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welcome to the ERC webinar on the lamsam funding model for the advanced grants 2024 call we are here in Sun Brussels in the headquarters of the ERC executive agency my name is Josefina and fedak I'm the head of the call and project followup coordination unit in the in the executive agency and with me I have two colleagues Mila Bas from the head of the granting department and Angela vburger from the scientific Department uh first I'm going to ask you uh to explain us what does the granting department and what is the role on the lam Sams and in the webinar today okay good morning Josina morning indeed I'm am leading this granting Department of the ERC uh executive agency and what are we doing first the first thing we are doing is to prepare the grant agreement that uh has to be signed with the host institution of the successful principal investigators after the the valuation and then we do the whole follow up of the project from Legal Financial and uh and administrative in general uh point of view uh this includes amendments and uh and payments of course which is very important and then additionally and this is an important activity also we organize trainings for host institutions and uh principal investigators on all those uh matters we do this in collaboration with the with the scientific Department of course and how can I help you to understand this Lamson model okay I have been working uh over 20 years on the management of uh EU funds related to to to to research and I have been very deeply involved in the development of the lamon model so let's see how how it goes in the in the webiner thank you Mila and Angela you come from the scientific Department could you explain us a little bit more about the role and your own role yes of course so um I am head of sector in the scientific Department in the um in the Life Sciences unit um the scientific department is um has two main core responsibilities the first is to organize the calls for proposals and the evaluation of uh proposals received uh received um and the second is that we follow up um projects during their lifetime we uh assess the midterm and the scientific reports when they are submitted by grantees and we get involved whenever there's a need for a scientific opinion such as in cases where there is a significant change or an amendment to the project in addition we also involved in communication and dissemination activities the scientific officers from the Department they regularly go and attend scientific conferences they present about the ERC and the funding opportunities thank you this seminar is intended to provide information and to answer your questions uh about this new funding model from any point of view questions from applicants from from research institutions and in general to all those who help or support the preparation of research proposals for this call um and and uh well this is a live webinar your question you can ask the questions in the chat some will be answered by colleagues on the chat some will be passed to us and we can uh have the opportunity to answer them live but be reassured we will record we are recording this seminar and we will write answer in writing all the questions and we will post them later on you and also see in the description useful links where there are questions and answers that will be updated so my first question is for you ang Angela um we are focusing on lamam now because this is the big novelty of the advanced gr school but is there everything that we need to know and all the Novelties for this call no indeed um it's not we we are focusing today on um the lumpsum model at thec but uh it is important to note that this is on only one of the changes that were introduced in work program 2024 as applicants so for the principal investigators among the audience today we strongly invite you to familiarize yourself with all changes that were introduced by the scientific Council in the current work program because some of these changes like for example the the a clearer focus on the research project or a more structured a different in the structure of the curriculum V and the track record might be important for you and to know but they were the topic they about lamsam could you give us a overall structure of this webinar of the sections of course of course let's go for for the webinar so we are going to talk you know about the lamam we will go first uh first for the general principles then we will see all the procedures we will go for the proposal submission then the valuation the implementation and payments and we will end up of course with a conclusion and a wrap up of all the the the things we have uh been talking about okay so let's start already with the general principles H first I would like to to to tell you that there are two lsom models two main lumson model one is when we have the Lamson fixed or program or core for proposals and this is the model We are following for the proof of concept in ERC since 2029 uh 20 19 19 19 so sorry 2019 but today we are going to focus on the Lum that is fixed during the evaluation that is uh fixed ing to the budget that is presented The Proposal the budget that this related to the activities that the project is going to carry out uh and this is what we are going to use this is Mo the model for advanced grants 2024 and we are going to focus on that what are the general principles for this lambson model so as I said first the proposals will include a budget that is based on the estimated cost that are related to the activities that are in The Proposal like today you do already this for the actual cost model so you have to have the The Proposal we have to have the cost with the related activities then this budget will be assessed during the evaluation and what are uh the the evaluators are going to assess they're going to assess if the resources that is that are in in this uh budget are needed for the for the activities and if the cost of those resources that you have put in the budget are reasonable then this Lamson will be defined on a project by project basis but remember H that for the ERC we have a ceiling and this ceiling for the advanced Grant is 2.5 Millions you could have an extra 1 million of of additional funding is very well Justified and uh uh and these are the ceilings that we have we cannot uh give you more than this then uh once it is done it is in the grant agreement and then how are we going to pay the payment is based on the work completion the activities the work that is described in the anex to the grant agreement now uh have to be uh Carri out but it is not linked to a successful out outcome uh does not need to be successful it's an obligation of means as we're saying law is not an obligation of result H then good news very good news no financial report anymore H so you don't have to submit anymore uh cause claims and we are