Comprehensive and inclusive support for women and girls' victims of GBV

A child protection policy is a mandatory annex for all participants with activities directly involving children (i.e. persons below age of 18). Hence, each organisation involved in the project and having direct (in person or online) contact with minors needs to supply its own child protection policy.

Public entities (e.g. local authorities, ministries,...) can satisfy this obligation by submitting a declaration from their legal representatives stating that the child protection measures of the public entity are in line with the principles and standards described in the Keeping Children Safe Child Safeguarding StandardsPDF (available at: https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-10/KCS-CS-Standards-ENG-200218.pdf).

In principle, international organisations are eligible applicants independently of their seat/representation site. However, they must ensure that project activities take place only in the CERV eligible countriesPDF resp. in the JUST eligible countriesPDF while respecting all other eligibility requirements outlined in the Call.

Yes. According to the call document, entities without legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, if their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees for the protection of the EU financial interests equivalent to that offered by legal persons (see Article 197(2)(c) EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046).

At the application stage, such applicant should supply documents proving operational capacity (in line with section Operational capacity of the Call document), notably:

• general profiles (qualifications and experiences) of the staff responsible for managing and implementing the project
• description of the consortium participants
• applicants’ activity reports of last year
• list of previous projects (key projects for the last 4 years).

As indicated in the Call Document, organisations (applicant and partners) must be established in eligible countries. International organisations are also eligible, even if established in non-eligible countries. However, the project activities must take place only in eligible countries. For the calculation of the lump sum, only participants coming from eligible countries can be counted, and this also applies to International Organisations. Participants in an event do not need to ‘represent’ a partner, they can also come from other eligible countries than the ones involved in the consortium.

Beneficiaries (BEN) are the legal entities involved in the action that are parties to the grant agreement. As signatories of the grant agreement, they are fully responsible towards the granting authority for implementing the project and for complying with all the obligations stated in the grant agreement.

Affiliated entity (AE) is an organisation that has a link with a beneficiary (in particular a capital or legal link), which is NOT limited to the action or established for the sole purpose of implementing it. Affiliated entities participate in the action with similar rights and obligations as the beneficiaries (obligation to implement action tasks and right to charge costs and claim contributions). Since affiliated entities receive a part of the grant, they must comply with all the call conditions and be validated (just like beneficiaries).

Associated partners (AP) are the entities, which participate in the action, but without the right to charge costs or claim contributions. Since they participate without funding, they do not need to be validated.

Attention! Affiliated entities and Associated partners are NOT considered as beneficiaries, because they do not sign a grant agreement. Therefore, they do not count towards the minimum eligibility criteria for consortium composition (if any).

Before applying for funding, all organisations involved in the project (all members of the consortia) must first be registered with the EU. See Registration steps for a whole explanation on how to register an organisation.

All information related to registration of an organisation can be found here:webgate.ec.europa.eu

No, there is no binding template under the CERV and the JUST programmes for the written consortium agreement. However, once the proposal is selected for funding, members of consortia must conclude a written consortium agreement.

For more details concerning its content, please consult CERV Model Grant AgreementPDF (p.28-29), CERV Lump Sum Model Grant AgreementPDF (p. 21) resp. JUST LS Model Grant AgreementPDF (p.21) and Annotated Grant AgreementPDF(article 7).

The EU Survey on Justice, Rights and Values is part of the performance monitoring framework put in place by DG JUST to collect monitoring data and results to ensure the sound management of its funding programmes, public accountability and transparency. It will aim at measuring the quality of the training, mutual learning and awareness-raising events funded under the call for proposals.

Each beneficiary will be requested to ask the attendees of the events organised in the framework of his project to participate in the EU Survey. Beneficiaries will have access to the results and will be able to use them for their project evaluation.

DG JUST will aggregate the results of all the projects financed under the Justice and CERV programmes.

The survey is made of two parts:

• the first one is a usual satisfaction questionnaire aiming at measuring the quality and the impacts of the event organised;
• the second one intends to gather attendees’ perception of the values promoted by the Justice and CERV programmes and measure attendees’ awareness of the different instruments used to promote and protect rights and values.

The following personal data is collected if the respondent agrees:

• name and surname, gender, age category and e-mail address of the respondent,
• the name type and of the organisation on whose behalf the respondent is contributing, and the country of establishment

Protection of personal data is ensured all along the process. The respondent can refuse to give these data but just give his/her answer to the question in an anonymised way.

Applicants (members of consortia) must provide CVs of core project team as an obligatory annex. CVs should be merged into one document in a PDF format. In case key personnel has not yet been recruited, job description should be provided instead.

