example you may declare a cost of employee under actual cost and you may have also for other employees or categories some people you declare via the so-called average personal cost which is a unit cost and you see in the same action with this general model grant agreement you will declare cost on actual cost basis and on a unit cost basis so this is why it's called mixed budget based mixed actual consequence then we will have also we will use also we rely on this uh corporate unit-based model grant agreement so here to illustrate this very quickly it's basically the model grant agreement you will sign for marie schrodofskerker reaction so fully based on unique contribution approach living allowance familiar ones and also new allowances introduced for horizon europe like for the special needs of a researcher for instance so we will also rely on this um corporate model ground segment we will have a horizon in europe marx logos kakuri unit based model grant agreement and there will be also um good use certainly and increase use of the so-called corporate lump sum based model current agreement so where here it's basically the continuity the legacy so to say of what has been introduced in horizon 2020 and which was the horizon 2020 lump sum pilot model grant agreement where we reimburse everything so a global some amount covering the wall action split per work package and pair beneficiaries so we will also rely on that just to give you an overview of the common structure of the horizon europe model grant agreement you will you will sign so this corporate structure um i know the time is limited so i will not repeat what is written on this slide but just i think main novelty that i should stress is certainly the introduction of the so-called datasheet you can see on the left side of your of your screen where you will have a summary of the specific data information of your grant agreement duration type of participant uh budget aspect reporting period calendar specific cost eligibility uh budget cost category activated or not in a given action so you will have a pretty good overview of your main legal and financial aspect in the first pages of this model ground technique this is really i think a takeaway message the main one you can you can keep with you from from this slide and then the structure will be without entering into the details somehow similar with the structure you already know for horizon 2020 in term of annexes we will have also something very similar with what we have in we had in horizon 2020 here i would like just to focus on on this so-called annex 5 specific rules where i was just mentioning this corporate wide model grant agreement approach basically if i summarize the things um the main area for customization for each eu program is this nx5 where we basically put our explicit policy related provision uh that we want to to to have of course complied with by by our beneficiaries so for us for horizon europe it will be these big boxes on the on the right side everything speaking about security ethics aspect values of course intellectual property rights communication dissemination and open science related provision and depending on the type of the horizon europe action um you will have specific rules also displayed in your annex files so for public procurement so like a commercial procurement and and ppi procurement or co-funded partnership or if you sign an erc action you will see a specific text dealing with specific provision with for instance notion of principal investigator the same for the eit kick action the same for mercury molecular secure reaction and the same for eic action so this is really i would say the main the main area and the main place for for reading and and having a look at this very important policy policy related obligation if we continue with the structure and a little focus on the nx2 i will not repeat what is what is written but maybe with this slide afterwards it will help you because i know it's really small when you when you have a look at the model a grant agreement on the participant portal on the funding portal uh you know it's it's very very very tiny but you will you will see here all the different budget costs category and of course this budget cost category reflects um the narrative part of the model grant agreement so meaning uh the budget category which are listed under article 6.2 onwards in the model grant agreement so everything about personal costs about sub-contracting about this umbrella budget category purchase costs where you have the travels and subsistence equipment the other good works and services and other cost category you may you may also find in your in your model contact limit so it's it's normal that these next two fully reflect as a narrative part uh regarding financial cost eligibility aspect in your model consequence so now i would like to to give you a bit more information about the the beneficiary and the participant in general the type of participant in general involved in in the action implementation so we not spend too much time on this slide but this slide is just a summary of of of type of participant involved in the action implementation you have the beneficiary of course so meaning the legal entities that sign the model grant agreement so either directly because of coordinator ecosigns or via an accession form you enter into into the modern county element if you are a beneficiary and you are not the coordinator and alongside to these signatory parties you have third parties third party because they are not signatory parties so you have different type of uh third parties and and and they are doing different things in this in the action implementation and this is what we will see together in in the next slide so the first block if you want to to to summarize the thing uh are the third parties carrying out work in the action so reading third parties that are doing also a part of the action task by themselves so you have here three type of parties doing action-type action tasks by themselves affiliated entities associated partners and subcontractors and if we start with affiliated