not going to ask for time sheets then something very important in the in the Lamson for advanced grant for the ERC is that we are going to have a single lsum contribution for the entirety of the project we are not going to divide the Lamson we are not going to have lambson per word packages I said this because in know programs you know and maybe you have the experience they have a Lamson per word package here is a Lamson for the whole project of course normally in the ERC grants we have a mono beneficiary what we call is only the host institution that is sign it but it's not the only case we have cases what we have secondary beneficiaries because we are we have team members that are working in other entities in those cases we will have a Lon per beneficiary but for the whole project uh something very important also very important and this is we are stressing this all the time h no changes in the valuation criteria the unique evaluation criteria is the scientific excellence and uh of course portability is still possible like today except for the final report reporting and payment processes all other processes are very very similar to what we have today h in the actual cost so the evaluation criteria identical we have already said scientific reporting project amendments this won't change the European research Council funds groundbreaking and ambitious research based on one sole Criterion and that is Excellence so what we're talking about today is a new financial model for dealing with budget and finance aspects of ERC grants but it has no impact on the basic principles governing the IRC Mission and objectives the IRC will continue to fund groundbreaking and ambitious research based on one sole Criterion Excellence so the evaluation criteria the principles of flexibility and serendipity will not change we know that Frontier research does not go exactly as planned and we will continue to be as flexible as we were in the past with changes to deviations to the original work plan and then um as mentioned by Mila the principle of portability that is the right of a principal investigator to transfer their Grant to a different host institution um remains valid thank you so so the important message here is applicants should not change the way they think or develop their project and they also should not change the way they think about the about structuring their project because um uh this Remains the Same they can structure their project as they see fit with or without scientific work packages this is a very very good message to say we we can um this is the first generic uh block of a generic section and we can take some questions from the audience and I'm still waiting for my colleagues to transmit them to me but first I have I have a couple of questions already mil you you mentioned that the payment will be based on work completion uh not linked to results but focus on the work conducted could you explain a little bit more this to this is Frontier research maybe the two of you could give me also an example how how is it working yes in fact this does not change does not change is like today the grant agreements that we are signing are based on obligations but they should not it's not necessary that they get the result that was expected at when they did the proposal they have to carry out the work and I can give you several examples but I prefer Angela gives you one example because she she's closer to the project okay I can I can give one example imagine you you had a new hypothesis in relation to an infectious disease that might may lead to a new a novel the vaccine candidate so you present this hypothesis in your project and you present the work that you would do to car to test that hypothesis with the with the the goal to have a a potential vaccine candidate at the end of your project now you start your project and you discover all sorts of scientific challenges um things turn out to be not as straightforward as you might have um hoped for so at the end of the five years you don't have a novel vacine candidate but you you have have perhaps achieved certain steps towards that goal you might even have realized that your your hypothesis was entirely wrong and um and that the the whole uh Way Forward does not need to be further pursued but you're still have carried out the work you have done the work and it can therefore be considered as completed and uh the lumsum can be paid and regarding to payment we have received some questions about the payments uh one is asking will the pre financing principle stay the same and the other one that is linked to this is uh the single L some contribution will be 100% of the budget at the start of the grant so what are the pref financing I know that we have another block later but it could be a very quick question answer now yes the very quick answer is that we will have a pre financing but stay for the for for the block on payments and I I will explain everything about this and when I said is a single lamom it this means that this an amount that is calculated for the whole project then stay for the for the block on payment because we are going to explain exactly how it going to be paid at the end of the project okay there is another question on the time scale of the project is that is that still five years and the answer is yes it's still five years with nothing else change in the in the um in the schema of advanced grams it could be shorter if you wanted to you know if it was um needed for the project or possible to conduct the project and then the maximum would be adapted ingly it could be longer in case there are extensions but this is still an exception and it depends on on on special occasions I have another question can cost for Open Access incur after the project period in lamon projects you have to budget for cost within the project period but planned Publications cost often incur at the end of the project it's a tricky question it's a tricky question but and in fact when you the answer is well simple maybe it's not the one you are looking for but when you are planning uh your budget and we will see this also afterwards H you have to plan only uh what you have to put in the in the budget uh tables are only the cost that could be eligible uh for the project so the cost that will be incurred during the duration of the project uh of course then is a global lsum that you are are going to get for everything and once the the project is done we will pay for this for this the global the global lamom but the cost that are in the budget tables the cost that are in the budget that you are uh planning should be eligible cost thank you very much I have another question but I think this is the perfect question to open to the next block the question is do you require much more budget details on submission and let's start with the section on proposal submission to go back to the slides so um indeed um the first thing