European Cooperation Projects Small Scale

Yes (see section 5 ‘Admissibility and documents’ of the Call for ProposalsPDF).

The applicants must complete all sections of the Application form PART C (KPI) except the one linked to the reporting (i.e. ‘Output, result and Impact Indicators (only at reporting)’).

Yes. Section 6 "Eligibility " of the Call for ProposalsPDF defines the conditions the consortium must meet to be eligible.

• An organisation, as identified by their PIC number, can apply only once as coordinator under the call, regardless of the topic chosen (COOP 1 or 2).
• An organisation, as identified by their PIC number, can be part of a maximum of 3 applications submitted in this call, whether as coordinator and/or partner regardless of the topic chosen (COOP 1 or 2).

Important: Affiliated entities and associated partners do not count towards the minimum eligibility criteria for consortium composition, including the maximum number of applications in which they can participate.

All participants (coordinator and partners) are responsible for ensuring compliance with this eligibility criterion. The coordinator must obtain from each participating organisation (acting as a partner) a written declaration from its authorised representative confirming its consent to participate in the specific application. These declarations shall NOT be submitted with the proposal but must be kept on file by the coordinator and made available to the granting authority upon request.

Please note that false statements regarding any information required constitute grounds for rejection of the application (see Article 143(1)(b) of the EU financial Regulation 2024/2509).

Participating organisations are advised to make use of all the available technical means to verify their inclusion in project proposals prior to the submission deadline. Furthermore, they are expected to verify, as soon as possible after the submission deadline, that the maximum number of applications in which they are included, does not exceed 3.

Legal entities established in a country which is not eligible as per section 6 "Eligibility" of the Call for ProposalsPDF, may participate as associated partners, third parties giving in-kind contributions or subcontractors (see list of eligible countriesPDF).

Associated partners and third parties giving in-kind contributions can participate in the call at their own costs. They cannot receive EU funding.

Subcontractors are third parties implementing specific tasks of the project that cannot be implemented directly by the beneficiaries. The subcontractors may receive EU funding as remuneration of the tasks carried out and invoiced to the beneficiaries.

For more information on these roles, please refer to section 13 "Important" of the Call for ProposalsPDF and the chapter 4, section 1 "Consortium: Beneficiaries, Affiliated Entities and Other Participants" of the Model Grant Agreement - lump sum grantsPDF.

Section 6 "Eligibility – Eligible participants (eligible countries)" of the Call for ProposalsPDF defines the conditions the participants must meet to be eligible.

The applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies) and be established in one of the eligible countries (see list of eligible countriesPDF).

Although organisations that meet the aforementioned criteria are eligible, it should be noted that the call targets primarily cultural operators in the cultural and creative sectors.

Other organisations may participate to the extent that they contribute to the objectives of the current call. Their role and relevance should be clearly explained in the application.

Affiliated entities

Affiliated entities are entities with a (usually legal or capital) link to a beneficiary and which implement parts of the action and are allowed to charge costs directly to the grant. ‘Link to the beneficiaries’ means in particular a legal or capital link, which is neither limited to the action nor established for the sole purpose of its implementation.

• They do not sign the Grant Agreement (and are therefore not beneficiaries)
• They perform action tasks attributed to them in the DoA Annex 1
• They do not charge a ‘price’ but declare their own costs.
• The work is and is usually carried out on their premises, under their full and direct control, instructions and management, with their own employees
• The beneficiary remains responsible towards the granting authority for the work carried out by its affiliated entities and for the recovery of undue payments from its affiliated entities (if any).

In case the application is retained for funding at the Grant Agreement Preparation (GAP) stage, affiliated entities will be asked to provide documents demonstrating their affiliation link to the beneficiary.

Associated partners

Associated partners are entities that implement action tasks, but without receiving EU funding. They do not become party to the Grant Agreement (do not sign an accession form), but they implement parts of the action and are thus often involved actively in the consortium. Therefore, the Grant Agreement mentions them by name and defines their role (rights and obligations).

• They do not sign the Grant Agreement (and are therefore not beneficiaries).
• They perform action tasks attributed to them in the DoA Annex 1.
• They participate at own costs (do not receive EU funding).
• The consortium (or, in case the associated partner cooperates with a specific beneficiary, that beneficiary) remains responsible towards the granting authority for the work performed by the associated partners.

Associated partners do NOT need to have a (capital or legal) link to any beneficiary (but they may have one).

More information on affiliated entities and associated partners can be found in section 13 “Important” of the Call for ProposalsPDF and in the AGA, Articles 8 and 9PDF.

No. Affiliated entities and associated partners do not count towards the minimum eligibility criteria for consortium composition, including the maximum number of applications in which they can participate.

No, associated partners and affiliated entities are not part of the minimum requirements for a consortium to be considered eligible, as per section 6 "Eligibility" of the Call for ProposalsPDF.

