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Knowledge Alliances and Sector Skills Alliances Financial topics

Infoday 23rd November 2015

Guido DI FIORE (EACEA)

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● Unit costs financing system ● Structure of the budget ● Financial aspects ● How to prepare a unit cost budget ● Tips for a good management of the project

Overview about the Unit cost financing system

Principles

• The EU grant for Sector Skills and Knowledge Alliances is based on:

• A unit cost contribution (16 separate unit staff costs - 4 groups of countries on the basis of their respective GDP per capita, and to each group is allocated a unit staff cost for the 4 distinct personnel categories).

• Related to staff working days:

Staff working days x unit contribution = EU Grant (contribution for implementing the project)

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Overview about the Unit cost financing system

Principles

• The resulting EU grant is the EU contribution to co-finance all activities/costs

of the project:

• Staff; travel and subsistence; subcontracting; equipment; direct and indirect costs

• Activity directly linked: project management, project meetings, intellectual outputs , IT tools, analyses, studies, dissemination, participation in events, conferences, travel, etc.);

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Structure of the budget under the Unit cost financing system

The budget is composed by only one heading which is called

Project implementation support

This heading takes into account:

• the whole list of partner organizations

• the total of declared working days per category of worker

Optional funding for Knowledge Alliances only > Mobility activities:

• It is an additional heading of the budget concerning short term mobility of learners and staff in order to support or complement the other activities of the Alliance.

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Is it possible that the Unit cost rates may change during the project implementation?

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Unit costs will remain unchanged for the whole duration of the project. Nevertheless the Agency will launch a revision of these ceilings in the next few years in order to update them for future calls.

Few words on Mobility activities

• Optional funding foreseen for implementing "extra"-ordinary activities related to "Learning mobility";

• Specific optional heading of the budget (not to be used for ordinary travels);

• Examples of mobility activities: A group of students from an University sent to a consortium company / enterprise for curriculum development reasons or Teachers from a University sent to another organization within the consortium for a learning period.

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Few words on Mobility activities

• Optional funding foreseen for implementing "extra"-ordinary activities related to "Learning mobility";

• Specific optional heading of the budget (not to be used for ordinary travels);

• Examples of mobility activities: A group of students from an University sent to a consortium company / enterprise for curriculum development reasons or Teachers from a University sent to another organization within the consortium for a learning period.

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Financial aspects related to an application

Staff working days “reference” for calculating the grant contribution • Related to permanent, temporary, and interim staff employed by partner

organisations;

• listed in the detailed project description;

• with an employment contract or an equivalent appointing act

• assigned to the project implementation activities.

Unit cost rates linked to staff days contribute to all costs

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Could you give examples of people that cannot be considered as staff?

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Volunteers > as they do not represent a real/incurred cost for a partner organisation; External consultants > as indipendant external workers (e.g. no subordination link with the partner organisation), their working days cannot be declared for claiming units.

How to prepare a budget under unit cost system

STEP 1

• Project plan activities > overview of the whole plan and distribution between

partners;

• Quantify these activities/work packages in a real budget costs estimation.

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How to prepare a budget under unit cost system

Step 2

• Calculate number of working days needed for achieving work packages and

outcomes, taking into account:

• The role of each partner;

• The four different categories of staff > balancing the weight of each category according to the activities to be developed under your project and bearing in mind the scope of those roles.

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How to prepare a budget under unit cost system

Step 3 • Apply the unit costs rate to the number of working days previously identified

in order to obtain the amount of the grant you will receive for implementing activities.

Reminder The project activities have to be co-financed, part of this coming from EU and the rest from other sources (own sources of the partnership, income from activities of the project, sponsors etc.).

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How to prepare a budget under unit cost system

Step 4

Budget estimation on real costs (step 1 - NOT FOR SUBMISSION)

Estimation of application (Excel table) of unit cost rates

(step 3 - FOR SUBMISSION)

Sources of co-financing in addition to EU grant (NOT FOR SUBMISSION but useful for your own management)

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Could you give an example on how to convert a real cost into Unit cost budget?

Example of real costs compared to unit cost

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Tips for a good management of the project

• Real staff with employment contract or equivalent appointing act and not

volunteers or external consultants.

• Appropriate number of people involved in the implementation of project/work package in coherence with project objectives.

• Cost efficiency of the profile/competence requested for a good implementation of the project in coherence with project objectives.

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Tips for a good management of the project Staff working days • Employment contracts or equivalent appointing act

• Timesheets

• Payslips

For mobility activities or travel > boarding pass and hotels invoices etc.. All supporting documents should be kept for proving the activities implementation

Handbook will be published on EACEA website with all details

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