Horizon 2020 Quick Info for National Contact Points

Maximum 8 months time-to-grant in Horizon 2020 – what does it entail?
The Horizon 2020 Rules for Participation provide for a maximum delay of 8 months between the deadline for submission of proposals and the signature of the grants for the successfulproposals. Achieving this ambitious target requires a set of measures for acceleratingprocesses and procedures for granting.

Maximum 8 months time-to-grant in Horizon 2020 – what does it entail?

The Horizon 2020 (H2020) Rules for Participation provide for a maximum delay of 8 months between the deadline for submission of proposals and the signature of the grants for the successful proposals. Achieving this ambitious target requires a set of measures for accelerating processes and procedures for granting.

The simplified funding rules of Horizon 2020, the improvement of IT tools and the streamlining of internal procedures will contribute to the necessary acceleration. However, to achieve the ambitious target, it will also be necessary to do away with the grant “negotiations” in the way in which they were applied in the 7th Framework Programme. In FP7, proposals not completely elaborated had a chance for being funded as there was the possibility to "improve/adapt" during the negotiation phase. Evaluators were encouraged to look at the potential of the proposal and to make recommendations on how to improve.

Within Horizon 2020, proposals must be mature and complete. Proposals will be evaluated as they were submitted, rather than on their potential if certain changes wereto be made. This means that only proposals that successfully address all the required aspects will have a chance of being funded. When an evaluator identifies significant shortcomings, he or she must reflect this by awarding a lower score for the criterion concerned.

There will be no possibility for significant changes to content, budget and consortium composition during grant preparation.
 

Important links:

Participant Portal: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal   

H2020 Rules for Participation:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/legal_basis/rules_participation/h2020-rules-participation_en.pdf

H2020 annotated model grant agreement:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/amga/h2020-amga_en.pdf