Programme Manual for the 2^nd  Call for Proposals was updated and its Version 4.0 was approved on 27 May 2019. Starting from this date it is applicable to all projects that were approved under the 2^nd Call of the Programme.

Changes in the Programme Manual were done to clarify and/or simplify some of the requirements and make project management more effective, to respond to recommendations of the audit, and to harmonize requirements with the ones that will be applicable to the projects that will be approved under 3^rd Call for Proposals. The main changes of the Programme Manual that should be taken into account by the project managers are:

• Project lead partner may submit consolidated progress report without costs of one or several project partners in dully justified cases, for example, due to delayed preparation and/or verification of project partner’s report. Such costs can be included in the consolidated progress report of the following reporting period. However, this is not valid for the last reporting period.
• Granting rights for Joint Secretariat (JS) and Managing Authority (MA) to withdraw/postpone reported costs in consolidated progress report that need clarifications. These costs can be reported in the next reporting period or will be added to the next payment to the project, if found eligible.
• In cases when reported costs of advanced payment for the services or goods have exceeded 1/3 of the total contract amount, the remaining amount can be reported in any of next reports after full delivery of goods or services.

Some other changes will make procedures of the approval of the project changes quicker:

• Reallocation between budget lines and/or partners up to 15% of the initial project budget is now considered as minor project change that can be approved by JS.
• In case of prolongation of project, decision of Monitoring Committee is needed only if initial project duration would be extended by more than six months. Other cases can be approved by decision of MA.

Please learn about the changes in the updated version of the Manual which can be downloaded from the website of the Programme. For the convenience of the readers the updated parts are marked in yellow.