Hi Luce,
Can I ask you to review the Fellowship announcement text to see if we can go with this w.r.t to the Grant agreement and rules?
You’ll find it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MjGniB5Rx2OA7KZoVTofecmrT6LCivQkjcHAxgyxA8s/edit#
Sure, I’ll make a first review on Monday and let you know by the next community call.
More elements
Luce: the 20 small Fellowships are the 20 high quality posts mentioned as part of task 2.1 (mentioned also as deliverable D2.2). The 3 large ones are the open competition mentioned as part of task T1.2.
Waiting for an official approval
Hello,
I have reviewed the text and asked our project officer by the EC for advice (my only concern was: “can we give away cash or do we have to redistribute it to the winners through goods or services ?”).
If I may: to get you covered, it could be useful to give as precise as possible criteria for evaluating the project, even though you have to keep the call open to very different types of projects. Maybe through Ezio’s recommendations ?
Is this for our accountability?
@LuceChiodelliUB are these so that a reviewer later can check that some very specific evaluation criteria were respected and that the selection of Fellows was not done randomnly, or in unfair, biased ways? This could go in a page with the Terms and Conditions (explaining also who the selection committee is, how many days to inform participants, how/if any document will underpin their reception of the award) and legalese (?)
Exactly
Hi @Noemi,
This exactly what I meant - the aim is to give a very clear context to get you covered. I also thought of something like an evaluation grid (at least for the 20 000€ projects) and a short mention of the selection process, that you could use and later keep in archive in case of audits. It would confirm the transparent and objective selection of the projects. It shouldn’t be a big deal, just a few lines to provide transparent information to the applicants on what is ahead of them when they submit a project. What do you think?
Fellowships not eligible for opencare
@Alberto / @Nadia / @Noemi /@markomanka / @melancon
Hello,
I have just received an answer from the EC referring to the fellowships.
I am sorry to tell you that they refused the fellowship action for several reasons:
- Cash prizes are not foreseen for CAPS programs ("Sub-grants and Prizes are not foreseen in the work programme (ICT-10- CAPS) therefore could not be accepted.")
- Bordeaux feared that the cash prizes may not be eligible, so when we asked for confirmation, we came up with alternatives (for instance, access to international conferences paid by opencare, hiring people with a contract up to the amount of the biggest prize).
The EC considers it as “subcontracting” (to them you delegate some of your tasks to an external party), but the EC needs it to be described explicitly in the DoA.
Unfortunately, the DOA clearly states “no third parties involved”, making the fellowship program not eligible for the opencare project.
Clearly a glitch
Ok, so: we were transparent in stating we would have an open competition etc. in the proposal. All the material about it is still in the GA. So we have a conflict between form and substance, within the GA.
Additionally, we select, through an open competition, a small number of prototypes for ideas already being developed in the community; and provide them with seed funding and support in return for them testing their own ideas and sharing the results with OpenCare.
Clearly the substance must prevail. This is critical for the fairness of engagement. We should escalate this and ask that the DOA is amended, not because we are changing our project but because we are not changing it. Can this be done? And how soon?
Already approved in the proposal and grant agreement
Hi Luce
The grants have already been approved as part of the winning proposal, they are an explicit deliverable and an absolute requirement for successful engagement of people in the project. Also it is not correct that the EC does not approve this, it has in fact already been done in Catalyst. I am afraid we have to ask you to get back to Loretta and or Fabrizio Sestini and insist they look up the Catalyst example and how it was handled administratively… thanks!
Approved in the GA?
@Nadia Following the different replies in this thread.
Can you point at the precise sections of the GA where this has be properly defined? I am going to have a look with Luce before the meeting tomorrow (Fri May 13, noon) but any help is welcome.
Description of WP1
CA ?
You got me WHat you point to is the Description of Action (DoA) part of the Grant Agreement. What I had in mind was a more financial/administrative document that would lay down in financial/administrative terms that money would be used the way we intend.
I do not see any document of that nature that would make it clear that the commission is ok with using the money to fund socially innovative initiatives (etc. as phrased in WP1).
Of course, I intend to bring WP1 upfront and explain how critical the issue is for opencare.
vague memories…
Good morning @Nadia
is my memory betraying me, or had we foreseen this issue and discussed the idea that we would be spending the “granted” money via our own organizations for material/travels/scholarships?
This way we would not be handing over stringless cash…
Wouldn’t this solve this problem?