entities i think now this notion you have started to get acquainted with but to be very very clear and short here affiliated entities concept in horizon europe is exactly the same as the linked third party's concept in horizon 2020 we have aligned the labeling the definition within this so-called corporate context as was mentioning at the beginning of this presentation so to have common wording common leveling as much as possible especially definition labeling stemming from the eu financial regulation but it's exactly the same concept as a link third party concept in horizon 2020 basically for those who are already familiar they must be identified in the grant agreement their task as well must be mentioned in the nx1 and they are also to to to complete their budget line in the nx2 this has to be also reflected there and they follow the same cause lgbt criteria done for the beneficiary and they are de facto treated like beneficiary in the sense that they are also to prepare their own financial statement provide their own certificate and financial statement where applicable some contribute to the technical reporting aspect etc etc um but of course uh from an i.t perspective a technical perspective it will be as a beneficiary to to to whom this affiliate entities link that will have to to push the buttons so to say in the in vit system but there are like beneficiary but not signing the grant agreement and they are linked to a beneficiary and i think you know you know quite well this uh this affiliate entity slash linked third party in horizon 1820. now the associated partner concept this is something that is certainly a bit new at least the wording on the labeling but it's inherited so to say from the international partner status which has been introduced also in the course of the implementation of horizon 2020 so it's a bit the legacy of this of this concept um it's also something that will be uh encounter or kind of type of participant that can be also encountered or seen other eu programs it will kind of corporate commission-wise labeling and what they do this associated partner they perform action tasks but they basically cannot declare cost they can be linked to the world consortium or to a particular beneficiary i've just understood that for technical reasons if they are linked to the consortium they have actually to be linked to to the coordinator from from a technical perspective an idea perspective but they can be linked to a particular beneficiary and this can be reflected as such in the in the model contact payment a bit like the affiliated entity where you see the link to a given beneficiary and the beneficiaries then must ensure that relevance some relevant model and agreement obligation are also passed on this beneficiary extended to this associated partner can be through bilateral specific agreement or via the consortium agreement it depends uh this is really up to to to the consortium and to the beneficiaries to to see what what would be the most efficient or what kind of agreement is is really better to capture this cascade of of obligation to be observed and comply with by associated partner so this is mentioned in my slide it's all about the proper implementation obligation about the proper implementation of the action notion of conflict of interest confidentiality and security related obligation ethics visibility obligation also these so-called specific rules for carrying out the action that will be further reflected in the nx5 actually this article eighteen points to the next five of the model grant agreement things about information and things about record keeping especially the technical implementation because of course uh associated partners are not declaring any cost so this is what you have to keep in mind in terms of features attached to this associated partner kind of third part subcontracting subcontractors here it's basically continuity with horizon 2020 in the sense that they also perform action tasks um and what you have to to what your beneficiary when you subcontract a part of your action task but you have to ensure it's when you do that you you do that in compliance with best value for money or lowest price where it is appropriate and you avoid conflict of interest you know that also from horizon 2020 that subcontracting between beneficiaries is not allowed also generally speaking except where there are exception case or you have a framework agreement in place contracting to affiliates generally is not allowed either so why so it's because mainly in that case for instance the contracting between beneficiary should be for each beneficiary to declare its own cost and like this we we are fully respecting the sound function management in the sense the model count agreement will not cover any profit margin which is not really justified because each beneficiary can really declare their their their actual cost and there is no no no need to cover such such a profit margin that may arise between you know in a contracting context the estimated cost and task the of this subcontractor must also be identifying the budget so to understand who does what it's always the same as the same concept the same approach if you have not mentioned uh this subcontractor or or you have not expected to rely at the very beginning on subcontractors you have also this continuity rather than 2020 a so-called simplify approval procedure so meaning that at the reporting stage you can you can explain that you have actually called for a colon subcontractor to perform some action tasks but if you do that you may bear the risk that the cost of the subcontractor super contracting is not it's not it's not accepted so generally speaking it's always better to to to discuss with your project officer to keep him or her informed uh about what is going on and and he will see she will see for instance an amendment or the action is bid or not but you have still this possibility to so to say have this simplified procedure if subcontracting was not initially foreseen and of course benefits are responsible for the proper implementation of their third parties in general