Division 1.2 Implementation of the verification of legal existence and legal status/categoryF1

Any legal entity shall register its basic administrative and legal data (such as organisation's legal name, legal address, etc.) in the web interface of the Participant Portal. Registration is necessary only once. In order to avoid double registrations, the ‘Participant Identification Code’ (PIC) issued at the first registration shall be used in any subsequent participation of the legal entity.

Entities without an independent legal personality shall participate using the same ‘Participant Identification Code’ (PIC) as the legal entity from which they depend. However, the following entities may be validated as separate entities and be attributed a separate PIC:

1. (1)

   Ministries or other executive services part of the central public administration of the – central or federated – State, directly linked to the government in accordance with the officially published organisation of the State,

2. (2)

   Specialised agencies set up by international organisations, including (but not limited to), the ones referred to in Article 43(2) of the IR.

3. (3)

   The Joint Research Centre and its delegations.

At the stage of proposal submission no supporting documents will be requested and no verification of the data by the services implementing FP7 will be carried out.

Entities need to have a PIC, registered and validated in the Commission's database, before a grant agreement can be signed. To this end, the legal existence and legal status/category of the entity have to be verified by the validation services on the basis of the data and supporting documents provided by the entity if this has not been done before. The verification of legal existence and the attribution of a legal status/category shall be carried out once the entity has self-registered. It shall only be carried out if the basic legal data (legal name, legal form and legal address) of the entity are clearly indicated and supported by the required supporting documents, provided none of these are manifestly erroneous, incorrect or illegible.

The same procedure will be used and the same documents will be requested for legal entities joining an indirect action or for any changes of the legal personality of a participant during the implementation of this indirect action, which lead to a new validation of the entity starting with its self-registration at the Participant Portal.

The supporting documents for proving the legal existence and legal status/category shall be submitted to the validation services via the web interface of the Participant Portal or by e-mail within the deadline specified by the services implementing FP7 in the invitation or/and in the framework for negotiation.

In case of non-solicited self-registrations, the validation services, when requesting clarifications and supporting documents, will specify the timeframe within which the applicant must reply. If the applicant does not submit, clarify or complete the supporting documents within the indicated timeframe, taking into account any special and justified circumstances, the validation services reserve the right to discard self-registrations.

While the validation services verify the legal existence of the applicant, they also verify if the entity is already registered in the Research Participant Portal or in another central European Commission database containing the same relevant information and take this information into consideration.

Once the legal existence of the applicant is determined, the validation services shall verify on the basis of the supporting documents the FP7 legal status and identify the category to which each legal entity participating in an FP7 indirect action belongs.

After having verified the legal existence and legal status/category of an entity the validation services shall verify and record the indirect cost method declared by the applicant.