News

Report on the second IGLO workshop on lump sums published

18. Mar 2024

On 11 October last year, a virtual workshop on lump sums was organised by the Implementation Working Group of the Informal Group of RTD Liaison Offices (IGLO). At the event, almost 70 project managers from 17 countries shared their experiences of applying for and implementing lump sum projects in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. Following the premiere of the workshop in March 2022, the exchange was the second of its kind and employees of the European Commission also took part again as observers. A report summarising the results of the workshop is now available.

Among other things, the exchange revealed that the majority of participants currently consider the effort involved in submitting applications for lump sum projects to be higher than for projects that are invoiced on the basis of actual costs. The participants see potential for simplification in project implementation and especially in reporting, but can only partially exploit this due to organisation-specific and national requirements. The lack of reliable guidelines from the Commission, such as a complete version of the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA), was also cited by many as another important reason for their scepticism and caution when using simplification options. Nevertheless, the participants noted a significant improvement in the basic information available on lump-sum funding since its introduction.