and also for their subcontractors you have also other third parties so this first chunk is just explained was really about third parties performing action tasks themselves by themselves per se and you have also third parties who actually help the beneficiaries to perform their action tasks and here the way you can regroup these third parties is as follows you have all third parties involved uh so to say in in the notion of this umbrella cost category of purchase cost so it's everything about the travel accommodation and subsistence creative cost the equipment cost or other goods works on services related costs for instance you have examples there everything about consumable and supplies or related to dissemination protection of results can be covered by this other goods work and services cost category so of course you will rely on this on this third parties providing you with the service of the where or the boot so this is also something pure continuity nothing new as compared to to horizon 2020 you can also still rely uh also continue 2000 2020 on in-kind contributors and meaning really here people who give you something um for instance second someone provide you with an equipment or access to an equipment free of charge this is really important and and i will just uh spend a little bit of time on on this notion of in-kind contribution strictly speaking now the incoming contribution and this is also to be to be in line fully in line with financial regulation uh it concerns in-kind contributor giving um something to the beneficiary for for for for the make sure to implement the action free of charge we have still specific provision to have this eligible because it's a derogation from the financial regulation and the derivation we have in our horizon europe legal base in our basic act and we continue basically with the approaching reason 2020 in the sense you declare the related income contribution free of charge in the respective cost category as if this cost was incurred by the beneficiary if it concerns the second month free of charge of an employee you will declare this this second lead employee free of charge in your personal cost employee cost category if you if you are if you are a beneficiary on the other side we will not have any more this concept of incoming contribution against payment per se this will disappear in horizon europe it's also a corporate approach a common approach we will have across eu programs but it doesn't mean you cannot continue to valorize to declare the cost besides this uh this former labeling of incompetition against payment in horizon 2020 and how and where you can continue to declare this cost basically under free free cost categories either so it all depends what is at stake what is the what is covered by this inclined construction against payment if we speak about the segment of a personnel against payment you have a specific um budget cost category in the in the in the budget table or in the financial statement for secondary person against payment if it concerns an equipment against payment it will have to declare declared renting costs for equipment so in the equipment cost budget category and if it concerns something else for instance a good or service provided against payment you will declare it under this uh c3 budget category for purchase of those works and services and on these categories you will have of course the indirect cost flat rate that will be calculated automatically and will be will be will be counted but this is what you have to keep in mind there is no specific income construction against payment article and this labeling has disappeared but the way you declare the cost besides it's still possible you have just to choose the right budget category as mentioned in this slide after this this focus on the third parties or participants involved in the action now it's time to focus a little bit uh on one key budget category and i think it's certainly the most important one in most of the project the one about personnel and before giving the floor afterwards to to my colleague class i will just mention briefly with this slide that as you know already and it was the case for them 2020 you have we will have still different categories for personnel depending on the status or the relationship of the given person vis-a-vis a beneficiary so it could be either employees or people under unemployment contract or or civil servant under an equivalent accounting hack or it can regard person under a direct contract or second bit person against payment i was just mentioning so category a2 and a3 or we will still also have this possibility to declare we will rely on the unit cost fixed by a commission decision to declare and valorize the personal cost of sme owner and natural person which are involved as beneficiary in the action so these will be the different budget categories for personnel you will see and under which you will have to to correctly declare your related personal costs depending on the status of the person so now i think it's time for for me to give the floor to my uh calling me class and then i will take over for for the last slide so because the floor is yours yes thank you julia hello everybody as she has presented in the beginning we have now a commission right or corporate model grant agreement and as part of this commission-wide approach we have also as you are probably very well aware but now introduced uh horizontal method for calculating actual personal costs for employees so let's have a look at this uh first case that we have described in the previous slide the employees was a fixed salaries this is our commission white formula of course you still have specific editions like in the case of verizon project-based remuneration but this basic case formula will be valid across programs we have as a basis for this formula in our grant agreement our famous daily rate based on a division of 215 and as you know we have spent the last months drafting guidance on the practical implementation of this 215 daily rate through our annotated model grant agreement this has been recently published as you