The lump sums for in-situ and online events are based on 2 parameters:

• the number of direct participants: number of participants directly involved in the entire event. If a participant is involved in different activities of the same event, s/he must only be counted once; AND
• the number of eligible countries: number of countries of habitual residence of direct participants. Only eligible countries must be counted.

Yes, even only one of the consortium beneficiaries / partners can assume the full co-financing of 10% of the total eligible costs of the project.

It is up to the consortium to decide on the distribution of the lump sums per partner organisation. One lump sum can be split between several partners (e.g. % share) or can be attributed only to one organisation. It is mandatory that the total budget per partner included in the Part A is equal to the total budget in the calculator sheet.

Instructions on how to complete the excel budget workbook are in this presentation (please scroll down to the section "downloads").

It explains step by step the entire budget and how to calculate different cost categories.

Please enable macros and make the workbook a trusted document to be able to enter data and save it.

To do this:

(i) click in the yellow "Security Warning banner" under the tool bar on the button "Enable Content";

(ii) Depending on your security settings, a pop-up window might appear. If it appears, please click "Yes" to make the file a trusted document.

NO. You can submit your proposal and annexes in any official EU language (project abstract/summary should however always be in English). For reasons of efficiency, we strongly advise you to use English for the main part of the application (Part B).

All CERV and JUST calls define their award criteria under section 9. Award criteria of the Call document. Call-specific requirements are outlined in its section 2. Objectives — Themes and priorities — Activities that can be funded — Expected impact. Moreover, additional drafting instructions are included in Part B of the application form.

Applicants must be mindful of all the above parameters, while preparing their proposals.

Practice shows that proposals surpassing the minimum overall quality threshold of 70 points (and which can be considered for funding) are those with:

clear and direct response to the call’s objectives;

a strong focus on issue(s) in which there is a general interest at national / EU-level;

a clearly established link with the EU policy priorities;

clearly defined and realistic project’s objectives, which then translate into concrete activities supported by a clear methodology and in practical and useful outputs;

the potential to have a real impact on the target group(s). This should come hand in hand with a well-defined and appropriate choice of the target group(s) by the project partners bearing in mind the need to have access to these target groups to involve them actively and meaningfully in the project design and its activities;

a good prospect for sustainability and/or long-term impact lasting beyond EU funding (e.g., the project results have a clear potential to be used by the partners and other relevant target groups at national/EU level in their daily practices; changes will continue to resonate after the project ends);

meaningful partnership composition, fit for achieving proposal objectives, where partners have experience in the field, access to the target group(s) and support of relevant public authorities;

all relevant cross-cutting aspects (e.g., respect to EU values, child protection principles, gender mainstreaming perspective, data protection rules, etc.) appropriately covered and clearly described – as these are often only briefly touched upon by applicants. Hence, properly addressing these can really make a difference; and

innovative solution(s) proposed (i.e., featuring new or alternative approaches to recurrent or new problem(s)) or covering geographical areas where the type of activity proposed by the project is clearly missing).

The degree of fulfilment of the above characteristics can differentiate good proposals from the excellent ones.

There is no template format for the CVs. Hence, applicants may use Europass CV or any other CV format.

We encourage applicants to submit CVs, as all other annexes in English. Nevertheless, they can be submitted also in any EU official language.

To gender mainstream your proposal, please consider the guiding questions below to integrate a gender perspective into your project:

• Did I conduct a gender equality analysis to assess my project’s design, implementation and impact?
• Did I take into account gender aspects in my needs assessment?
• Will the data and indicators I collect and create be disaggregated by sex?
• Did I include in my proposal a commitment to advance gender equality?
• Did I include in my proposal a commitment to monitor and report on the gender equality results achieved by the project in the evaluation phase?
• Do I plan to create gender-specific indicators to measure the project’s gender equality objectives?

Questions 1-5 are considered basic elements of a gender-mainstreamed proposal. Question 6, is designed for projects, which put gender equality at their core.

Additional guidance can be found on: What is Gender mainstreaming | EIGE (europa.eu) and Gender analysis | EIGE (europa.eu)

NO. The maximum page limit for proposal (Part B) set in the Call document ensures equal treatment of all applicants.

All excess pages detected by the system will be blanked. Therefore, the applicants need to make sure to respect this limitation before converting the application Part B document into a PDF and uploading it via the Submission wizard.

NO. Applicants are asked NOT to delete any instructions in the document or any formal sections of the application. Formatting rules should be abided (i.e., Arial 9 points as minimum font size to fill-up the application). Any alterations of the application template must be avoided, to prevent the risk of inadmissibility of the application.

No, there is no obligation to submit a letter of support. Nevertheless, letters of support may be included as an optional annex with the view to foster overall quality of the application.