to say here is um the scientific parts of your proposal will remain the same as under the actual cost model part B1 and part B2 will remain um will not change as a result of the move to the lumsum model where we did introduce some changes is in the budget forms in order to have the budget in information available in a more structured way to help the panel with their assessment so in the budget table we have now a column for person month the budget narrative is now structured in different subsections and each applicant will also have to submit an equipment depreciation table this was not the case before and we will see this in more detail in a minute in addition um applicants and by that we mean principal investigators and host Institution will also have to make a specific declaration about the cost estimates made uh this is new for the lamsa model and again we will say a few more words about this um in a minute in in a minute all of this because of the importance of a well done budget but of course we need to stress that within the limit of what makes sense for fiveyear uh Frontier research project so let's have a look at the new budget table it remains almost identical as in the actual cost model with the exception of two additional columns for each staff category under Personnel costs one to record person month and the second column where the average monthly cost is automatically calculated so applicants only have to fill out first month and the total amount all other cost categories of the budget table the same it might be that if you're following on a mobile device that you cannot see this table but you will have a link to the slides and you can also go to the submission portal and um check it out directly there now um on the budget narrative you might know that up to now this was one single section it is now split in s six subsections four of which ing to the usual cost categories that is Personnel cost subcontracting if applicable Purchase cost and internally invoiced goods and services if applicable and then there's one box to describe and justify additional funding in case it is requested and there's one box to describe funding from other sources that you B benefit from for your project okay and now let's go to the equip table depreciation this table is new we don't have this now in the actual cost model in the budget in the proposals so we will have this this table will allow you to provide an information that is well estructure uh on the equipment and this also will help you to calculate uh the cost that should be in the budget for the equipment because it's an Excel table that have formulas inside and will give give a structured information to the panels members to the evaluators to see very quickly which is the budget for this uh uh equipment one thing that's important is the first call uh the 2024 call is the first in lsom so for the moment this table is an Excel table and is a mandatory attachment that should be uploaded uh during the the submission and you will have all the guidance uh provided on how to fill the table but the table itself explanatory if you see the columns maybe as Angela said if you are you have little devices you cannot see this now but go to the to the portal and you will and you will see this okay uh and then we will go to to see something very important which is the H the how this budget in general all those tables have to be filled okay so which is important and I already said this a little bit in the in the question before is that when you fill in the budget when you build the budget you have to follow H the usual accounting practices of the uh your of your institution and you have to fill in only a eligible cost cost that are eligible be very careful with this and we have a new declaration which called declaration 10 retain Bas in your in your in your brains H because this declaration you are the declaring that you are doing this you are declaring the host institution is declaring that you are following those uh accounting practices and eligibility of cost when you are building the the the budget on those tables so this is very important to keep in mind uh when you are building the budget for the for the proposal thank you very much I think we can go to the to the questions on this part of the submission we are receiving a lot of questions but maybe they are also for for blocks that we are going to explain later on but I have to ask a little bit more more details on this table to be the depreciation table that is mandatory what happens if my if the project of the applicants don't have um equipment um they is a mandatory table do they have to to um upload it even empty as I told you for the moment in 2024 call this is an Excel table and you you have to upload the table even if you don't have a uh equipment cost why you will say this is not very logic it is not but we prefer to have this and to be sure that everybody is uploading the table when they have equipment cost uh so like this we assured that there there are not mistakes so this is because it's compulsory in any case I think the system will will block you if you are not doing this so be careful and when you are doing the proposal if you have a blocking message don't think it's a mistake is really you have to you have to upad the table even if there's not a equipment cost yes and on that we have a a viewer who says that they cannot find uh the Excel budget table to fill in the portal and I think it's in one of the annexes but maybe this is something that we can add a link later on so to make it to make it clear so it's I don't remember which number of annex but it is in the annexes and if you download the templates for the submission forms um you will see that this is one of the tables that is there uh I we have a few questions on the single word package uh is not a single word package is a single lum sum but does it mean that we have to organize our project uh in a single work package how does it work now so formally yes indeed it is a single lumpsum work package it's is a single work package the the entire that corresponds to the entire project um in lumpsum ter terms but the but we said very clearly that applicants can continue to structure their project as they as they wish so if you were going to have work packages you can still have work packages and this will be considered scientific work packages so there should be no change in the way that you structure or plan your project in that respect because of the the move to the lampsa model so we can have um scientific organization whatever yes like it is now you don't have to have work packes work packages um you you don't have to you know but but you can do you have the flexibility to do it as it is best for for your project so not changing the way the the proposals are written now don't yes don't don't don't doesn't need to be a change in how you how you think about or structure your