European Commission It-How-To Manual

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Table of Contents

In this section you will find information on HOW TO USE the proposal submission service available in the Funding & Tenders Portal (substituting the Research and Innovation Participant Portal).

Proposals must be submitted electronically using the electronic submission system of the Funding & Tenders Portal. Access to the electronic submission system is available after selecting a topic and a type of action of a call.


Proposals must be created and submitted by a representative/contact person of the coordinating organisation. Certain types of action differ from this standard: in fellowships and in proposals for the European Research Council's types of actions, the individual researcher (Fellow/Principal Investigator) takes the lead on the proposal.


The electronic submission system is an online wizard that guides you step-by-step through the preparation of your proposal. The proposal itself consists of 2 main parts: administrative forms (structured information of the basic administrative data, declarations of partners, organisations and contact persons, etc.) and the technical annex, which is the detailed description of the planned research and innovation project outlining work packages, costs, etc. Further mandatory or optional annexes (e.g. supporting documents for ethics issues) can be required by the call and the given topic, as shown in the submission system.

Who should complete the forms?

The forms must be completed by the Main Contact (or the top-level role for calls with specific contact role) of each organisation, including the budget table and all other administrative details. Partners can preview the form and edit the information of their organisation in the proposal.

Where to find more information?

  1. The call page and the topic conditions page of each call describe the detailed conditions that you need be aware of for the preparation of your proposal.
  2. The Grants Manual on Proposal Submission and Evaluation .
  3. You can find practical help on proposal submission in the Online Manual. 
  4. Download the Proposal Submission Service User Guide (PDF format, see button below) or use the table of contents at the top of the page to access the online IT pages.

Learning about the EC Grant Proposal Process

It is very important that you familiarize yourself with the overall research and innovation grant process by first consulting the HOW TO PARTICIPATE page on the Funding & Tenders Portal. There you will find a wealth of information including the  Horizon 2020 Online Manual , numerous  Reference Documents , the  Participant Register , a  Financial Capacity Self-Check , as well as important information on the participation of  Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) . Please read through all these resources prior to starting your Submission process.

Proposal Submission Preparatory Checklist

In preparation for your online application submission process, you must go through the following steps:

  1. Decide on the funding opportunity that you want to apply for.  Funding Opportunities  are categorised as Work Programmes, Calls, Topics and Types of Actions. Programmes are listed under the Horizon 2020 title.
  2. Select your Partners. Most calls require a consortium of three organisations (i.e. participants). Relevant information can be found on the Funding & Tenders Portal.
  3. Register as a user in the European Commission Authentication Service, EU Login.
  4. Your organisation and your Partner organisations must register in the  Participant Register through the  Funding & Tenders Portal and receive a Participant Identification Code (PIC). Additional information is available in the Participant Register Manual.

Quick Steps to the Online Submission Process

The following basic user actions are involved in the online submission process. Refer to Chapter 1 for the detailed step-by-step procedures.

  1. Login to the Funding & Tenders Portal and Select your Topic
  2. Create Draft of your proposal
  3. Manage Your Related Parties (i.e. proposal consortium). Your partners will be invited to the process by the system.
  4. Edit Proposal draft form, download templates, complete all required information. Engage your partners to maintain their organization contacts and the details in the corresponding sections of the proposal form Part A.
  5. Upload Part B and the rest of the annex files and submit your proposal.
  6. Following submission, you can re-edit or withdraw your proposal until closure date is reached.

You can access your saved proposal drafts as well as your submitted proposals at any time, from the  My Proposals  page in the Funding & Tenders Portal (you must be logged in). Alternatively, you can access your proposals from the My Organisations page in the Funding & Tenders Portal using the View Proposals option under the Actions button for the organisation.

Contact and Support

For questions on any aspect of grant applications and the EU Research Framework Programmes, including participant registration and data updates, please refer to the Horizon 2020 Helpdesk.
For any IT-related problems that you might experience with the Submission system, please contact the IT Helpdesk using the form below, and selecting the domain submission of proposals in the form:

IT Help-desk contact form in the Funding & Tenders Portal .

Once you have started the submission process, additional contact information is available at the bottom of the submission page.

Download the whole Proposal Submission Service User Guide as an Adobe PDF file.



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