Smart Social Economy Model in Tourism (Long Distance Trails)

Yes, the Lead applicant can be counted towards the minimum Consortium composition requirements.

As per the call text, any Consortium must include in each country taking part in the project at least: (a) one social economy organisation or network and one local authority or one entity officially in charge of tourism in the relevant region or (b) one entity or association managing a long-distance trail and having as members local authorities and social economy organisations.

Under b) “by having as members local authorities and social economy organisations”, the Call text refers to a formal legal membership.

Such staff costs are eligible as per the grant agreement.

As per section 6 of the Call text, the beneficiaries and the affiliated entities must be legal entities.

Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that 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 entities.

No, the requirement for consortium is on pages 11-12 of the call text while the eligible activities are in section 2 of the call text.

Any consortium must include in each country taking part in the project at least: (a) one social economy organisation or network and one local authority or one entity officially in charge of tourism in the relevant region or (b) one entity or association managing a long-distance trail and having as members local authorities and social economy organisations. Besides, consortia may include other relevant entities such as chambers of commerce, companies active in tourism or environmental or consumers associations.

Proposals must relate to activities taking place in the eligible countries. Eligible activities are the ones set in section 2 of the call text.

The Commission does not impose a staff threshold for the beneficiaries. However, applicants must demonstrate sufficient operational capacity to implement the project. The evaluators will assess whether the proposed team has the skills, time, and resources to deliver tasks.

The term local authority, in all the present call refer to public authorities exercising public administrative functions at local level (e.g. municipalities, cities, communes or equivalent local government bodies).

As per the Call text section 2. Objectives (page 6), this pilot seeks to integrate social economy principles into sustainable tourism and foster transnational cooperation among local communities along one or more long trails or specific portion of one or several long trails crossing EU Member States.

Therefore yes, a proposal can target two countries and two long trails, not geographically connected, but both crossing EU Member States.

As mentioned throughout the Call text, the Commission intends to support transnational partnerships, facilitate transnational cooperation of local communities and cross-border transfer of good practices. The European / transnational dimension of each proposal, along with the possibility of using the results to replicate or to scale up in other countries and the potential mutual trust / cross border cooperation are part of the award criteria and will be assessed during the evaluation phase.

A priori the described entity could qualify as entity or association managing a long distance trail. However, the individual eligibility of a potential applicant cannot be assessed at this stage, before the submission of an actual application and the submission of the respective supporting documents demonstrating the legal status of the entity.

The consortium composition must respect the criteria on eligibility set out in section 6 of the call text. There it is mentioned, among others, that beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register — before submitting the proposal — and will have to be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation). For the validation, they will be requested to upload documents showing legal status and origin. For more information, see Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity AssessmentPDF.

The Call text reads that any Consortium must include specific type of entities in each country taking part in the project. By countries taking part in the project, the Call text understands the eligible countries which the Consortium will include in the proposal and where eligible activities will be proposed to take place during the implementation of the project.

For each eligible country the proposal will target, at least (a) one social economy organisation or network and one local authority or one entity officially in charge of tourism in the relevant region or (b) one entity or association managing a long-distance trail and having as members local authorities and social economy organisations.

The Consortia may include other types of relevant entities as well. Similarly, entities from other eligible countries may be part of the Consortium, provided they contribute meaningfully to the proposal (i.e. transnational dimension, mutual learning, etc) and provided the Consortium meets already the specific requirements of the Call through the other Consortium members.

The consortium composition requirements need to be fulfilled by the beneficiaries and the affiliated entities, not by the associated partners.

Associated partners need to be registered in the Participant Register in order to be identified in the proposal/grant system, but they are usually not required to have a validated PIC, provided they are not beneficiaries and do not receive EU funding.

Organisations with a role of beneficiary will not be excluded from participation in case they declare their PIC before the submission deadline and complete the validation process during the grant preparation phase.

Yes, it is generally possible for an organisation to participate in multiple proposals under EU grants either as a coordinator or as a partner, as long as each proposal is distinct in objectives, activities, and expected outcomes. It is important to take into consideration to which extent their operational and financial capacity allows them to carry out all proposed projects simultaneously with added complexity of managing overlaps to ensure synergies and avoid double fundings.

According to section 6 of the call text, the consortium must be of at least two eligible countries. Any consortium must include in each country taking part in the project at least: (a) one social economy organisation or network and one local authority or one entity officially in charge of tourism in the relevant region or (b) one entity or association managing a long-distance trail and having as members local authorities and social economy organisations. Besides, consortia may include other relevant entities such as chambers of commerce, companies active in tourism or environmental or consumers associations.

As per section 2, the Commission intends to support transnational partnerships. The call will support activities that increase the capacity of local communities to collaborate across borders, including analysing local social economy perspectives as well as the design and implementation of some pilot actions using local capacity.