project everything will be taken at the end including the additional budget and made a single lumsum that's that's yes and don't worry you will have a single lamps some for the whole prod project okay then there is another question because this single Lum is per beneficiary and we have a question on Multi beneficiary projects multi beneficiary grants uh the the lamb suum is attributed to the whole project and and does the pi uh can the pi change during the execution of the project the attribution of budget to the beneficiaries I think there are several options here no no in fact uh we will have a lum per beneficiary so if we want to change the attribution of the lsum during the the the lifetime of the project has to be explained and is this is an amendment should be through an amendment very well explained because we have done an evaluation on that so very well explain why we are doing this and uh should be done through an amendment so it's a single single Lum per beneficiary and per the whole length of the project then there is another question on the submission and and somebody says uh one of the viewers no time sheets but you ask for person month calculation on the submission system why of course because we we have to know which are the resources you are planning for the activities you are going to do we need to know no we the evaluators need to know which are the resources how are you going to to spend this money so a very um logic budget and how are you going to to do this and of course we need to know which is the the the work force you need for this yeah so the the the budget needs to be evaluated by the panel and we will talk about budget assessment and the evaluation notably of personel cost by the panel in a little bit and also the the details on the science on the science because there are other questions saying do we don't need to provide details for each subw workk package research Direction research acts with specific task in yes the answer is yes does change this doesn't change yes I mean in your proposal you explain what you what you want to do and and and and you need to provide enough information for the panel to understand what uh what your project is about and to be able to to evaluate it and the budget needs to fit the work that you're proposing to do so that's what the panel will be looking at they will be looking at whether the budget or the overall budget is appropriate for this project and then they will also look at cost estimates and see whether they are they are reasonable and non excessive we will talk about this in a bit yes and also something important to say here is a is a webinar for Lamson and we are focusing on this but Angela you can tell them clearly the focus on the valuation and we will see this in the in the following point is on the science so this is what the pets are going to valuate explain well this as you do today this is something that is complimentary it's very important because it's to set up the Lampson for the project but uh don't forget that the most important The Proposal is the science absolutely and that it's a perfect transition to the next section which is on the evaluation once the proposal is submitted how will it be evaluated uh Angela I think you can the slides are for you okay so indeed um so um we mentioned before um that the evaluation criteria do not change and this is what um what Mila just also stressed the focus of the evaluation remains on the scientific merits of The Proposal it is scientific Excellence only there's no change there but the role of the panel in step two also includes an assessment of the cost estimates to confirm that the requested Grant is in line with the work proposed reasonable and non- excessive and in addition we will also conduct conduct an eligibility check to make sure that costs are all eligible and here the same eligibility conditions apply then for the actual cost model then um a change compared to the actual cost model applies to the personal cost assessment so under lump sums for personnel cost the panel would not only assess the resource that is the number of Staff but they will also look at the related cost for that panels will have access to historical ERC Personnel cost data to to serve as a benchmark and applicants this this data this ERC data is available on our website so applicants can have access to this um not to align because the the idea is not that you have to align with the historical data when you when you plan for your personnel cost no you instead you should plan and uh request what you you think that you will incur so what you expect to have as personal cost is what you should put as cost estimates in your in your budget section but the historical data will help you fi identify whether the cost that you will incur and you propose and you um plan whether they are um in line with what is typically paid in your country and for that staff staff category and if you find that you are that you are not aligned it will help you to provide um you know it will be a good idea for you to provide some some uh some explanation of why this is um it is understood that uh Personnel costs um increase over time they're expected to increase over time and therefore Personnel costs even if significantly higher than the historical data can be acceptable if they are Justified for example example by the nature of the tasks by the need for senior or high highly qualified staff or significant increases in personal cost due to inflation or other other reasons then for more details yes because now we are going to tell you we have this ERC historical personal cost data in a tool that you can use it's available for applicants and will be available also for panel members this tool is very similar to Horizon dashboard uh that you may be aware of H but there are some differences one is our data are the data of ERC of the last year H years and then also because is displayed by country and by a staff category we have have have had a lot of comments from stakeholders for host institution mainly that were asking us please buy staff category because this is what um the way we are building the the the budget for ERC so this because your your tool for for historical personal cost data Inc is per category and per country and you will see now in this slide in the following one maybe you don't see very well again we say go to the tool you will see this the very well also if you display the slide in your computer instead of in the little devices you will see better but go to the tool and you can play with this and this is what you will get so in this tool you will have uh in the left side you will have the percentile some of the percentiles the 20% the 50% and the 80% uh percentiles percentile uh as um Angela said this is something that you can see that can uh help you to see uh how to ufy better your your personal cost but you don't have to follow this what you