Description

The Researchers tab in the continuous reporting will manage the:

• Researcher's personal information
• Researcher declaration
• Secondment/recruitment data

The Researcher Declaration is a mandatory document and must be submitted to the commission within 20 days of the recruitment of a new researcher or secondment of a staff member. The Model Grant Agreement for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) specifies which assignments of researchers are intended to be part of the action. The assignment is identified by a duration and the profile of the researcher, but without identifying exactly the person that will be assigned to the job. The Researcher Declaration is the document that links a specific researcher to one of the assignments.

 The researcher declaration is part of both continuous and periodic reporting.

Source document 

The Model Grant Agreement for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action (MSCA) specifies that a Researcher Declaration needs to be submitted to the EU for the following Types of Action:

• Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Innovative Training Networks (MSCA-ITN)
• Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Co-Funding (MSCA-Cofund)
• Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (MSCA-RISE)

 The Researcher's Declaration in H2020 is the same as the Declaration of Conformity in FP7

Note that the Project Officer does not ‘accept’ or ‘reject’ the Researcher Declaration: they can only reopen it (the consortium can't reopen a submitted declaration). See "Important note" below for more information. 

Difference between secondments and recruitments

Recruitments: MSCA-ITN and MSCA-COFUND

• These type of projects deal with recruitments, meaning that the researcher is expressly recruited (by means of an employment contract or a fellowship) by the beneficiaries for this assignment; 
• The beneficiaries involved in the assignment employ the researcher, they are called the Destination Organisation (or Hosting Organisation) there is no Sending Organisation for this type of project.
• The Researcher Declaration is submitted by the destination organisation for ITN, by the beneficiary (which might not be the destination organisation) for COFUND.
• Please note that recruited researchers could then be seconded by the beneficiary to other organisations as part of their assignment, but this further step does not need a Researcher Declaration. For this secondment a project secondment period needs to be added. 

Secondments: MSCA-RISE

• These projects deal with Secondments. As RISE is an exchange program the researcher is supposed to be already part of the participant organisation, and does not need to be recruited, instead it will be seconded to another participant.
• The participants that are involved in the assignment can then play both roles:
  • They can be the Sending Organisation if the researcher is currently in their staff and it's being seconded to a different participant
  • They can be the Destination Organisation if they are receiving the researcher
• The Researcher Declaration is submitted by the Sending Organisation

The Recruitment/Secondments listed in the Grant Agreement are to be considered only provisional, so the declared ones can be different from ones originally listed in the Grant Agreement ones.

Automatic calculation of the costs in the Financial Statement based on the duration

The system automatically calculates the costs in the Financial Statement (these costs therefore won't be editable in the Financial Statement), based on the:

• duration (in person months) in the Researcher Declarations

The calculation happens as follows: 

• There is a separate calculation for each researcher defined for this project for which a Researcher Declaration has been submitted, and specifically for the same researcher more than one calculation can be necessary, in case s/he was employed in different countries or under different types of contracts during the relevant Reporting Period. 
• The calculation for each researcher/country/type of contract happens as follows:
  • for each submitted Researcher Declaration where the relevant beneficiary is the Destination Organisation and that covers at least partially the relevant Reporting Period:
    • all consecutive Recruitment Periods having the same Working Time Commitment and Working Time Percentage will be considered a single uninterrupted Recruitment Period
    • only the part of the Recruitment Period that falls in the relevant Reporting Period is considered
    • the number of units calculated as the sum of: 
      • the number of full months that fall in the Recruitment Period
         Please note that a full month is calculated as the period of time extending:
        • from the date of the calendar month, which corresponds to the start day of a recruitment/secondment period
        • to the date before the same day of the month in the following calendar month.
        So, if the recruitment /secondment period starts on the day Xth of month N, a full month ends the date before the day Xth of month N+1 (or the date before the last day of month N+1, if that month is shorter than X days).
        
      • the number of remaining days divided by 30 (with 7 decimals)

      • Examples of calculation:

        • a recruitment/secondment starting on 15 December 2019 and ending on 14 January 2020 accounts for one month
        • a recruitment/secondment starting on 31/01/2021 and ending on 10/03/2021 accounts for:
          • one full month:  from  31/01/2021 until 27/02/2021
          • 11 remaining days/ 30 =  0.3666666 months
          • Total = 1.3666666 month
    • to this sum; the Working Time Percentage is applied (100% for full time, 0% for suspension periods, the actual percentage for part time periods
    • the number of units calculated this way for each Recruitment Period are then summed to get the total of the person/months that is used in the Financial Statement

Important note

If the technical part or the financial statement is locked, changes to the researcher declaration will no longer be possible!

Also, if the Periodic Report is open for the current project and the Financial Statement for the relevant beneficiary or the Technical Part are not in draft, then a Researcher Declaration: 

• can't be submitted
• can't be reopened by the Project Officer 
• can't be updated 

A Researcher in the Project Library can't be reopened by the Project Officer if any of the Researcher Declarations linked to this Researcher can't be reopened.

Relevant screens in the Participant Portal Grant Management Services

The researcher's tab is divided in three different parts:

1. project's researcher library: here you can add a researcher 
2. researcher declaration: here you can add a declaration for a researcher 
3. project secondment periods: here you can add a secondment for a declaration