probably know next slide please thank you so for the drafting of the agar we have very focusedly looked into how to simplify the approach for the application of this 215 element in practice meaning how do we apply these formulas for reporting periods that are more or less than a year how do we reduce the number of mandatory calculations how can we reduce the number of specific calculations needed and how do we avoid over declaration of days which could also be a case of prohibition of double funding if you work in multiple actions we came up and that you can see in our recently published new version of the draft arga with a single approach that works over any period of months be it the full calendar year be it the three months edition be at the usual 18 months reporting period in all of these cases we will work with a consistent pro rata of the 215 we will use a single calculation for reporting period now this is probably the the most important simplification and change whether we the previous draft version we have considered that we as granting authority actually do not need to you to require to do this calculation for each calendar year within the 80 months reporting period which can rather very easily be already three different calculations plus extra cases changes of circumstances so we have slashed the number of uh mandatory calculations considerably to usually a single calculation per reporting period then we have come up to put all of this in a single formula that integrates all horizontal cases and uh we have limited the declarable day equivalents to again the parata of 215 that will stay always in proportion to the reporting period now so for uh to a for full year reporting period you will have the 215 and for 18 months you will have a provider of the 215 uh so for 18 months we may have 222.5 declarable day equivalence so we always stay consistently within the logic of the parata of 215 over any and all situations that you encounter during your action could we go one slide further yes so the result of all of this is our single formula here that is an approach that we believe covers most of the situations encountered by beneficiaries in our actions the personal cost will be calculated by the day equilibrium day equivalence times the daily rate as is the element in our grant agreement you can declare day equivalence up to the parata of 215 during your reporting period and divide this and multiply this by the daily rate which is again divided by the maximum declarable day equivalents so also here we have introduced a common factor also we always walk everywhere with a paratha of 215 which results in this maximum declarable day equivalence one slide further please the calculation of the day equivalence which is i think the the major addition to the new arga version is relatively straightforward we use our consistent paratha of 215 which you see everywhere now you multiply it by the number of months within the reporting period be it 3 be it 18 be a 12 and that you multiply again with the working time factor be it one for full time or 0.5 for 50 part time with this single formula you can address as we believe most of the situations that you would encounter quite easily and the same number will be your basis for calculating the amount of the daily rate next slide please just to show you by way of example how we apply it in the case where we have a reporting period from the 1st of january 2022 to end of march 23 where we have an accelerated employee working in full time in 22 and then changing to part-time for the last three months you would very simply again calculate for the full-time work part your pro rata of 215 multiply it by the number of months which would be 12 months in full time multiplied by the working time factor which is one for full time 215 so that is our basic standard element and the same you do for the three months and part time you have our consistent paratha that we use everywhere now time semanta number of months which is three times the working time factor for 50 part time is 0.5 also for your reporting period from the first of january to end of march the following year you could declare up to 242 maximum day equivalence that you also use to as a denominator for your calculation of the daily rate meaning that after declaring 242 the equivalence in that period you would have reached your complete uh potential incurable personal cost for this person and that's it do your next slide and i'm giving back to you with that one so for this one just give me one second that's it so here it's all about um record keeping so what you have to keep to justify your number of day equivalent for a given person spent on the action implementation so here two possibilities basically either you sign a monthly declaration and there is a commission template available uh for that uh so it's um it contains minimum requirement it's it's not so much items there in but it's still something that shows enough information and reliable information um regarding the equivalent spent by a given individual on the given months in the actual implementation so you can use this month's declaration you can use this template if you wish so or if you have already something in place a time recording system in place you want to keep it a reliable one you can of course keep it you can of course continue with it be it something on paper be something computer-based uh doesn't matter you can of course uh continue with with what you have if it is um reliable and and and it works for you so no no obligation to switch and use this month's declaration only if you wish so this is something available offered to you beneficiaries um continuing now with um one specific uh specific aspect in personal costs for us in europe so i know time is running so i will try to be very brief there will be one just one slide on that that's just to say that we have a different calculation of the cost for the specific case of people receiving a so-called project-based remuneration so what is a project-based elimination it is it reflects the remediation practices of a legal entity where basically