have to follow and we insist a lot on this is your own accounting practices and your own personal cost uh grid so now for questions Jina maybe yes let's go to questions and actually I see that there are questions that are already related to what you just said there is a question asking our actual salary rates for post dogs because also depends on the on the category in some categories can be higher and others for the Post dogs in this particular institution are above 80% of the rates in the advanced grants dashboard what kind of justification do you expect except the one that those are our actual current salary rates I think it's a very good justification in most of the cases is a very good justification why because you have very clear uh salary or personal cost greed in your institutions we can have some minor cases where they do not have this uh personal cost grid but in most of our host institutions are universities Research Center this is enough justification but put it very clearly in the in the in the proposal when you do the justification you said this is what it is in our uh personal cost grid is ing to our uh actual uh payments or if there is an exception then it just should be justified because there is a bonus for a special contract that is done yes we used to call this bonus and fp7 okay it's additional remuneration but okay it's the same you can have this of course but I said this from the beginning you have to follow the eligibility conditions so this is acceptable on the conditions that you have very well spelled out uh in the in you have this in the annotated Grant agreement if you want for the for the actual cost but I can already tell you that should be a general practice of your of your Institution for the bonus for example and also that is not a unique for the ERC or for the European project it's something that you do normally you give the this kind of bonus to to the scientist where they participate in a project but you have this very well specified always following the eligible cost uh uh rules and your own practices and it's okay if you do this the budget is perfect so to to to to summarize do applicants need to build their personal cost budget ing to the data in this historical dashboard no of course not but is a help to well developed as Angela said the justification to see oh here we are really above the percentiles so let's put a justification because uh because it's better for the for the panel members to know but the justification like this is what we typically pay post stocks this at this time in time point is is sufficient and I would also like to add a point for for in general the our panels will not start to micromanage the budget or the Personnel cost just uh because this we have moved to a Lumpa model so this is a general principle uh that we that we brief our panels tell me more about that there is a question asking uh will panel and expert evaluators we instructed to go through the proposed budget details so it's about how they will be instructed to to do this no I as we said the focus of the evaluation will remain on the scientific merits of The Proposal but Bud but um experts do also do also look at the budget of the proposal in one of the evaluation questions resources is also part of that question so they might even make a comment already about this um before they come to the panel meeting in in Brussels and it might be discussed during the discussions but mostly the details of the budget will be looked at by experts once the rank list has been established and then they will they will but this expert our panels do that already now in in the actual cost model um under lamoms this step of assessment of the budget has a certain has an increased importance because remember there's no additional checks on costs anymore afterwards during the lifetime of the project but uh at thec um the level of detail that was provide that is provided by most applicants in in proposals is often already uh quite detailed and sufficient for even this new financial model and also the panels were already looking at uh at the budget in in in in detail um so you know there's a a certain um importance to that step now under the lumsa model but you know applicant should not get too concerned about the message really is plan your budget ing to what you think you need and you know and experts will will will understand and will make their assessment of The Proposal based [Music] on how how convincing that is so the more you stay to what you actually in reality expect to to to to to need the more convincing your your your proposal will be I have another question on personal cost yes this is a Hot Topic today and is ERC Advanced Grant candidates are usually very high level scientist so probably they have um salaries above the average how is this taken into account when looking at the dashboard averages and yes what are these D yeah I know what is going to be answer it's again it's the same but when you go to the dashboard you will have this per country on per staff category so you will have the comparison with other pis that are Advanced pis this is the comparison that you have in in the tool so is it's not comparing post dos with uh with uh with principal investigators it's principal Advanced principal investigators with Advanced principal investigators in the same country and it's actually one of the reasons why we decided to go for our own historical data because in that way we could display Pi salary of personnel cost of princip investigators of ERC grants um and not and which is not possible in the commission data so the the in our Personnel cost historical Personnel cost data in that tool the data for um for the pis is only the one from Advanced grantees whereas the data for the con for the for other staff categories like post um or senior staff comes from all three main Grant schemes started and consolidator and and advance but the pi the principal investigator data is really only from Advanced thec grantees so we are expecting some increases because of inflation is another question about the national the National Grids that can change uh but this is something that can be also also checked and we are aware of but the pis are compared with pis Advanced Grand Pi for the last five years so but this um leaves another another problem and is what happens and this is another question that we have here uh one uh if I find a question when we don't have enough data on a country or on a in a c category to to display data but it's true that we have some countries very few uh that we do not have enough data and you don't have this in our tool you don't have to be worry because as Angela Mia we are repeating all the time is what you have to put in your budget is what you have in your real ER salary or personal cost grid of your institution which is in your practices you have to put this you explain this and it is enough H the panels