The target error rates in costs claimed for FP6, FP7 and H2020 are all 2%. The EC’s proposals state that a 2% error rate can only be achieved in H2020 if its many proposed simplifications are accepted. These include overheads of 20% of direct costs, a standard number of working hours in a year, and the same funding rate for all types of organisation.
DG INFSO (the Directorate General for Information Society and Media) administers the Information and Communications Technology theme within FP7 and its FP6 predecessor. This theme accounts for 16% of the total FP7 budget. The same DG achieves time to grant (from proposal submission to grant agreement signature) of about 270 days, compared with 360 days across the whole of FP7. In Horizon 2020 the EC aims to achieve 270 days average across the whole programme. Seems that better management might achieve the EC’s objectives without imposing many changes on
participants.
Regards