There is no formal template for letters of support and they can be submitted in any EU official language.

Please note that DG Justice revised its evaluation methodology and all criteria (relevance, quality and impact) have been gender mainstreamed. Thus, your attention to gender aspects has a positive impact on the score you receive in the evaluation. Proposals that integrate a gender perspective are also considered as of higher quality and we encourage you to take gender differences into account when drafting every section of your proposal (needs assessment, target group, risks, impact, communication, etc…).

In the calls for proposals published under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme, it is possible for one organisation to submit or participate in 2 (or several) projects. Such organisations are however asked to be attentive to any possible duplication issues that might arise and to ensure that they have sufficient operational and financial capacity to implement both projects in case they are both selected for funding.

Declaring “NO” to the second question in part 6 DECLARATIONS of Application form Part B (Technical description), i.e. “We confirm that to our best knowledge neither the project as a whole nor any parts of it are (nor will be) submitted for any other EU grant (including EU funding managed by authorities in EU Member States or other funding bodies, e.g. EU Regional Funds, EU Agricultural Funds, etc.)“, does not automatically result in rejection of an application. The reason behind this declaration is the need to protect the financial interest of the Commission and EU taxpayers and to prevent potential risk of double funding.

Therefore, the applicants are encouraged to outline all parallel submitted/planned applications towards other EU funding mechanisms possibly highlighting overlapping activities and overlapping budget.

The KPI tool allows the Commission to systematically and reliably collect data related to the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the CERV and Justice programmes.

The previously used “Part C (KPI)” form has been recently replaced by the “KPI tool”. The KPI tool is designed to collect data on the number of persons (male/female/non-binary) participating as attendees to – or that are reached by – a specific activity.

The same KPI tool is used throughout the whole project lifecycle, starting from the stage of proposal submission (SEP) and, if selected, continuing with grant agreement preparation (GAP) and reporting stages (REPA).

Data is preloaded from SEP (submission) to GAP (grant preparation) and from GAP to REPA (reporting); project coordinators can update data from estimates (at application stage) to actual data (at reporting).

When preparing their application, applicants indicate two types of information (i.e. two fields):

1.The type of project.

2.The indicators on the number of persons reached by 3 main types of activities.

1. First field “Type of project” (main activity)

The projects funded under the CERV and the Justice programmes usually include different types of activities. To contribute to the Commission own reporting duties, applicants are requested to classify their project according to its main set of activities (i.e. the main mean to reach the objective). Even if several types of activities will be implemented, applicants must choose one of the five “labels” amongst the given options: mutual learning and exchange of good practices, training, ICT tools, awareness-raising information and dissemination, analytical activities. Only one choice is allowed. This does not change the nature of the project and does not prevent to implement a mix of activities, but it allows for an easier Commission reporting.

2. Second field “Output, result and impact indicators”

This second field aims at recording the number of persons participating in or reached by three types of activities: training, awareness-raising and mutual learning.

A project can foresee different types of activities under the main one. For instance, an analytical project could include an expert workshop (mutual learning) and an information event (awareness-raising). Therefore, while labelled as “analytical” as type of project in the first field, this second field should be filled in for each type of event targeting participants through training, awareness-raising or mutual learning, which can be chosen independently of the choice made for the type of project. The related activity field can be left empty (i.e. value = 0) only if no such activity is planned or takes place within the framework of the project.

The number of persons by type of activity is cumulative, and it includes also the activities implemented by third parties (i.e. for projects with regranting).

At application stage, these numbers are based on estimates; if the project is selected and awarded a grant, actual data is provided at reporting stage.

Additional definitions:

Training:

Training activities may be classroom training or e-learning courses as well as staff exchanges, study visits, workshops and seminars.

The number of persons reached is the number of trainees who have registered to the training module.

Persons who participate in the preparation of the training (e.g. in the needs assessments or research activity) are not considered as trainees.

Persons who participate in the follow-up of the training (e.g. dissemination activities, conference, etc.) are not considered as trainees.

A person who participates in more than 1 training activities is counted as many times as this person participated in different training activities.

Mutual learning and exchange of good practices:

Mutual learning and exchanges of good practices activities may be meetings, workshops, seminars, webinars, online platforms, expert groups, peer-learning, networking, study visits and all other activities that provide the opportunity to identify and learn from good practices in other Member States, other regions or in other sector of activities.

The number of persons reached is the number of men, women and non-binary individuals directly taking part in the activities.

Persons who participate in the dissemination of the mutual learning activity (e.g. press conferences, information folder receivers, etc.) or people touched by media communication activities (e.g. radio broadcast) are not considered as directly taking part in the mutual learning activity.