will understand this yeah it's very few staff categories for a few countries where we where we do not have data and in those cases the panel will have to do with out yeah so the question was will evaluators take into account that that they did not have access to the data well of course of course of course this is this can always be checked with the host institution also in cases of host institutions what happens this data is fair country what happens in one host institution has higher salaries than the average in that country this can also be checked this this can also be checked okay and remember that this this declaration then that I said that when you are signing the proposal you are saying that the budget is done ing in to the principles of the of the host institution so after this after this step of of uh checking the budget what will happen if the panel considers that the project fulfills the excellent criteria but the budget is not well de it's very nice well dimensioned it's a very very very nice way to say it what happens well first I have to say Angela is this for the science they don't have to worry because they will see this science separately if it is excellent excellent they will be in the ranking list in the same place even if the budget is not well built they will be in the ranking now if the budget is not very good maybe the panel have some issues and may have some concern I think the first thing they will do is they would ask a question about it in the interview and then based on the justifications or explanations provided they might or might not consider to to to implement a cut for certain for a certain cost as they do as they do now they can Implement a cut as they do now but the position in the ranking list won't change another question can the budget be asked to be revised based on the evaluation due to lack of proper justification on for example the personal cost well revised I understand the lack of proper justification May how how would you do that well the it could be cut it could be flaged to check with host Institution for example um yes but take into account that we can check with house institution if they have followed their own rules uh for the personal cost grid for example but we are not going to re reassess the resources or even the rationality of of the of the cost this is really for the panel so if the panels thinks that uh the resources the resource are not justified too many post dogs and they cut they cut we are not going to review this the only thing they can tell us is seems very high please check with the host institution if this is really H in their personal C aged and if it is really when they sign declaration then they did not a mistake for example but uh but the valuation is for the evaluators thank you I think we have completed more or less this uh this section and I I I propose you to go to the Future so to you all imagine that you have successfully submitted an advanced GS proposal and that you have successfully passed the evaluation now what now you have to implement the the project what about so let's go to the implementation of the of the of the project so what we are going to do well first of all you know we go for the grand preparation in the grand preparation we will do more or less what we do today uh uh during the and preparation of the of the actual cost so we are going to ensure that everything complies with the rules that every that is very clear who does what uh because in lamsam afterwards it is not important the cost we will see this but who does what is always important so we will check if there's subcontracting that is not very well uh explained in the narrative if there are for example people that are um that are working in in another in another third party that if we have Affiliated entities that are that are working for the project all these we are going to put this in legal terms H to be very clear in contractual terms and we are going to sign the grant agreement but something very important which is different here is that the budget table that is in the proposal won't be included anymore uh in the grant agreement so we will delete it after evaluation is only to evaluate if the resources are are needed by the evaluators not by us needed and the costs are reasonable once it is evaluated the budget table disappear and we will have this single uh lsum in the in the grant agreement okay then of course amendments amendments will be there if needed as today deviations are possible uh and if if there's a deviation they tell us and we will see if we have to do an amendment of it's a little deviation that we do not need and now we go for what you were waiting that is the payments that is very important and I have very good news some of you know already I'm sure but other not we are going to pay already 80% pre-financing at the beginning when we sign the grant agreement uh I think it's 30 days uh later you will receive this uh maximum 30 days you will receive this 80% of uh pre-financing okay then we will have as today a scientific meter report to see to assess the progress of the project to see the deviations is there when we see if we need an amendment or we don't need an amendment how you are doing all these kind of things but this this m report won't be Associated to a payment you have already paid 80% at the beginning of the project and this cash flow should stay like this till the end at the end of the project there will be a final report a scientific assessment and at that moment moment yes the scientific assessment the final report will be linked to a payment and we will pay the balance at the final payment okay and now Angela Angela is going to tell us for the final reporting and payment so remember remember what this this example of the vaccine candidate we had before so the work is uh the the the the lumpsum is paid when the work is completed so lump sums are fully paid when all the work has been carried out as described in the description of action and also if all essential tasks have been completed and or if equivalent tasks have been carried out and or if deviations have been duly Justified so this means that if one of these conditions is met 100% completion can be requested or should be requested and hence 100% payment and this is irrespective of results obtained or objectives achieved in case where a project could not be conducted as planned for example due to an early termination because the the pi the principal investigator gave up his research lab in Europe and moved to the US the pi can declare partial completion and then lumpsum the lumpsum would be paid in line with the degree of completion as declared by the principal investigator and the host institution and as accepted by by us and then which will be the exposed controls so there's no cost statement we have said so there's no Financial Audits and no certificate on financial statements this disappeared