FAQ BSB JOP 2014-2020 - 2nd Call for Proposals

According to the Guidelines for Grant Applicants, section 2.7.1 General Criteria Regarding Eligibility of Costs, the studies and documentation for projects including an infrastructure component are eligible dated starting after the approval date of the Programme, respectively 18 December 2015.

Electronic signatures are accepted as long as evidence of this electronic signature is provided. Usually this evidence takes the form of an electronic certificate included in a pdf document, according to the national legislation of the applicant.

According to section 2.4 Applicants – Eligibility Requirements, (2.4.2) Geographical location, of the Guidelines for Grant Applicants, eligible applicants (Lead Partners and Project Partners) have to be a legal entity effectively established (registered and located) in the eligible area of the programme. If an organization has offices that are legal entities effectively established (registered and located) in the eligible area, then they are eligible, even though the central office is outside of the eligible area. If these offices do not have a legal personality, then these entities/offices are not eligible. However, please note that the eligibility of the applicants will be assessed and decided during the administrative and eligibility check by the assessors.

According to Section 2.4. Applicants – Eligibility Requirements, (2.4.6) Ineligible Applicants of the Guidelines for Grant Applicants: “Profit making entities from the public or private sector” are not eligible.

There is no such limitation. However, the requirements specified in the Guidelines for Grant Applicants section 2.5 Partnerships – Eligibility requirements shall be observed.

In accordance with Guidelines for grant applicants, section 2.7.7 Budget Structure/ Budget Line 4 – External expertise and services, it is compulsory for each project partner from Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Ukraine to include in its project budget costs for expenditure verifications.
In accordance with the Guidelines for Grant Applicants, section 2.7.7 Budget Structure/ Budget Line 4 – External expertise and services, it is compulsory for each project partner from Armenia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine to include in its project budget the costs for expenditure verification. No other costs for project audit should be budgeted.
Project partners from Romania and Greece should not include in their project budget the costs for expenditure verification or for project audit, as they are not eligible, since the expenditure verification shall be examined free of charge, by public officers.
For details on how expenditure verification is organised in each participating country and the maximum amount to be foreseen in the budget in some of the countries (Bulgaria and Turkey), please read section 2.7.7 Budget Structure/ Budget Line 4 – External expertise and services of the Guidelines for Grant Applicants.

According to Guidelines for Grant Applicants, Section 2.2. Allocation for this Call for Proposals/2.2.3 Co-Financing, the national co-financing may take the following forms:
– Beneficiary’s own resources;
– Financial contributions by third parties, from sources other than the European Union.
Each participating country shall decide on its own co-financing system (from national/ regional/local level or directly from the Beneficiary, or both from the national/regional/local level and from the Beneficiary itself). No resources from other EU Assistance may be taken into account as co-financing.
We recommend each applicant to contact the National Authority of their country related to this issue.

Our strong recommendation is to include in the project budget for each project partner an amount for maximum 2 events/ each project implementing year, for 2 participants/event.Such costs shall be budgeted under the Management group of activities.

According to the Guidelines for Grant Applicants, section 3.2. Drafting the Application/3.2.2. Contents of the Application, section E.1- Partner budget – Travel and Accommodation, you should identify categories of events (see examples below) and estimate an amount per each category. Further, the comment box from travel and accommodation should contain only justification of the purpose of the travel, link with the project activities and any other relevant information regarding this sub-budget line. No other details have to be provided (ex. number of flights, of participants, of accommodation nights, etc).
Example for a 2 years project (24 months):
Estimated number of events: number of events (4 meetings/events organised by Programme management structures + number of meetings of the project partners related to project coordination, other types identified)
Estimated budget per event: amount Euro
Total estimated budget for Travel and accommodation under the Management group of activities: number of events X amount Euro/event = total estimated amount Euro

According to the Guidelines for Grant Applicants, Sections E/F – Project budget, “Expenditure on staff costs shall consist of gross employment costs of staff employed by the beneficiary in one of the following ways:
(a) full time;
(b) part-time with a flexible number of hours.”
Therefore, please check for each partner that for every sub-budget line for Staff costs, under Unit type (first box) – “part-time with a flexible number of hours” is selected (instead of “hourly basis” or “part time with a fixed percentage”), while for Unit type (second box) –“hours” is selected.
Furthermore, for all project partners, you have to:

specify the activities in which the respective staff will be involved;
provide information to justify the estimated number of hours;
provide justification on how the hourly rate was established.

In order to submit the application the applicant should rewrite it and make sure it fully observes all the criteria described in the Guidelines for Grant Applicants for the second call for proposals.

Yes, you can enter and fill in the application as many times as necessary, before submitting it. However, you should not forget to permanently save the information introduced. Also, remember that is your and your partners’ responsibility to check again the content of the application before submitting it and to make sure that the information you want is there and not the draft version. Communicate closely with the project leader and make sure that sufficient time is allocated for checking that all required information and annexes from all partners are uploaded according to the requirements!