LEAR / Coordinator / Participant

Submitted by Zeumann on Thu, 10/23/2014 - 15:31
SEAL
Your role in the project: 
Administrative and legal person in charge
Assessment of your participation: 
As Lear (legal entity authorized representative)and person in charge of several different European projects I am involved in different administrative procedures. In my opinion the biggest challenge for participants from the USA is the legal and administrative burden. Of course: grant agreements, consortium agreements are based on European law and drafts. And they are quite different from US contracts. Furthermore we have we very short deadlines. If we include a company or a research institution from the US it takes usually some time to get the adminstrative and legal data. Furthermore some U.S. public bodies or enterprises cannot accept the fixed draft of grant agreement (either it is acceped or one can not take part) therefore there is a lot of negotiation with lawyers, which takes more time than we have.
Any suggestions or comments: 
Every entity which would like to take part in an European project should register as soon as possible in the Participant Portal. http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/home.html It is much easier for every coordinator if there already exists a registration and a PIC (Participant Identification Code).
Your organisation: 
FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FOERDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V