but we could have of course technical reviews that are also possible today in the in the actual cost model so this technical reviews will stay only on proper implementation and if we do this technical review on proper implement of course we are going to check also some the compliance with some uh non-financial obligations like for example ethics uh procurement procedures these kind of things can be checked uh during this export control but not not um Financial records uh so you don't have to keep Financial records anymore for us uh for for your institution of course but with other rules probably and then what you have to keep is always the technical documents uh the publication of okay okay are published but they are there they will serve us for this kind of reviews you have if you have prototypes if there's deliverables that they are not compulsory but if they are deliverables that you have of course this is a this is something that you show us and all the documentation that is required for for by good research uh practices and we go for questions again thank you yes we go for questions and and I have one directly related to what you just said and there a question asking there will there be more technical audits for ERC Advanced grants lamp some projects that as there will not be any Financial audits so no Financial audits are we expecting more technical reviews in principle no ERC is already doing technical reviews maybe you don't know because your project has not been reviewed before but we do this from time to time and we will continue to do this when we see that there's something that needs to be to to be review yes of course indeed if we if we see that something is not going well with the Project based on our interactions with the principal investigator based on maybe the midterm uh report or the final report then of course we would we would want to know what's what's going on but this does not happen very often of course but don't be afraid either of the technical reviews because it can justify your work is maybe we we have not understood simply and how will we how will the ERC assess that the grantee is carrying out the the work this obligation of means how is it going to be assessed it was already mentioned but let me so I me there's the there's the scientific reporting there's a midterm and a final scientific report and in these reports um applicants describe what they have uh what they have done um uh ing to the the original work plan they also describe what what uh where they have been facing challenging challenges and what they have perhaps done instead um this is all um part of uh the the reporting um they will also um submit their their Publications um conference proceedings and all sorts of other output communication activities and all these sorts of outputs will be looked at um similar to now and um you know this is how they they will report and we will based on what what what we can see as outputs we will make that assessment at and I have to say that there not different from the actual cost model because today when we pay an actual cost model we don't pay only because uh you have incurred the cost is because the work has been done is the first is the first condition so now the only thing is that only the first condition stays but it's the same yes even now that's what we do in the scientific department when we get the final report we look at how you know how the project has been doing we try to understand what the challenges are um not to penalize the pi but to understand and to be able to to you know to to support both at midterm and at the final report stage but also whenever there's a problem in between so it's very from that point of view we we will be looking at the same the same the same science of a successful project than than we do now and as you said this is Frontier research so deviations and changes are expected and and perfectly justifiable but I have a question saying but additional funding is not usually subject to the same flexibility how is it checked in case of lamoms so additional funding in in lamsam is um is um can be requested in addition to the normal maximum Grant amount so in this case the 2.5 million for the exact same four um categories either startup costs or um major equipment or um um access to to large facilities or major experimental and fieldwork costs um excluding excluding Personnel cost um and it will also be assessed um um in the same way by the panel so it needs to be um needed for this project and well Justified and the panel will have a careful look at this then during the course of the project there's one full lump sum and then deviations are possible and um those um if there is a deviation to the original work plan then this will have to be looked at on a Case by casee basis um and can be acceptable if uh if um if the original award decision is not called into question and this includes also additional funding so basically not looking at the cost but or at the cost categories anymore but at the activities that justified this additional funding yes I have another question uh um about um how is the Pi's time uh commitment checked without a time sheet okay what we are thinking and we have already agreed with our Central Legal Services is that we will ask for one declaration in the middle of the project with a M report and another declaration at the end of the project on the percentage of time that they have dedicated to the project is a declaration in the same way as the time sheets are declarations so but it's simpler because it's only twice and for the whole period well for the whole period in the middle and for the whole project at the end and so they have to declare this and they have to declare also that they have been in Europe for at least uh 50% of the of the time for Advance the the time commitment is at least 30% but sometimes they say in the in the proposal that they are going to work more and this is in the grant agreement so they have to declare that they have work at least the percentage that they have put into the into the into the grant agreement and this declaration comes at both times so midterm midterm and final and final only because of course it's the average maybe at midterm there is because there is a long stay outside Europe and the the average is lower it can be compensated in the second part of the project yes and when we what we ask already today h in our reporting when this happens they have to explain explain us why this happened and how are they going to catch up in the in the future and uh I think it's going to be the last question that we are going to take before going to the wrap up unless there is some important thing from our colleagues a message in case of portability during the grant implementation and I want and I want both views from both of you how will the remainder of the budget uh be transferred uh how will it be calculated to be