In the past, the submission of project proposals as well as the completion of forms, which have to be provided to the Commission as part of the negotiation process, required the applicant to enter the legal and financial data of his/ her organisation anew for each single proposal.

With the introduction of the Unique Registration Facility URF, this is now no longer necessary. URF is hosted by the Participant Portal of the European Commission. The Participant Portal facilitates the communication between participants of the Seventh Framework Programme and DG Research at the Commission.

To access to Participant Portal the applicant opens an account with ECAS (European Commission Authentication Service) and registers his/her organisation (university, research institute etc.) by entering the required legal and financial data concerning the organisation. This data will then become available for all future transactions of his/her institution with the Commission.