I have an Applied Biomedical Research with a Primary Social finality projects

Shortly after the award decision, the Research Coordination/Contract Management department of your research institution will receive the contract agreement from the FWO and have them signed by all the contracting parties. The FWO regulations TBM projects and the FWO general regulations form an integral part of the contract.

The awarded grant will be available as from 1 October of the year of the grant. The approved funding can be used throughout the approved project period (typically 4 years). The FWO provides for an additional phase-out period of 2 years during which all approved funding can be used. The grant is guaranteed so long as that the FWO regulations are complied with at all times.

For any project involving cooperation between several beneficiaries, you must provide the FWO (via tbm@fwo.be) with a cooperation agreement signed by all involved parties within a period of 4 months from the official project start date (as specified in the agreement with the FWO). The receipt of this cooperation agreement by the FWO is a prerequisite for the further payment of the grant.

Contact your Tech Transfer Office for support with the IP arrangements between the TBM consortium partners. When drafting such a cooperation agreement, the regulatory provisions of the TBM programme with regard to the use of the results must be taken into account (Article 24 et seq. of the TBM regulations).

If an advisory committee was established, a meeting of its members shall be organised at least once a year. During this meeting, the feasibility of the innovation objective will be discussed as well as the need for adjustments to the approach and the actions already taken or planned to ensure the future utilisation of the results.

The FWO shall be invited in advance and in a timely manner to the meeting (via tbm@fwo.be) and may attend the annual meeting. The supervisor shall in any case forward the minutes of the meeting to the FWO (via tbm@fwo.be). These minutes are an integral part of the mandatory reporting. In the subject line, always state the project number (TXXXXXXN) and the current project year.

Information concerning FWO’s reporting policy can be found on a dedicated webpage.

Progress and utilisation reports 

Progress and utilisation report

For projects of three years or longer, both a progress report and a utilisation report must be submitted after the second year. The progress report must include a report on the progress of the research, the project activities still to be carried out, and, where appropriate, a list of scientific publications and other realisations. The utilisation report describes the utilisation-oriented efforts made or still to be made, the utilisation already achieved and/or the expected utilisation of the project results in the short term.

Final and utilisation reports

For each project a scientific final report and utilisation report is required at the end of the project.

The reports must be drawn up using the following template and must be submitted to the FWO by the supervisor of the TBM project. This template contains a detailed guide on the reporting, the modalities and the reporting timelines.

Financial reporting

The acceptable costs are determined upon approval of the project. Detailed cost information can be found in the TBM cost model.

Each year a financial report must be submitted. Upon completion of the project (including the phase-out period, if applicable), the final financial account is calculated based on all the declarable acceptable costs. The financial reports must be submitted by the Finance department of your research institution.

Utilisation follow-up

Approval of the scientific, utilisation and financial final report marks the completion of the project implementation. However, the FWO expects that reasonable efforts will continue to be made towards the maximum utilisation of the project results. The FWO may ask for an additional utilisation report to be submitted for up to 5 years after completion of the TBM project.

Notification duty

The actual project implementation may, to some extent, differ from the original plan. This is acceptable so long as the grant is used towards the achievement of the contractually specified innovation goal. However, should circumstances arise that differ substantially from the starting points that were known at the time of approval of the support (e.g. major changes in the budget or the work, budget shifts between parties or any events that have a great impact on the implementation of the project or the subsequent utilisation of the results), the FWO must be notified immediately via tbm@fwo.be.

Shifts within the budget of a contracting party

In practice, the course of a project may vary from the initially planned course. To achieve the project objectives, each contracting party is free to optimally deploy their resources and, where necessary, shift them between cost items (personnel costs, consumables, equipment). However, the maximum project budget per contracting party may not be exceeded.

Budget shifts between research partners of different legal persons

Any shifts between budgets of different legal persons must be requested in advance from the FWO and substantiated by current figures (old versus new situation). All involved parties must sign the request. After approval by the FWO, the updated budget is attached as an addendum to the contract. The payment scheme is adapted accordingly. The total accepted project budget may not be exceeded.

Open access

Holders of an FWO TBM project are required to deposit their publications, realised in whole or in part with TBM resources, in a public “Open Access” database no later than one year after publication. Further information can be found on the website.

Data Management Plan

The FWO expects to receive a completed Data Management Plan (DMP) no later than 6 months after the start date of the TBM project. More information about the procedure, the DMP standard model and the contact details within our research institutions for questions and support, can be found via our website.

Research ethics

In the application form for your project you also completed a questionnaire on the ethical aspects. If you answered affirmatively to a question with an asterisk, you are required by law to obtain ethical approval from the competent ethics committee of your main host institution before undertaking the relevant research activities. For the other questions institutional obligations may apply. For questions without asterisk you are also expected to consider any ethical aspects that could be related to the subject matter, the research approach or the consequences of the results, and, where necessary, take appropriate precautions.

Please consult the Guidelines on the FWO’s ethics checklist for help and background information.

The required ethical approval must be obtained before you start working on the associated work package. For project proposals aimed at performing experiments on non-human primates you have to be in possession of an approval by the relevant ethical committee already at the time of evaluation of the proposal by the FWO.

The supervisor-spokesperson shall submit the certificates of the ethics committee to the research coordination department of the main institution, where they are stored and can be retrieved by the FWO if necessary. For details see our research ethics webpage.

Scientific integrity

Beneficiaries of FWO funds undertake to ensure the scientific integrity of the research practice and outcomes.

Vacancies

Vacancies linked to research projects can be posted via the FWO website. You can forward the vacancy notice to the FWO via communicatie@fwo.be. Additionally, it is highly recommended to publish such notices via the Euraxess website of the European Commission: http://ec.europa.eu/euraxess/.

Acknowledgement of funding source

The FWO must always be acknowledged as grant giver in publications or other relevant communication about your project (results).