transferred okay as today and this is not a big difference when there's a portability there's always an agreement that is a trilateral agreement between the principal investigator the former house institution and the future house institution so they agree and they will see we have done this this is the amount uh for that part that has already been done and the host institution and the principal investigators agreed to finish uh the project with the remaining amount how we do this technically there are several ways because sometimes they remain in the project in the in the grant agreement sometimes they are leaving the grant agreement we do a termination depends on the case but in any case the part of the pre financing that is uh is not uh is not used or has to be H sent uh transferred to to the new host institution will be transferred directly by the for but this does not change what we are doing today but how we calculate it it is going to some said is the only thing I mean we will have to see on a Case by case basis most cases these there's there's this is not necessarily a difficult situation normally the pi who is uh the lead of his project will make a certain assessment of how much of the project has been conducted under the former host institution and how much he intends to to to conduct in the under the at the new host institution and he will uh present this to both institutions and they should come to an agreement they will have to agree um in these cases um if there are if there are difficulties maybe we we will we will be be there to support the pi if needed but this is uh this is U this is um this is how it is they will have to agree on how how the lump suum is split between the former and the the new host institution thank you I I still have something to wrap up H because these are complimentary questions the question is if the objectives have not been achieved because the research has not gone in the way you foresee can the funding be reduced and complementary to that if the project is partially completed um the host institution will not receive the 20% of the of the payment but can also be some recovering from the rest but I would like you to I have said it already but to differentiate between these two things because it's different not completing the project or not achieving the objectives well this is first for for for Angela and then I will come with the story of pre financing final payment and in case of recovery but first first is the assessment that she has explained and and that's also what we what we would um what we would expect that applicants should be doing H if they if they submit their final report they should if they have worked towards the objectives of the project during the entire five years even if it hasn't worked out as the initi planned they should they should request 100% completion and we will assess this and we will pay 100% if they have had an early termination for example if the pi after two and a half years decides that he gives up and moves to the states then of course there might be some recovery that will have to be requested back from the host institution because the project was not was not the work was not done and the project was not completed and maybe here Mila wants to add to this I will I would like to add that good explanations are always welcome it's the best it's the best to to to have a to succeed so even when Angela said okay we will pay 100% even if you have done other activities not exactly described please Justified why and how and when it is very important the deviations come first to the scientific officer we will see this first and we can do an amendment also we we will study the situation so each situation my advice explain well because we will find a solution then if at the end we cannot find a solution because whatever they they have gone to the states or whatever that reason the project has not uh uh been done 100% what happened of course we have given a pre financing of 80% if they have achieved I invented 19 90% we will pay the 10% if they have achieved 70% because they went to the States before of course we are going to recover this 10% of difference H so the 80% is a pre financing and as today when it is not justified now with other means we have to recover the part of the pre financing that has not been Justified and this is what we will do thank you very much let's go to the conclusion slide I think this could be the end of this uh of this webinar the next slide please so what do we expect we think really that this will be a major reduction of administrative burden for all of you uh why because we are removing all obligations on cost reporting including all the obligation of personal cost no more time sheets or other documents supporting actual cost incurred and no more financial audit so this all this is a big package and we think it's a very big administrative simplification still the the science has to be done as today and then yes and finally the timeline that you see the call um well you will find the links here in the description of the YouTube channel there is also a functional mailbox to ask advanc grants 24 we are super happy to answer also personalized questions our colleagues will be there for the whole summer answering your questions because the deadline the call deadline is the 29th of August uh 2024 and we plan to do a a second webinar a more Hands-On webinar that you we will open registration it will be in another platform so it can be more interactive 10 days before the end the the call um ending the call deadline uh on the 19th of August for those of you who are spending the summer writing a grand you can still connect and and ask some practical questions um and so we will be happy to answer we will answer also in written form the questions that have been raised here in this uh in this webinar but before leaving I would like to wrap up with a question a short question to both of you uh what main message do you want the viewers to take home who wants to start who wants to start you can start so my my my key take- home message for you would be for to applicants do not change the way you imagine your future groundbreaking and ambitious ERC project and my message as I'm more in the legal and financial part I will say when you build the budget that should be reasonable of course see this but follow your own accounting principles the own accounting principles of the institutions for everything for personal cost for purchase of equipment so on follow this because you have to do this and don't put ineligible cost either they are pees eligible cost so ineligible cost because any cost that is related to the to the to the proing principle is eligible so be careful with this and uh it will be perfect thank you very much goodbye to all the viewers we had more than 900 people following this webinar from Sunny Brussels goodbye have a nice day and a good summer