(FYI @melancon)
Correct but not for same reason
We want to ensure we get the deliverable for which we would be awarding the money. Patrick had at some point suggsted giving a part of it up front but I thought it better that if there are costs involved e.g. for trips that we purchase them on behalf of the grantees…that way we have reciepts etc for each expense. But this is only for the period before they have completed everything after which we would have to hand over cash.
For the smaller grants (in exchange for stories) this is neither relevant nor possible…
Let’s fight back
I am no specialist of EC regulations. Assuming we can indeed amend the DoA, then the arguments you bring should be put into appropriate form to formally ask for such an amendment.
Did you mention all of this earlier, is it me who did not notice the info, lost in the sea of comments on edgeryders?
Guy
This is new
Very new, in fact. Guy, you might have to escalate to Loretta and Fabrizio.
Please, liaise tightly with Nadia. She needs to say the right things in Berlin, and can use the opportunity to lobby for a solution.
“Crisis” meeting
@markomanka and @Alberto and @Nadia and @LuceChiodelliUB and @Rossana_Torri and @Costantino and @zoescope and @Lakomaa
We need to meet to decide on a way to re-address our demands to Loretta – which she will probably need to herself address to the upper level to make sure we don’t get trapped with the control people at the end. All partners must assign priority to this meeting. From what I understand, that’s everyone except maybe EHFF (City of Milano?), is concerned (UBx is concerned in that it officially is coordinator). We cannot wait until June to address this issue.
One thing Loretta mentions very clearly: awarding money to non partner participants simply is not possible for CAPS actions (she seems to indicate it is allowed in other actions, but she makes it clear for CAPS).
A possible solution would be (I am using conditional here) to make the support we provide through sub-contracting. That is, to qualify as sub-contrator, those people a partner supports must indeed help this partner to fulfill its planned tasks and deliverables. So we will need to argue in that direction. This has a number of consequences on the budget side. Whatever falls in subcontrating does not qualify for indirect costs, so what that means is we would need to adjust budgets for partners.
This anyway requires that we reopen the Grant Agreement and amend it, and get official acceptation by the commission (and by all partners). My colleagues in Bordeaux (Luce, Adeline) will help us deal with this process.
Please make yourself available. I am available (I am in Quebec, Canada with a -6time differnece)
– Thursday May 12 (tomorrow), starting at noon Paris time (6am here in Quebec)
– Friday May 13, starting at noon until 2pm
Remark and proposal
Remark: the following clashes with my experience.
awarding money to non partner participants simply is not possible for CAPS actions
CATALYST was a CAPS project, and it had a very formal open call to third parties. Here are all the documents (selection criteria, deadlines) etc., altso useful for @LuceChiodelliUB): http://projects.sigma-orionis.com/catalyst/open-call-collaboration/. I was involved both consortium-side (as Wikitalia) and open call-side (Edgeryders applied and got funded, and delivered great value for the project). Engagement in CATALYST was very low, nothing like OpenCare, and that move saved our asses.
Proposal: we (Edgeryders) already cleared with Luce that it is possible for partners to hire independent workers. This is done through something the GA calls an “equivalent appointing act” to an employment contract. She has a list of four conditions for that to happen.
-
The partner keeps results from the person’s work.
-
The employee’s tasks are duly determined by the partners from the start.
-
He/she works in the partner’s premises.
-
The costs related to his contract are not significantly different from those for personnel performing similar tasks under an employment contract with the partner.
These conditions are all met if we accept that OpenCare’s premises is the platform… which is true, this is the place where we are doing most of our work. It would be ironic if a DG CNECT programme called Collective Awareness Platforms did not recognize digital platforms as a legitimate workspace! Condition 1 is a bit stressful on the social contract, but we can solve this by specifying we release the content as CC-BY immediately.
So, three possibilities, from easier to harder:
- Easy: we invoke the CATALYST precedent, copy their procedure and go ahead.
- Hard: we structure fellowships as "employment equivalent" paid collaborations, done through equivalent appointing acts. The appointing partner will be the aprtner that puts up the fellowship: for now we have fellowships from SF, EDGE, EHHS.
- Harder: we structure fellowhips as subcontracting and amend the DOA.
In the meeting, I will stand in for Edgeryders. I am available at both the times you suggest.
CATALYST GA
Would it be possible to get (and then share) the CATALYST project GA and proposal so we can explicitly refer to it and pass it on to Loretta if needed?