you give to your personnel a supplementary payment because this is a triggering event that justify supplementary payment this person works in a project you have an example on the left side of the slides for instance you give a bonus or you sign a new contract with a higher salary level uh when this person is working is involved in a in a project and basically uh what we have in place is um is a is a sailing a capping approach so to say that uh your project-based remuneration so what you pay for project-based revolution to someone will be eligible up to the remuneration to the project-based remuneration that this person this individual would have received for work in a research and innovation project funded by your national scheme and this is what we call the national project daily rate basically and this is the right part of the slide we ask you to calculate your action daily rate and to compare it with the so-called theoretical national project day rate and you have to take the lower of the two and then you declare ingly your your personal cost for the face i insist on that for the specific case of people receiving a project based remuneration so note not the general case just mentioned and presented by uh by niklas so this is a specific step specific calculation you have to do and we will uh we will we will of course capture here what is a reflect here what has been put in the horizon europe basic actor this specific rules what you have in the netherlands agreement is fully reflected what is in the horizon europe basic act about project-based renewation so just one last thing to mention where you define in general your national project day rate so the amount project based on your insurance you are giving to people when they work in research innovation projects funded by your national schemes it's either something mentioned in regulatory requirements so could be the national law could be your collective labor agreement or maybe you have something you have written internal remuneration rules so endorse in your institution and speaking about this project-based remuneration maybe it's not called project-based remuneration it's not a it's not an issue if the concept and what is covered by these internal elimination rules is what i just explained it's fully fined for us the labeling does not matter but you you have to to have something if you have absolutely nothing i will not explain now today that you can go to the agar which is published even as a credit we will have a so-called fallback option for people institutions who have nothing in the national law nothing in their written internal regulation rules or things which are not based on objective conditions there is still a possibility to calculate the national project daily rate so we try to cover all possible cases to keep it short so this is what it is and this is how you will have to declare this project-based generation related personal cost if you have any in your institution now finishing on um something also important to mention the certificate and financial statement so here things to uh to have in mind is basically we will continue with the fact that we will ask this only at the payment of the balance so in terms of of of justification this will be due only at payment of the balance so already the case numbers on 2020. um but the basis for calculation and the threshold triggering the obligation to submit this so-called cfs will be a bit higher and the basis will be all will be the requisite contribution calculated on all costs so not only on the actual cost and you need cost based on your dual accounting practices as it was the case in horizon 2020 so bear this in mind this information should be threshold and these basis for calculation and when you have to submit it so at the end of the action at the last reporting period this is something mentioned for instance in the datasheet when i was speaking about that at the beginning of my presentation this is a kind of key information which is also reflected and mentioned in the in your first pages of your modern technique one thing to have in mind without entering the details for beneficiaries with a so-called system and process audit a spa without entering to the details if after this forward it if you prefer to keep it short um you request for it and then the auditors grant it if they grant it and they they go on the spot they discuss with you and then they realize this four row system and process audit and you got and you get a low risk classification uh it will come with benefits and the benefits will be as follows either it will reduce uh let's say the foreigners of any expo studied that you may you may you may encounter or it will increase and it will increase in any case the threshold for submitting your your cfs so basically you see if you increase the threshold normally the result the positive result because you get the slurry classification is for the rest of the action or certainly a lot of action you will continue to to to apply whereas in europe you will not have to submit a cfs because by increasing this quite significantly the threshold normally you you will be exempted in a larger number of cases so this is a positive benefit you can get notably with this this spa and loris classification just to conclude now this is my last slide of course i'm pretty sure you know this place or the fendi antenna portal but just to to to tell you that uh everything is there that i believe is so-called reference documents so if you are looking for more information and what is exactly written in this model enter element or in the template uh before application etc for instance go to this page of course selection of the horizon europe program and then click on the plus button and you will it will expand all the available document and then you you can have a look and i think it's really the place the place to go if you want to see exactly how things have been written and displayed so this will be my last word of advice and now it concludes this this presentation and i think it's time to to go into the slider and get some questions so thank you very much