If the call specifies a consortium as a requirement, this applies to the overall proposal at project level, not to each work package or activity without specific consideration of which partner will lead or implement individual activities.

R2 : The Commission is not in in a position to provide direct advice or recommendations regarding potential partners or specific networks for any call for proposals. Nevertheless, there is the option to search partners for cooperation / consortia under the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, menu Funding, section Partner search: ec.europa.eu

Expected income / revenues generated by the implementation of eligible activities can be used as source for the co-funding or as own resources contributed / invested in the project.

The estimated amount of the revenues generated by the implementation of eligible activities will need to be declared at proposal phase, if feasible, and taken into account for the calculation of the grant amount request. If the estimation is impossible at the proposal phase, the revenues generated will need to be declared in the final payment request. By applying the no-profit rule, in the event of a surplus of receipts over eligible costs (receipts being defined as revenues generated by the action and EU grant), the final grant amount will be revised, as per section 10 of the Call text.

The eligible costs include travel and subsistence costs of participants to project activities and thus they will be reimbursed accordingly.

According to section 11 of the call text, under point b) on how to submit your proposal and referring to the proposal’s Part B, you need to download the mandatory word template from the Submission System, fill it in and upload it as a PDF file. There is no other model to follow.

All parts of the template Part B are compulsory and need to be filled in, while the overall page limitation of 40 pages needs to be respected. Only the instructions to the applicant can be deleted.

Please try to be as concise as possible in the descriptions.

Additional annexes could be uploaded, but essential information can't be provided via those annexes.

The assessment of the proposal will be made based on the mandatory parts, template Part A, Part B and mandatory annexes.

In the context of the present call the term “European long-distance tourist trails” is defined as a networked footpath that extends across multiple countries or regions. It is primarily made of walking routes but may also be suitable for cycling, or horseback riding.

The beneficiaries upload their documents. The coordinator communicates with the European Commission services. It has the responsibility of controlling beforehand that all required documents were correctly uploaded and submitting them. For questions on the Portal Submission System, please contact the IT Helpdesk.

Pilot activities can be implemented if they are eligible under Section 2 of the call text. Any revenues generated by the activities must be recorded in line with the usual accounting practices of the applicant. However, the no-profit principle applies. The grant-supported action may generate revenue, but it must not result in a profit for the beneficiary.

Financial support to third parties is not allowed under this Call. Activities generating revenue are not assimilated to financial support to third parties. All beneficiaries receiving EU funding above EUR 325 000 at the Final Report phase will need to submit a Certificate of the financial statements provided by a qualified approved external auditor.

As per the Call text, the Commission expects to fund one or two projects and the project budgets (requested grant amount) are expected to be around EUR 750.000 per project. However, this does not preclude the submission/selection of proposals requesting other amounts. Similarly the Granting Authority can award a grant lower than the amount requested.

Regarding the duration, the projects should normally range between 24 and 36 months.

Each proposal will be assessed against the award criteria, including its relevance, scope, methodology, complexity, ambition, duration, cost effectiveness etc.

The F&T portal refers to the indicative maximum number of grants and provides also an indicative minimum contribution set at

EUR 200 000.

According to the Council Recommendation of 27 November 2023 on developing social economy framework conditions (para) 7: ‘Social economy entities and their definition can vary slightly between the Member States, and can take various legal forms and statuses, such as cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, foundations and social enterprises. They share the common principles of reinvesting all or most of their profits to pursue their social or environmental purposes and practicing democratic or participatory governance.’

Costs for personnel or services directly linked with the implementation of eligible activities are eligible costs.

For more information consult Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity AssessmentPDF, more particularly the guiding principles concerning financial capacity check in Section 4. - RULES ON FINANCIAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENT.

The Activity Report from the previous year is a mandatory annex for applicants required to produce and publish one under the national law of their country of registration. The entities who apply as Beneficiaries under this call and who do not have the legal obligation to publish Annual Activity reports are requested to submit a proof of this exemption and if possible a short summary report of their main activities from the previous year.

As per the Call text, the duration of the project is expected to range between 24 and 36 months.

Section 10 refers to the overall payment schemes followed for grants. Proposals under the Call are expected to follow the schedule for actions between 24 and 36 months with prefinancing payments linked to annual reporting periods to be made as follows:

− an initial prefinancing payment of 30% paid within 30 days from the entry into force of the grant agreement or after receiving the financial guarantee (if required), whichever is the latest

− a second and third prefinancing of 40% and 20% after receiving additional prefinancing reports. Where the consumption of the previous prefinancing is less than 70%, the amount of the new prefinancing payment will be reduced by the difference between the 70% ceiling and the amount used.