Call for proposals ‘National Competence Centres for Social Innovation: Building-up and Consolidating the Capacity (closed)

An application shall meet the operational capacity criteria set in Section 7.2 of the Call Conditions to be considered eligible.

NOTE: the operational capacity is one of the eligibility criteria. If it is not met, the application shall be deemed ineligible, no further assessment shall be undertaken, and the application will be rejected.

Under the Call on Building-up and Consolidating Capacity of NCCs, only the operational capacity of the applicant, who acts as the coordinator, will be assessed.

The coordinator must ensure the project’s successful implementation and management to be funded under the Call. Therefore, a coordinator needs to have sufficient experience in managing/coordinating transnational projects.

A self-assessment checklist is a useful tool designed to assist applicants in determining whether the experience of a coordinator of the consortium is sufficient to meet the requirements set for the operational capacity.

For the operational capacity to be deemed sufficient, the answer ‘YES’ shall be next to

a) all subpoints 1.1.1 – 1.1.3

or

b) next to the subpoints 2.1.1-2.1.3 and 2.2.

According to Call Conditions, applicants, co-applicants, and associated partners must be from EU 27 Member States: “Legal entities established and registered in the Member States, which meet conditions set in Section 6.2, are eligible as applicants or co-applicants and associated partners.” (Section 6.1 of the Call conditions).

UK/Scotland or any other non-EU country cannot participate formally as an associated entity in this call.

The Coordinator fills out the application and submits it. Please note that the eSINNIS portal allows only one user to work on an application at a time.

The consortium agreement (or similar document) is not mandatory but highly recommended. It offers valuable flexibility to address unforeseen circumstances, customize grant distribution and safeguard all parties involved. Therefore, if you have bilateral agreements in place between the consortium coordinator and each partner that cover these aspects, it is considered sufficient.

The structure of each project might be different. However, there are general recommendations we advise to consider when designing work packages (WP):  

• Payments in lump sum projects are directly tied to completing specific WPs. To get the next prefinancing payment, you need to have spent at least 70% of the previous prefinancing. Spending will be determined based on the completion of WPs, i.e. a WP is only considered completed, when all the activities are implemented and all deliverables are achieved.
• WPs with a long duration (e.g., for coordination/management or dissemination). You can split WPs with a long duration along the reporting periods into several work packages of a shorter duration. In this way, the relevant activities can be reimbursed at the end of the reporting period. This may be relevant to the cash flow of the project. 
• Each WP may have multiple deliverables. It is recommended to plan a reasonable number of deliverables as they will become contractual obligations. 
• Break down the WP into activities. Provide a clear breakdown of the work envisaged under the work package into planned activities. This will help to ensure that the work package is well-defined and achievable.
• Specify the necessity of each activity. Clearly articulate the rationale behind each planned activity. Explain why each activity is necessary for achieving the overall objectives of the WP.
• Identify the role of the lead participant and other participants. Clearly designate the lead participant and other participants for each activity. Specify the specific responsibilities and contributions of each participant. Having contributions from several partners in each activity is very important since it demonstrates the collaborative value of a project. Include travel information. If travel costs are included in the detailed budget, provide all relevant travel information, such as the number of trips, participants, destination, and travel duration. This will help to ensure that the budget is accurate and transparent.
• Ensure coordination/management activities are implemented by the coordinator. The coordinator shall take full responsibility for the coordination/management activities. 

All conditions and selection criteria can be found here. The key requirements that must be met are the following:

1. Eligibility of applicants/ co- applicants and endorsement

• More information on endorsement can be found here 
• Endorsement and other eligibility requirements can be found in Chapter 6, p. 14-16 of the Call Conditions.
• Endorsement letter template can be found here 

2. Eligible activities/ outputs

• All detailed information on objectives, activities and outputs can be found in Chapter 2, p. 9 – 11 of the Call Conditions.

3. Financial provisions

• All information on cost eligibility can be found in Chapter 3, p. 11-13 of the Call Conditions.
• Lump sum rules can be found here
• Detailed Budget Table can be found here

4. Application process

All information on submission process can be found in Chapter 5, p. 13–14 of the Call Conditions.

Application form template can be found here

List of required documents can be found here

As stated in Section 7.2 of the Call Conditions, the Coordinator must have sufficient experience in managing/coordinating transnational projects of comparable size and nature, including a comparable number and diversity of partners. 

– the Coordinator (as a legal entity) managed at least 1 transnational consortium project within the past five years

or

– was the lead project manager (currently employed or planned to be employed by the Coordinator and directly involved in the implementation of the project submitted under the Call) and managed at least 1 transnational consortium project within the past five years.

The lead project manager is also expected to have a very good command (C1 level) of English. 

Endorsement is an eligibility requirement for applicants and co-applicants. An entity without endorsement can participate only as an associate partner. More information on endorsement can be found here. Endorsement letter template can be found here.