thank you very much nicholas and julia indeed we are already a bit behind scheduled so my suggestion is that we still continue for a while and go through the questions as long as you can bear with us in particular the speakers so let's immediately start first question when will the first complete version of the annotated model ground agreement be available in fact it is available since 10 days more or less there is a new version on the place that julian just showed it is still [Music] indicated as a pre-draft but it is now a complete pre-draft covering also the specific articles and provisions for horizon europe and of course it is we always emphasized that this is a living document in any case so there will be more and things will change as we see that questions come in and so forth julia nicholas do you want to say add anything on the further proceeding for the other any class i don't know you want to come in maybe here yes just to quickly say so as peter said the complete version of the arga in the sense of the draft will be available of course way before we have the complete version in the sense of the final document which will be version 1.0 so i think at the moment we have now said we are at 0.2 and we are planning to have the real complete final version uh sometimes towards mid next year but uh of course we are now going batch by batch we say starting from the first articles down to the documents and of course we are now done with the first part as you have seen our update of articles one to six and this will remain more or less stable for the rest of the period so we're just adding for all programs guidance now step by step okay the next question is a is a person month equal to 215 by 12 meaning 17.9 days that's for necklace yes on partially for junior because person months is of course something that you use more in horizon we wouldn't say though 17.9 days because as we say in the grand and also in the guidance we are rounding up or down to the next um half day equivalent thanks next will delete oh sorry what i can add is um in any case the way you calculate percent months because personal money is really something for let's say at reporting stage but much more on of course it's linked to financial but the technical aspect and the workforce you have put in the in the actual implementation and it here it has not to be let's say confuse or it has to be distinguished if you prefer with the personal cost calculation per se so everything that niklas shows you and then the way you calculate percentage or what is the person wants for you it's it really depends also on your practices the way you do it in your in your in your institution and i know you may you may have let's say different rules or different approach to reflect what is the person most friends especially for instance the case of of a professor of university who have teaching and research activities but still you consider that they are potentially they reflect to 12 percent months for a year for instance so you see it really depends on the way you calculate it but it has to be really distinguished from the mandatory formula for reporting your personal costs per se then i know we ask you this information so number of percent months per package spent but it's much more um on the workforce aspect what you have put in in your actual implementation in terms of staff effort then it has to be really distinguished with the mandatory formula very important okay next question will the legal and financial ncps be able to comment on the draft annotated grant agreement i can not give a definite answer here because this is the chair of this group is my colleague rana schulte but julia is there anything you could indicate at least yes good morning everyone yes that we will have this uh continuous uh dialogue with the legal and financial ncps and the next meetings and we welcome their input on any uh feedback that they receive maybe on the lack of clarity uh in the aga however we have to keep into consideration that the legal and financial entities that we're talking about here are the horizon europe um ncps and that we are now in the framework of the corporate uh agar and um so that gives more limit to uh what we can say what we then maybe we've seen behind comments on on the on the draft i guess so we welcome all input but uh in the limit of what we can do for the horizon europe aspects okay thank you next question in kind contributions against payment no longer called this way do we have to keep proofs of best value for money julian yes for instance if you are in the case i was presenting so if it regards goods or services provided against payments the normal rules applied there so and by normal rules you have indeed for a purchase of goods and services best value for money in a conflict of interest so you will have to somehow prove that best value for isn't sure but what is already a good hint is uh if there is no profit margin for instance typically which is something that happened normally in this former conscription against payment concept that's already something that goes i would say in the right direction for for proving the best value for my compliance okay next question are travel costs of external experts eligible costs in budget-based grants my simple reply would be it depends but julian you will be more specific i hope uh yes we will continue with the approach we have and we explain in the horizon 2020 i guess so basically if by experts you you mean people we from time to time for instance like visiting a researcher scientists are coming to to to help or work a little bit uh on on the project and you your usual practices is to reimburse the cost of this visiting visiting scientists for instance that will be legible but let's say that this should be mentioned uh somehow also in vienna x1 at some point or at least try to to discuss this with the with the project officer but yes that will still be possible to have to have the travel cost reimbursed but if it is inc's because this is really the main cost hdb condition we have for travel cost your usual practices to reimburse travel cost