Depending on the topic/scale (small or medium), the consortium must be composed by minimum 3 or 5 beneficiaries (i.e. not affiliated entities nor associated partners) coming respectively from 3 or 5 different eligible countries. Section 6 "Eligibility – Eligible participants (eligible countries)" of the Call for ProposalsPDF defines the list of eligible countries.PDF

Since the budget table serves as the basis for fixing the lump sums for your grants, you must estimate the costs of your proposal using the same methodology as if these costs were declared under an actual cost-based grant agreement.

There is an exception for the category C.1 of the Purchase costs: travel, accommodation and subsistence costs. For the CREA programme, Unit costs are provided for travel, accommodation and subsistence costs via the Commission ‘Authorising Decision C(2021)35’PDF amended in 2024.

For travel costs, two calculators are at your disposal to allow you to calculate the relevant distance (for air or land travel) and identifying the correct unit cost for declaring costs.

The travel unit cost depends on the distance between the place of departure and place of arrival (per person for a return trip), based on the Table 3 and in the Annex 2a (for calls with an opening date as of from 31 July 2024). For accommodation and subsistence costs, the unit costs are available on the Annex 2a of the Commission Decision C(2021)35PDF (for calls with an opening date as of from 13 May 2025).

You can find additional information and calculation examples on travel and subsistence in the AGA – Annotated Grand Agreement, art. 6.2.C.1.2PDF.

The information provided will be used to evaluate your proposal against the "Project management" award criterion (see section 9 of the Call for ProposalsPDF).

The budget table serves as the basis for fixing the lump sums for the grants.

The personnel costs must be estimated using the same methodology as if these costs were declared under an actual cost-based grant agreement.

You can find more information and calculation examples on personnel costs in the AGA – Annotated Grant Agreement, art. 6.2.A.1.(1.4)PDF.

The personnel costs must fulfil the eligibility conditions according to the AGA, art. 6.2.A.1.(1.3) (link above). The personnel costs concern the personnel or staff, working for a beneficiary under an employment contract (or equivalent), who will be assigned to the action (i.e. for the people listed under the section 3.2 of the application form Part B ‘Technical Description’).

The unit to be input in the column “number of units” is months.

The costs per unit, to be input in each beneficiary’s worksheet (BE00X), refers only to the costs per month of employing the people involved in the project activities (including social security contributions, taxes and other costs linked to the remuneration as mentioned in the employment contract or in reference to the national law – these costs include the employer’s statutory contributions). It must be calculated based on actual costs and must be identifiable and verifiable.

Please note that the category “A.4 SME Owners without a salary” concerns people working on the project who own or hold office in a beneficiary organisation, and who are not paid a salary. You need to apply unit costs for such people as explained in the AGA, Art. 6.2.A.4. (link above). Details of the country coefficient rates that are applicable can be found in Table 1 here: wp-2-msca-actions_horizon-2023-2024_en.pdfPDF.

You must not include the costs of staff in the budget table unless you also provide the name, expertise and role of each person in Part B section 3.2.

If you intend to employ people specifically to work on the project, you should include the explanations of their role in Part B section 3.2 and then include in the budget table the costs per month of the salary you will offer. Note also that they will be employed directly by the organisation, if the application is successful.

No. Section 10 “Budget categories and cost eligibility rules” of the Call for ProposalsPDF specifies that costs of activities that are benefiting artists and professionals from ineligble countries are not eligible and cannot be foreseen in the budget.

Artists and professionals from an ineligible country may participate to a project but at their own cost.

The template of the "Detailed budget table" is available in the Submission System via the ‘Download part B templates’ as a mandatory annex to the application.

The applicants must download it as an .xlsm file and fill it in the same format without disabling the macros contained in it.

The applicants must start by following the steps as explained in the 'Instructions' worksheet of the table, to customise the "detailed budget table" to their proposal. Then, they can start inserting the estimated costs in line with the activities included in the work packages described in the application form Part B “Technical description”.

In the ‘Instructions’ worksheet, do not forget to scroll down and complete all the yellow cells at the bottom of the page:

-The applicants must ensure to apply the correct ‘maximum grant amount’ and ‘maximum co-financing rate’ according to the topic selected (see section 10 of the Call for ProposalsPDF - "Form of grant, funding rate and maximum grant amount" for more information)

-The applicants may align the 5 types of ‘A. Direct personnel costs’ to staff categories that they use in the proposal. Please ensure that they are clearly linked to the roles / profiles that are defined in question 3.2 of Part B.

Once the applicants have filled in the detailed budget table, they must re-upload it in the System in .xlsx format, as an annex to Part B (see point 19 of the ‘Instructions’ worksheet for instructions on how to save the document in .xlsx).

No, as stipulated in the AGA – Annotated Grant Agreement, art.PDF9, contribution in kind is not eligible.

Examples of a Contribution in kind:

1) A civil servant working as a professor in a public university is also working as expert on the action. His salary is not paid by the beneficiary (the university) but by the government (the ministry). It can therefore not be charged to the EU grant.

2) An entity providing exhibition spaces for free to the beneficiaries, for example a municipality for a cultural center participating in the project.

3) A graphic company providing for free the design of booklets.

As they are not eligible under the Creative Europe Programme – Culture strand, these costs CAN NOT be charged in the total estimated budget of the proposal, as well as under the co-funding part.

