ANNOTATED GRANT AGREEMENT
AGA Horizon Europe
Official version released
The 01st of May 2024, the DG R&I finally released the official version of the Annotated Grant Agreement. As the last draft version was published on the 01st of April 2023, it was expected some major changes or clarification in the official version. In the end, the main differences concern:
– the sequential contracts (parallel contracts) ;
– the A5 category for personnel costs Volunteers ;
– of course, the Unit Cost for personnel costs ;
– and a specific case for classified information was added in the subcontracting costs.
The Annotated Grant Agreement might be found on both on the European Commission website and on EFMC website.
Several parallel or sequential contracts
This was a recurring issue for organisation from some Eastern European countries where an employee could have several different employment contracts, one for each project or assignment he is working on.
The issue was to understand which contract should be used and how many days per year (215?) should be considered for the calculation of the daily rate.
The rule is now very clear:
“If a person is employed with more than one employment contract with the beneficiary during the reporting period (where allowed by applicable law), the beneficiary should calculate a single daily rate. The actual personnel costs are the sum of the costs of all these employment contracts during the months within the reporting period. The maximum declarable day-equivalents are the sum of the maximum declarable day-equivalents calculated individually for each of these employment contracts during the months within the reporting period.”
The Volunteers – A5. Category
This article clarified the role of the Volunteers and the way to consider and calculate their costs.
First of all, to be eligible, A5 personnel costs must:
- be carried out during the action,
- necessary for the project,
- linked to the action and,
- indicated in the budget.
The amount which can be charged to the project depends on the country of the beneficiary.
This amount does not cover the insurance, the social security, the travel, or subsistence costs which might be paid by the beneficiary. These costs can be declared and reimbursed separately (if provided for in the call conditions).
Beneficiaries who would like to declare Volunteers cost must pay attention to a double cap where
1/ must be less than eligible costs excluding volunteers and,
2/ must never be above the amount indicated in Annex 2 (budget).
The Unit Costs for personnel costs
The Unit Costs for personnel costs consists of calculating the average personnel costs at the legal entity level and to apply this daily rate to any employee who is working on the project, no matter the actual cost he is paid.
You will find all the details in our article published last month.
Subcontracting costs: action tasks involving classified information
Regarding the subcontracting costs, it had been added a specific case regarding action tasks involving classified information:
“Action tasks involving EU classified information may ONLY be subcontracted (cumulative conditions):
– to entities established in an EU Member State or in a non-EU country with a security of information agreement with the EU (or an administrative arrangement with the Commission) and,
– if the granting authority has explicitly approved such requests in writing.”
Should you have any questions related to this Annotated Grant Agreement or would like any clarification, the whole team of EFMC will be very happy to have a discussion with you.