Only endorsed entities (except the cases specified in Section 6.2b (iv) of the Call Conditions) are recognised as eligible applicants and co-applicants. An entity without endorsement can participate only as an associate partner.

An endorsed entity or partnership can only participate in one consortium. In case there are more than one entity endorsed by a certain Managing Authority, all of them can participate in only one and the same consortium.

The NCC does not have to be one single entity but can be formed by a partnership of several entities. If NCC’s functions are shared between different entities in a Member State it is advisable to sign a National Social Innovation Partnership Agreement, in which rules and procedures of cooperation (e.g., arrangements for governance and representation, distribution of roles and activities, joint development strategy, etc.) are specified.

The Call Conditions stipulates that to be considered eligible, a consortium must include an applicant and at least two co-applicants. The members of the consortium shall represent at least 3 different Member States.  

The Call Conditions only provide minimum requirements for the composition of consortia in terms of the countries or organisations involved.  The Call Conditions do not impose any maximum limits on the size of a consortium. 

Please note that the requirement to have sufficient experience in managing/coordinating transnational projects of comparable size and nature, including a comparable number and diversity of partners, is relevant for the evaluation of the operational capacity of the Coordinator rather than the composition of the consortium.

Multiple organizations from a certain Member State can be endorsed, but all of them must form a  part of the same consortium. Such structure is designed to ensure common and consistent activities and coordinated decisions within a Member State. 

Also, please note that the content of the Endorsement letter (Members of the national partnership and their roles, will be specified in a National Social Innovation Partnership Agreement) implies that an endorsed organisation may not perform all the functions and activities of NCC, but only a certain part of them.  It is up to the Managing Authority to decide the roles and functions of the endorsed entities in the composition of NCC. Managing authorities are free to delegate NCC functions to one or more organisations after considering the whole national context, needs and opportunities. 

The Call Conditions do not require the experience of the project manager to be exclusively related to EU funding. However, the project manager is required to have experience as a lead project manager and management of  at least 1 transnational consortium project within the past five years.  

In regards to the intention to employ a project manager with the required experience, it should be noted that the intention alone is not sufficient. This follows from the list of the required documents and it cannot be fulfilled by the sole submission of a job description for the job offer. As it is specified in he Section 7.2 of the Call Conditions, the operational capacity of the Coordinator to manage the project shall be confirmed by the submission of the following supporting documents:  

– Declaration of the Coordinator certifying the professional competences and appropriate qualifications of the project team to carry out the required tasks; 

– General profiles (qualifications and experiences) of the staff responsible for managing a project (information shall be presented under the point 2.3 of the Application Form B);  

– List of projects managed by the Coordinator within the past five years. The information presented should include the subject matter of these projects, their main activities, transnationality aspect, involvement of partners from different Member States, and the role of the Coordinator. If needed, additional supporting documents may be requested to confirm the operational capacity of the Coordinator.

The database of entities willing to participate in the search for partners is available here

Call Conditions stipulates:

According to the maximum possible duration of the project (36 months), two prefinancing instalments (plus an additional prefinancing, if any) and the final payment are planned:

• The first (initial) prefinancing payment of 60% of the grant (issued after the signature of the grant agreement).
• The second prefinancing payment is 25% of the grant.

In the framework of a 36-month project, the second payment will be issued following the submission and verification of the periodic report at the 18-month mark. The precise dates for payments and reporting will be clearly defined within the grant agreement for each individual project.

Where the spending of the previous prefinancing will be less than 70%, the amount of the next prefinancing payment will be reduced by the difference between the 70% ceiling and the amount used. Spending will be determined based on the completion of WPs, i.e. a WP is only considered completed when all the activities are implemented and all deliverables are achieved.

• The final payment (payment of the balance).

Project coordination and management activities are considered essential and cannot be subcontracted. If external expertise is needed to carry out other activities, you can procure such services by adding these costs to the budget table under the budget category ‘B.2 for other goods, works, and services’. There is no limit set for maximum service expenses.

As it is stated in the Call Conditions, the EU grant may not exceed 80% of the total eligible costs of the project. A co-financing of at least 20% must thus come from other resources than the EU budget. Funds from other EU programmes cannot be used as national co-financing source.  

It is also important to point out that the budget form automatically calculates the 80% EU contribution and deducts  the 20% national contribution. The calculations are done for each beneficiary (individual entity) and for each of their work package.  

The calculation of the EU grant amount and the own contribution is done in the evaluation phase. In the later phases, i.e. in the Grant Agreement and in the implementation of the project, only the EU grant contribution amounts will be applied. 

There is no requirement to include additional provisions related to national funds in the Endorsement Letter. We strongly advise to use the Endorsement Letter form, provided as Annex 5 to the Call Conditions.  

It is not possible to estimate the amount of national funding you will have to commit in advance. Once you identify your costs in the project, you will be able to estimate how much other resources other than the EU budget funding you will require for the national budget commitment.