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SCRATCH Process

How to write winning proposals ?

SCRATCH: What has to be done for a successful submission?

S	tructure your idea
C	heck the documents for the call
R	ecognise your partners
A	ttach all the chapters of the proposal together
T	ake care to adjust the budget
C	onsult neutral advice for improvement of your proposal
H	ave your proposal finally submitted in good time

STRUCTURE YOUR IDEA

Identify your technological development needs.

Solutions for these needs will be the basis for a project. This set up an European project you must check your needs, assure that they cannot be solved in regional or national projects and that there is the potential to European added value.

Identify requested competences.

Look at your project idea and find out which competences would be necessary to carried out it. Check which competences you have and which competences are open.

Identify potential partners.

To cover open competences, find European companies which provide these. These “candidate companies” should be audited, to get a closer look and to know better their real abilities.

CHECK THE DOCUMENTS FOR THE CALL

Read the documents.

The EC has published various important documents which should be kept in mind when preparing a proposal. The most important documents are:

	The Framework Programme
	The Work Programme
	The Call Text
	The Guide for Proposers
	The Guide for Evaluators
	The Financial Guidelines

All these documents can be downloaded at cordis web site. While The Framework Programme and The Financial Guidelines are global documents, the other may vary from one thematic priority to another and from one call to another in the same thematic priority, so you have to check for the latest and valid version of these documents.

RECOGNISE YOUR PARTNERS

Meet with the partners and make your choice.

In general, a meeting with the candidate partners eases the preparation; especially if you have companies you do not know. During this meeting you can get an impression of the companies and select your final partner companies. Let your partners sign a preliminary teaming agreement to prove their strong will for a project involvement. If required, also prepare agreements of nondisclosure and declarations for intellectual property rights and have them signed.

ATTACH ALL THE CHAPTERS OF THE PROPOSAL TOGETHER

Start the writing of the proposal.

Different ways for proposal submission are available:
Either by the electronic proposal submission system EPSS in online or in offline modus. Submission by paper was declared non eligible by the EC prior to the 3rd call Aeronautics in FP6. First log in on the electronic proposal submission system of the EC, epss and create an account for your project. You have to fill in the Forms A here,

	A1 the project abstract
	A2 the company information, each participant has to fill in a separate form
	A3 the financial summary sheet.

Help for these forms is available online, but the forms are more or less self-explanatory.

Prepare Part B

The guide for proposers gives you a first structure for Part B of your proposal with hints for required inputs in the various paragraphs. Structure your project idea according to the paragraphs (B1 – B7). Do not exceed the recommended length by too far. Recognize that evaluators may be generalists who only have a vague knowledge of the details of your proposal. Write in an easy-to-understand style and detail only where inevitable for understanding your project.

B1 Summary
Summarize your project. The summary must be the same as in A1.

B2 S&T excellence
Show the scientific and technological excellence of your proposal, the state of the art and where you exceed this state of the art. Explain what makes your project excellent.

B3 Relevance
The aims of the EC are laid in the Work Programme. Show to which of the aims in the Work Programme your proposal responds. As a call usually does not address all targets, make sure the targets you intend to address, are open in this call.

B4 Ressources
Show the quality of the consortium and detail and how the companies form a complementary team. Explain the competencies of the individual companies and how they play together to solve the project work. Give an overview in the project effort form, detailing the effort (man hours) per company, you intend to spend for RTD, demonstration and management activities.

B5 Management
The management structures must fit to the kind of instrument you use and to the overall budget planned. Your project management must be able to ensure the success of the project and to deal with all the obstacles which can be expected.

B6 Work plan
Set up your work plan, derive work packages and prepare a Gantt chart. Every work package has to be described according to the template given in The Guidelines for Proposers.

a)	Work plan introduction - explaining the structure of this plan and the overall methodology used to achieve the objectives.
b)	Work planning, showing the timing of the different WPs and their components (Gantt chart or similar).
c)	Graphical presentation of the components showing their interdependencies (Pert diagram or similar).
d)	Detailed work description broken down into work packages.

B7 Ethical Issues
Usually, Aeronautic RTD projects do not touch ethical issues, but you have to check and confirm in this paragraph.

TAKE CARE TO ADJUST THE BUDGET

Adjust the overall budget and the individual budgets of the partners.

According to part B4 and B6 in particular, you should adjust the budgets for your partners. Build up the overall budget and complete Form A3. Ensure the management is tailored to a suitable size. Bear in mind that at least one audit certificate per partner is required, if the project lasts for more than one year the number of audits increases accordingly. Also the EC funding may vary, according to the different activities and the cost models you have selected. Be aware that you must stick to these cost models after final proposal submission. For details see also The Financial Guidelines.

CONSULT NEUTRAL ADVICE FOR IMPROVEMENT OF YOUR PROPOSAL

Ensure the quality of your proposal.

Let someone neutral read your proposal and listen to his / her advice to improve the quality and readability of your proposal. If you choose to have external experts, let them sign an agreement of nondisclosure and ensure your intellectual propoerty rights.

Compile the final version.

Compile all partner’s inputs to the final proposal, embed good advice and read through the complete proposal. Stay critical and try to identify weak points of your proposal. Bear The Guidelines for Evaluators in mind, they indicate which questions must be answered by your proposal.

H AVE YOUR PROPOSAL FINALLY SUBMITTED IN GOOD TIME

Submit the proposal.

Finally, the proposal must be submitted. Use the EPSS account created for the project. While Part A has to be filled in forms, Part B must be formatted as pdf-document and uploaded. The coordinator is the only one who has writing access to all files of the proposal, he can create, change and delete all Forms A (A1, all A2, A3) and the part B file. Partners have reading access to all files, too, but can only change their form A2.

Before final submission, check if all forms have been completely filled and if part B is updated to the latest version. Try to submit well ahead the closure date, as connections may slow down due to rapidly increasing traffic load towards the end of the call. Ensure your proposal is submitted in good time, any proposal / version submitted after the deadline is ineligible, so the last version prior to the closure will be evaluated.