Application Form Part A "Administrative Forms" (section 1 "General information") requests that applicants select fixed keywords, in addition to which free keywords may be encoded.

The applicants should carefully choose the keywords that best describe their proposal.

Please note that:

• The applicants must select fixed keywords from the drop-down menu of Application Form Part A
• The 'fixed keywords' must describe only the sectors covered by their proposal (in order of importance); we strongly advise the applicants to select a minimum of one (1) (if the proposal is only related to one sector) and a maximum of four (4) fixed keywords (if the proposal is multi-disciplinary)
• The free keywords section should be used to add keywords that best describe the proposal and that could not be found in the 'fixed keywords'
• All keywords (fixed and free) must be prioritised. The applicants must sort them by order of importance, the first being the most important/relevant to their proposal.

Section 5 "Admissibility and documents" of the Call for ProposalsPDF specifies the mandatory annexes and supporting documents to be downloaded from the Portal Submission System, filled in and re-uploaded in the System.

The Application Form Part B "Technical Description" must be downloaded (in Word), filled in and re-uploaded (in PDF) in the System. This part B contains the technical description of the project, to which the following two mandatory files are annexes:

• the detailed budget table and
• the list of previous projects.

Please note that no other annexes (i.e. ‘CVs’ and ‘Other annexes’) should be uploaded, as they will not be taken into consideration for the evaluation of the proposal.

Please make sure to use the forms provided inside the Submission System ( NOT the documents available on the Topic page — they are only for information - and not those used in previous calls).

Section 5 "Admissibility and documents" of the Call for ProposalsPDF specifies that the Application Form Part B "Technical Description" is limited to 50 pages maximum. The two mandatory annexes (the detailed budget table and the list of previous projects) are not counted towards this page limit.

Please note that extra pages and additional annexes other than the ones referred to above will not be taken into account for the evaluation of the proposal.

The call for proposals prevails over all other documents. For example, in the ‘Important Notice’ of the Application Form, the sentence ‘Page limit normally 70 pages (unless otherwise provided in the Call document)’ must be understood as ‘The proposal is limited to 50 pages maximum (Part B).’ The content of any extra pages will not be readable by the experts and cannot be considered in the evaluation of your proposal.

The part B template is a standard document used for many Calls. You may delete any tables or questions that state they are not relevant for Cooperation projects, notably those that state they are only for Creative Europe desks (CEDesks); those that are not for Lump Sum grants (i.e. Estimated budget – Resources, staff effort), and for the timetable, you may delete the option that is not applicable to your proposal ('up to 2 years' or 'more than 2 years'). You must NOT delete questions that are applicable to all calls even if you think that they are not relevant to your proposal.

You must list the projects implemented by the participants (i.e. coordinator, partners and/or affiliated entities) over the last 4 years. The list should include the most relevant projects, related to the given proposal, whether they have been funded by the EU or by other sources.

The Call for ProposalsPDF specifies in section 7 "Financial and operational capacity and exclusion" that the "List of previous projects" will be one of the elements used to assess the "operational capacity" of the applicants under the "Project Management" award criterion.

You can find the template for the "List of previous projects" on the last page of the Application Form Part B "Technical Description". You must fill it in and upload it (in PDF) in the Submission System separately as an annex to Part B.

All organisations wishing to submit or participate in an application must register in the Participant Register Portal, before the submission of the application. You can find all information in the Online Manual. The registration is confirmed when you receive a 9-digit participant identification code (PIC).

If the application is selected, the registered PIC will be validated by the Central Validation Services. Each organisation must be identified by a unique valid PIC number.

By searching your organisation name in the Find a registered organisation', you can check if a PIC already exists for your organisation. Please use the existing PIC number and do not create a new one.

Section 6 "Eligibility " of the Call for ProposalsPDF defines the conditions the consortium must meet to be eligible.

It may happen, especially for large organisations, public bodies or Universities, that different departments or entities share the same valid PIC number.

In this case, the eligibility conditions (Section 6 “Eligibility” of the Call for ProposalsPDF) apply to the organisation owning that valid PIC number as a whole.

By searching your organisation name in the Find a registered organisation', you can check if a PIC already exists for your organisation. Please use the existing PIC number and do not create a new one.

Each organisation must be identified by a Unique valid PIC number. Before registering your organisation in the Participant Register Portal, please ensure that no other PICs already exist for it.

By searching your organisation name in the Find a registered organisation you can check if a PIC already exists for your organisation. Please use the existing PIC number and do not create a new one.

If you are the coordinator, you can also check that your partners have provided you with valid PICs where they exist: if any organisation has already participated in and/or was successful under another call for proposals their PIC will already exist in the Portal. To check, you can search for the organisation name in the 'Submission Service' in Part A of the application form that is completed online.

If the Agency discovers at any point of the evaluation procedure or during the grant agreement preparation, that an organisation has used different / new PICs instead of an existing one, the eligibility criteria with regard to the consortium composition laid out in the call (maximum participation as coordinator and partner) will be applied.