Call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects in the fields of e-Justice, victims’ rights and procedural rights

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.

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).

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.

Associated partners can fund the 10% that is not covered by EU funding. This means that they can be included in the consortium and their tasks will be described in part A and part B. However, they should not be added in the detailed budget table where “only” participants and affiliated entities should be inserted. This is because associated partners cannot receive funding from the Commission.

For each task, in the column ‘name’, all participants involved should be listed and in the column ‘Role’ their role by using acronym ‘COO, BEN, AE (Affiliated entity) and AP (associated partner), if applicable.

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.

Costs for separate project websites are not considered eligible, as they are typically not sustainable and often become unavailable after the project ends. Therefore, it has been decided not to fund websites that simply present project summaries and results. However, costs are eligible if the website is a dedicated sub-page within the project partners’ existing sites.

Exceptions may apply if a separate website is clearly needed, for example to host a database, IT platform, or other essential functionalities.

Applicants should clearly justify in the application the website’s purpose, content, target audience, and estimate costs accordingly.

On the 5th of June, an info session was given in which the budgetary aspect was also tackled. On the invitation page, accessible through this link, you will find at the bottom of the page the agenda and PowerPoint slides. The document ‘Info_session_Applicants_Part_II_Budget’ provides on page 21 more information on the travel, accommodation and subsistence costs. In addition, on the F&T Portal, under Guidance and documents, Reference documents, you will find the simplified cost decisions.

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).

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.

The list of previous projects (template available at the end of part B) should include all EU-funded projects from the last four years. You may also include other projects that demonstrate your operational capacity, but be sure to clearly distinguish between EU-funded and nationally funded projects.

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.

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 evaluation methodology (evaluation criteria for relevance, quality and impact) is designed to reflect “Rights of the child/Child protection policies” dimension. Consequently, (lack of) attention to rights of a child/child protection policies dimension may have an impact on the score a proposal receives in the evaluation.

Notably, if a project has a direct or indirect impact on children and their rights, the project should address children as rights holders and should ensure their participation in the design and implementation of the project.

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!