MOLTO-enlarged negotiation

Negotiation Mandate

1. Proposal number:288317 Acronym:MOLTO-Enlarged EU
2. Strategic objective/theme:
3. Project Officer (to whom all documents must be returned): MR. BROCHARD Michel Tel:33912 European Commission e-Mail:Michel.Brochard@ec.europa.eu DG INFSO - E 01 Office: EUFO - 02/270 L - 2920 Luxembourg
4. Date and time of first negotiation meeting: 13/07/2011 at 10:00AM Address for the first negotiation meeting: 10 rue de R. StumperL - 2920 Luxembourg
5. EC financial contribution: Maximum financial EC contribution 600.000,00 € (euro)
6. Duration of the project: 18 Months
7. Change of technical content: Forthcoming

8. Timetable for negotiation:
   

   • 05/08/2011 Deadline for the first version of the description of work(Annex I) and GPF
   • 13/07/2011 Negotiation meeting in Luxembourg
   • 31/08/2011 End of negotiation

Accompanying letter

The negotiating Project Officer (PO) is Mr. BROCHARD Michel. The full contact references are detailed in the "Negotiation Mandate".

Please note that the negotiation must be successfully concluded by 31/08/2011.

In case this deadline is not met, the Commission reserves the right to cancel negotiations and any subsequent offer for a project grant agreement. We also would like to draw your attention to the fact that negotiations may be terminated, or the negotiation mandate modified, if so required following the results of the consultation with other departments within the Commission.

Please note that in accordance with the legislation in force, the coordinator is obliged to deposit any pre-financing received from the Commission on an interest-bearing bank account. If you do not comply with this obligation, your participation as coordinator may not be accepted.

The negotiation process is supported by an on-line tool called NEF which you will need to use to submit data that is necessary for the grant agreement.

NEF will also provide access to the Legal & Financial Validation form (LFV lite). The LFV lite provides an overview of the status concerning the legal and financial data of the partners of your project, and indicates those partners for whom legal and/or financial data is missing. If the legal and/or financial data of one or more partners is flagged as needed in the LFV lite or would be incorrect, new legal and/or financial documents must be submitted for the partner(s) concerned. Additionally the Commission can also request documents and information in regard to the operational capacity of the consortium and beneficiaries to achieve the objectives and expected results of the project.

The detailed explanations for accessing NEF will be sent shortly in a separate e-mail. Further guidance is available on-line at the following address: http://ec.europa.eu/research/negotiation/

You should have already received the Evaluation Summary Report (ESR) in the info letter email. If not, please contact the negotiating Project Officer.

The negotiation guidance notes and the most recent templates for the Description of Work (Annex I to the Grant Agreement) are available at: Nef Annex 1 - Concept. Other useful information on Framework Programme 7 is available at http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/find-doc_en.html and includes:

• documents referring to the negotiation guidance notes,
• the model Grant Agreement and special conditions,
• the guide to financial issues,
• the checklist for a consortium agreement for FP7 projects, and
• the guide to intellectual property rules for FP7.

This letter should not be regarded under any circumstances as a formal commitment by the Commission to give financial support as this depends, in particular, on the satisfactory conclusion of negotiations and the completion of the formal selection process. Should you have any queries about the above, please do not hesitate to contact the negotiating Project Officer.

Aarne's task list

The main issue to solve is the budget cut, which of course is the usual thing to happen. We will get 600k instead of the 712k we applied for. My suggestion is that we cut all WP's and sites in proportion, so we don't need to change the work description too much.

The realistic goal is that the work will begin on 1 September. Even this needs some effort from us:

• nominate one contact person (for UZH and BI) who is available at least periodically through the negotiations and authorized (by the rest of the site) to make decisions
• finalize the work description
• adjust the budget
• provide the list of persons (mainly an issue for UZH and BI) as well as relations to other ongoing EC projects
• extend the MOLTO consortium agreement and get it signed
• we should work as if the deadline was 26 August; if we seem to fail, we can probably ask the EC for extension