Partnerships and eligibility of partners
An applicant may act individually or with partner organisations. If a partnership is mandatory under the financing programme of the call for proposals, it must act with partner organisations as specified hereafter.
Implementing partners
Implementing partners participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the leading applicant/grant beneficiary. They must therefore satisfy the eligibility principles applicable to the leading applicant itself.
When a Grant is awarded to a consortium of organisations, it is strongly suggested that the leading organisation prepare and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with each implementing partner, in particular in case the implementing partner is supposed to manage directly a part of the funds of the Action.
The following categories, which are not implementing partners and do not have to sign the “partnership statement” in the Grant Application Form, participate in an Action in different ways:
- Associates:
Associates can play an active role in the Action but are not entitled to manage the Action's budget and are eligible only for per diem and travel costs. Associates do not have to meet the eligibility principles, not are they obliged to register in PADOR. Associates have to be mentioned in Part B section IV - “Associates of the Applicant participating in the Action” of the Grant Application Form.
- Contractors:
The grant beneficiary has the possibility to award service/supply/works contracts to external contractors. Subcontractors are neither implementing partners nor associates, and are subject to the procurement rules set out in Annex IV to the Standard Grant Contract (see also the section on Procurement).
- Sub-grantees:
Where foreseen by the Guidelines of the CfPs, the applicant/grant beneficiary may award sub-grants to other organisations. Sub-grantees are subject to the eligibility rules specified in Annex IV to the Standard Grant Contract. The maximum budget per sub-grant is limited to €100.000 per grant contract and €10.000 per recipient. Furthermore, the applicant must give very detailed information in the project proposal, e.g. the exhaustive list of activities that may receive a sub-grant and the criteria that will be used to identify the recipients.
How to find a partner
EuropeAid does not have a public database of partner organisations yet. Applicants wishing to find implementing partners or associates for their action can refer to TRIALOG . TRIALOG is a project aimed at strengthening civil society and raising awareness of development issues in the enlarged EU. It assists NGOs across the EU in getting in contact with each other to create partnerships.
The TRIALOG website includes a free service of
Partner Search for Joint Projects.
Sources and useful links