or accommodation cost for external experts coming working a little bit from time to time in a given project typically visiting scientists next one if an entity qualified to be beneficiary does not request you funding should it participate as associated partner or can it participate as beneficiary requesting zero funding the latter it can participate as beneficiary receiving requesting zero funding next one rounding the number of days to complete days or half days should be done per month per year or per report period i know the reply but i would leave it up to niklas to reply yes so we have the rounding examples actually in the agar guidance um as we said it's to the nearest half a day equivalent so either 0.5 or full and it should be done over your reporting period calculation okay very clear next one is it's still possible for entities from countries eligible for funding to pass it ayah we had this question already so it's a repetition of the same question yes it's possible next question associated partners can can this be only an international partner can an associated partner also be an entity from a member state julian it can be everybody everyone coming from any country so i i know i said it's a legacy of international partner status but i think the main difference here is everybody can be associated partner basically so generally it will be certainly useful for country not associated and where you want to valorize their participation but it can be someone from a member state or unseated country next one is owning a single share of another company's shared capital enough to constitute the capital link required by article 187 of the financial regulation who wants to take this one um i can i can here we will continue for the notion of identity and the notion of capital link we will continue with the notion of control we have it's not only having a capital link that matters but it's all this notion of control actually we we already explained for um for the linked third party concept narrative 2020 so capital link per se is not enough notion of control is a matter of religion okay next question on the daily rate how to handle personnel working on several projects with overlapping reporting periods different periods means different now the thing is switched on my screen but i think the question is clear different periods meaning differences in the reported daily rates and more calculation and i think the next question is exactly the same so you can reply to both nicholas yes um so we have to first of all recall that this is a horizontal methodology also we have uh developed this with our beneficiaries mind and our average beneficiary across eu project is of course not uh really active among several actions however assuming that we have a person that is active in multiple projects at the same time and this is not just horizon that would be a horizon it could be digital europe program across program it's again a horizontal methodology if the working conditions don't change if you have the same salary then of course normally it should also [Music] come to the same amount of the daily rate because we are just applying a paratha so in proportion for 215 days for full year you have the full salary for half year you have half the salary as a basis for calculation so if the conditions don't change between projects with different reporting periods you go in half time etc you have in fact a reduced number of calculations and the amounts should match okay and i think we have now to close i take one last question or two last questions is there any limitation in the action task that an associated partner can do for instance not leading a work package julian i think petros already replied to this question his presentation but no there is no limit per se in the sense that they are involved associate partner and they can do any kind of action task they can even be work package leader i think it was clarifying the presentation of my colleague petros so it really depends on how you have um you have let's say split the things and and the breakdown so basically we expect in general but this is in general that beneficiaries are doing action tasks or most of the action tasks but you see everything is possible and in any case there is no problem if the sheet partner is a work package leader per se there is no problem okay and i think this one has now to be the last one we cover orally can the usa be a beneficiary in an mga if not could you please explain the participation type do you want to take it or i'm i'm not an expert of let's say okay i can think but give it a go and if i need i complete that so um the usa are in the category of the so-called high-income third countries that means benef entities in the usa are not by default eligible for funding and therefore in horizon europe they are also not by default uh in a state to become a beneficiary my meaning to sign the grant agreement so the default mode of participation for u.s entities is that of associated partner so the the entity must be linked to a beneficiary in a member or associated state or to the consortium as such with this possibility of associated partner there are exceptions to this and one exception is of course if in a call topic in the work program it is explicitly stated that u.s participants can participate and get funding then in this exceptional case they can be beneficiaries as anybody else and there is yet another exception an exceptional exception so to say when in a certain proposal the participation of the u.s beneficiary is considered by the experts by the evaluators as so absolutely essential that the project would not make sense without them for instance is there if there's a unique research installation infrastructure that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world and that is absolutely needed for that project in this exceptional case they can also become beneficiary and get funding but the standard the default is associated partner no signature of the grand agreement no funding from me julia anything to add no that was my understanding so i'm happy thank you very much okay