What changes with the introduction of the Unique Registration Facility

1
What changes with the introduction of the Unique
Registration Facility?
2
What will you learn today?

• What was the situation in FP6 and the first calls
  of FP7?
• Why is it being changed?
• What are the changes in proposal submission and
  grant agreement negotiation?
• What is a PIC, a LEAR, the CVT, the URF, the NEF?
•  What if  scenarios and  How to  guides
• Where to get more information?

3
What was the situation in FP6 and first calls of
FP7 and why is it being changed?

• Organisations' legal and financial information is
  requested on a project basis leading to multiple
  redundant requests and overloading of
  administrative and scientific staff
• Legal data is requested at both proposal
  submission and negotiation stage (again a
  redundant request)
• In FP6, organisations were, in most cases,
  validated for their legal existence and status
  every time they were about to sign a grant
  agreement, leading to multiple requests for the
  submission of supporting documents

4
What are the changes in proposal submission?

• All organisations participating in FP7 and CIP
  will be assigned a Participant Identification
  Code (or PIC)
• A PIC has been assigned to all organisations with
  FP7 grant agreements, which will be communicated
  to the grant agreement contact points
• Organisations without FP7 grant agreements can
  use the Unique Registration Facility (URF) to
  register and get a PIC
• EPSS is progressively being adapted to allow for
  the use of the PIC
• The use of the PIC in proposal submission is
  optional but highly recommended

Remember one legal entity, one PIC
5
What if I want to use a PIC for electronic
proposal submission?
Is the use of PIC enabled for this call?
Yes
No
Yes
Does your organisation already have an FP7 grant
agreement?
(see how to)
Do you know your organisations PIC?
No
Look for your organisations PIC
(see how to)
No
Register your organisation in URF and get a PIC
Can you find your PIC?
Yes
Yes
(see how to)
Use your PIC for electronic proposal submission
For enabled calls, the use of a PIC is not
compulsory for proposal submission but it is
strongly recommended
6
How to look for your organisations PIC?

• All organisations that have an FP7 grant
  agreement have a PIC
• The PIC will be communicated to all contact
  points for FP7 grant agreements known to the
  Commission
• Find out within your organisation who are contact
  points for FP7 grant agreements they will be
  able to tell you what your PIC is
• If you cannot find any contact point within your
  organisation, ask the URF help desk to put you in
  contact with them
• Please note that in order to avoid identity
  theft, the URF help desk will not be able to
  provide you with the PIC

7
How to Register my organisation in URF to get
a PIC

• Anybody can register an organisation in URF
• No special user name or password is required
• The PIC is provided at the end of the
  registration process and can be used for proposal
  submission after 48 hours
• During registration, URF does not check for
  duplicate registrations this will be done if
  your proposal is retained for negotiation
• If there is a duplicate registration your PIC
  will change and you will learn about it during
  negotiation

8
How to Use my PIC in proposal submission

• First check on CORDIS whether the PIC can be used
  for the call you are submitting your proposal to
• If you registered your organisation, make sure
  that registration took place at least 48 hours
  before, otherwise the URF data will not be
  visible to EPSS (check the call deadline!)
• In EPSS, type your PIC when asked EPSS will show
  you part of the legal data associated to that PIC
  for you to check that the PIC you are using is
  the right one
• If you think there are errors in the data shown
  that might affect the eligibility of your
  proposal (such as SME status) you can always
  remove the PIC and fill in the data as usual

9
The use of PIC will not be possible for these
calls closing or with cut-off date in the week of
May 12th (provisional)

• FP7-ICT-2007-C
• FP7-AAT-2008-RTD-1
• FP7-SST-2008-RTD-1
• FP7-SST-2008-TREN-1
• FP7-TPT-2008-RTD-1

10
What are the changes in grant agreement
negotiation?

• The Central Validation Team (or CVT) centralises
  the collection of legal and financial documents
  and validates all participating organisations
  only once
• All organisations negotiating an FP7 grant
  agreement must appoint a Legal Entity Appointed
  Representative (or LEAR) who will be in charge of
  providing the legal and financial documents to
  the CVT and of requesting, using URF,
  modifications to the legal and financial data
  held by the Commission
• During negotiation, it will not be possible to
  modify the organisations legal and financial
  data in NEF (replacement of the GPF editor), thus
  the appointment of the LEAR in case changes are
  required can become a blocking issue to conclude
  negotiations

11
How to Appoint a LEAR for my organisation

• The appointment of a LEAR requires the exchange
  of paper documents to guarantee appropriate
  identity management
• Identify who in your organisation will play the
  LEAR role
• Get the forms from CORDIS, complete them and get
  them signed by any person in your organisation
  authorised to sign grant agreements
• Submit the forms to the CVT
• LEARs will receive their credentials (user name
  and password) by email and post to access URF

Remember one legal entity, one LEAR
12
What if during negotiation I discover errors
in the administrative or financial data of my
organisation ?
Are there any mistakes in the GPFs?
Yes
No
Has your organisation already appointed a LEAR?
Ask your organisation to appoint a LEAR
Yes
Ask your LEAR to request the correction through
URF
Only your LEAR can request the modification of
the administrative and financial data of your
organisation in URF. It will not be possible
anymore to do it via NEF!
13
What if during negotiation I am asked to
submit legal or financial documents so that my
organisation can be validated?
Am I asked to submit legal or financial documents?
Yes
Yes
No
Has your organisation already appointed a LEAR?
Ask your LEAR to submit the requested documents
to the CVT
Submit yourself the requested documents to the CVT
Ask your organisation to appoint a LEAR
14
Where to get more information?

• Look for the section  Register your organisation
  (URF)  on CORDIS available as from 1st May 2008.
• URF help desk for technical problems, password
  reset, etc
• DIGIT-EFP7-SUPPORT_at_ec.europa.eu
• If you want to send feedback (we might not reply,
  but we will read your message)
• RTD-DL-URF_at_ec.europa.eu