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How to Avoid Double Funding Risks in HE Projects

Managing project costs is a complex and thorough task, especially in large-scale projects lasting several months. One of the critical aspects of project management is cost declaration, which aims mainly at avoiding financial losses.

It is not uncommon to apply to different Horizon Europe programmes and other public funding sources for your projects. Therefore, it is crucial to follow the specific Horizon Europe rules closely to avoid the risk of double funding.

What does “double funding” mean?

Double funding means that the same cost item or element is declared in more than one publicly-funded project, or between two different budget categories within the same project. Horizon Europe rules strictly forbid charging the same element twice.

For example, in purchase costs you cannot declare the purchase of a flight ticket under “Travel costs” and then again under “Other goods and services” because you would be charging the same purchase twice. The same principle applies if you receive public funding for two different projects and you declare the same flight ticket cost for both projects.

Double funding can also happen with personnel costs, especially when your company has more than one project funded by public entities. This can occur when declaring your employees’ working hours or days: the same workday cannot be charged to two different publicly-funded projects.

At the tax level, if you receive a tax refund by your government (this may apply for VAT, for example) and you charge this cost to your project, you would be getting refunded both by your government and by another public entity, therefore charging the cost twice.

What are the consequences?

The first alarm will go off during the audit. When you present your accounting extracts or your employee timesheets, and the auditor detects a cost declared twice or the same working days declared to two different public-funded projects, these costs may be rejected.

Consequences may arise not only at an audit level but also at a fraud-control level, as double funding can be legally considered as fraud. In some cases, it may lead to the intervention of the European Anti-Fraud Office or other fraud-control bodies from the European Union, which could result in legal consequences.

Do you want to learn more about how to avoid the double funding risk? Get in touch with us at hello@getpolite.eu

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