A person who participates in more than 1 mutual learning activities is counted as many times as this person participated in different mutual learning activities.

Participants to focus groups fall under this category.

Awareness-raising:

Awareness raising, information and dissemination activities are conferences, press conferences, media campaigns (including online), publications and all activities aimed at raising awareness, informing and promoting the debate in the areas of the programme.

The number of persons reached is the number of men, women and non-binary individuals touched [once or several times by one or several means] by these activities.

There is no binding template for a Child protection policy (CPP), since situation of each organisation is unique. However, it must be covering the four areas (policy, people, procedures, accountability) described in the Keeping Children Safe Child Safeguarding StandardsPDF. Moreover, the CPP must be available online and transparent to everyone who comes in contact with the organisation. It must include clear information about the recruitment of staff (including trainees and volunteers) and include background checks (vetting). It must also include clear procedures and rules to staff, including reporting rules, and continuous training.

The Eurochild Child Protection PolicyPDF is a suitable example.

Yes. However, subcontracting should normally constitute a limited part of the budget. It must be performed by third parties (not by one of the beneficiaries/affiliated entities) and should be justified in the application.

In particular, if subcontracting represents large percentage of the total eligible costs, the applicant must provide solid and convincing arguments in the project description - Part B (e.g. development of important IT compounds essential for project implementation, etc.).

Please note, that some project activities should not be subcontracted, notably project management/coordination.

No. In case an organisation is working with young people in the age group 18-29, Child protection policy is not needed, since children are considered as persons below age of 18. Please note that terms youth, teenagers or young people without age precision are quite vague. Therefore, the applicants are encouraged to clearly specify the targeted age group in the abstract and all through the proposal.

The financial capacity check is done only in case a proposal is selected for funding. It is normally performed for all coordinators with exception of public bodies (entities established as public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) and international organisations. If needed, it may also be done for affiliated entities. Before the grant agreement preparation, the applicants will be approached by the Commission with the list of documents to supply.

For more information consult Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity AssessmentPDF, which provides guiding principles concerning financial capacity check in its part IV. RULES ON FINANCIAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENT (pp. 21-26).

The Lead Partner/Coordinator must submit the list of key previous projects implemented in the last 4 years. For partner organisations, this is recommended.

Yes. After completing the registration of an organisation (and obtaining a PIC), the Self-registrant role will be assigned to the user logged into EU Login at the time of registration. The Self-registrant is allowed to access the PIC in the Funding & Tenders Portal and update the organisation data.

As provided by the Decision authorising the use of lump sumsPDF, the lump-sums for events already include the costs related to coordination, management, evaluation, communication, etc.

In the calls for proposals published under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme, the annual activity report is not needed for public bodies, which also includes public universities.

The Annual Activity Report (AAR) is a document describing the activities of the Applicant in the year preceding the year of application (or the last year available).

There is no binding template for AAR and it is admissible in any EU language.

Please note that AAR is not a financial statement!

Beneficiaries must keep adequate records and other supporting documentation to prove the proper implementation of the action for at least 5 years after the balance is paid (3 years for grants up to EUR 60 000). Those records must be available, verifiable, and auditable.

For lump projects, beneficiaries do not need to keep records of their actual costs (e.g. timesheets or invoices). There is no financial reporting, and no checks or audits of the costs incurred.

In case of checks, reviews, audits or investigations, the beneficiaries of lump sum grants must present adequate records and other supporting documentation to prove the proper technical implementation of the action, as detailed in Annex 1 of the Grant AgreementPDF(e.g. for technical documents, participation to events/seminars, publications, etc.).

The technical documentation required for lump sum grants is the same as for all grants (i.e. there are no additional technical documents to be kept specifically for lump sum grants).

You still need to comply with financial record keeping obligations outside the grant agreement, if any (e.g., under national law or internal procedures).

If not specified otherwise in the Call document, the Annual Activity Report (AAR) describing the activities of the Applicant in the year preceding the year of application (or the last year available) must be submitted by the lead Applicant. Public bodies are exempt from this obligation. Other applicants (partners) may submit their AAR if they wish so.

Usually, if the financial capacity of the applicant / partners (if relevant) is satisfactory, a guarantee on pre-financing is NOT requested. In general, a pre-financing of 80% of the grant is paid within 30 days following the signature of the grant agreement. In case the financial capacity of applicants is assessed as weak, the preferred solution is to reduce the pre-financing (i.e. instead of paying 80% pre-financing in one go to pay 80% pre-financing in 2 instalments of 40%).

To be noted that the financial capacity is only checked at a later stage, for proposals that have been selected for funding. At the application stage, you do not need to provide any financial documents.