Financing of Projects

(i) The Fund never finances the total cost of a project. The project is co-financed by the Fund under the condition that minimum of 20% of the amount requested from UKF is secured from one or different sources (administering organization, partner organization, partner form industry or any other institution interested in the project results…). Any existing or planned financial supports from the MSES , from other CSF programs or supports from other sources of the State budget allocated for science and technology development are not eligible as matching funding for UKF grant.

(ii) Before the start of financing of the approved project, the project leader and all other responsible persons sign Contract on financing with the authorized representative of the MSES and CSF. The Contract obliges the legal entities and the project leader to implement the project according to the framework given by the project’s plan and schedule of work. The Contract obliges the MSES and CSF to provide financial funds according to the contract. The Contract defines the rights and obligations of the contract parties, including the intellectual property rights as well as other rights deriving from results of a project. The contract is being designed by UKF Secretariat and approved by Steering Committee.

(iii) A special annex which determines financial regulations is added to the Contract. The financial regulations include the following: an accepted total amount of financial plan cannot be increased afterwards; an accepted financial plan may be subject of 10% change within individual entries without UKF permission; maximum overhead paid to the Beneficiary where the project is performed cannot be less than 5% and higher than 15% of the total UKF funds; costs for remuneration and salaries of researchers on the project cannot exceed 50% of the total approved funds.

(iv) Payments to the UKF’s beneficiaries will be performed on half-yearly basis by UKF Secretariat, MSES and PMU, if not otherwise specified in UKF Grant Agreement.

(v) The Fund will support only a part of total project costs, while the remaining part of costs must be covered from other sources. Especially institutions – beneficiaries of the Fund – have to prove their commitment to the project by participation in financing. The amount of share of the Fund’s support is decided by the Steering Committee according to specific program and call.

(vi) General principles of how Fund will finance particular projects:

According to Croatian Competition Agency(CCA), the beneficiaries of state aid shall be legal and natural persons who perform in economic activity and thereby participate in the trade of goods and services and who receive some form of state aid.
Maximum financing by UKF will depend on the research category:

-100% of eligible expenditures for basic research
-50% of eligible expenditures for applied research
-25% of eligible expenditures for developmental research;
while eligible costs for applied and developmental research my be bigger for 10% for middle enterprizes, 20% for small enterprizes and additional 15% bonus to the maximum of 80% eligible costs under the certain conditions, as set by the CCA.
Based on the official Decision on the UKF programs issued by CCA, directions in detail will be published in the Call for proposal.

(vii) The financing is based on an approved business plan and financial plan of a particular project. The financing scheme is determined on a case-by-case basis for each project and is stated in the contract.The first installment is made after the signing of the contract. Other payments are made according to conditions described in mechanisms of care and supervision.

(viii) Procurement in a project financed within Second Science and Technology Project (STP II ) shall be done in accordance with methodology and procedures described in the "Extract 1. CSF – Procurement arrangements for sub-beneficiaries of UKF programs”, financial management etc.”, which is available on the Fund’s web-page.
 

Supervision and Evaluation of Projects

(i) Supervision and care for projects relates to the general relationship between the Fund and the approved project after the financing has started. The Fund is looking after projects through its mechanisms of care, supervision and control. The Fund, without affecting the subsidiarity of the project leader, keeps certain mechanisms of controlling a project, which are regulated by the agreement in order to ensure the success of the project.

(ii) The mechanisms of care and supervision also include:

- supervision through half-yearly reports provided by the project leader that include descriptive accounts on the progress of a project as well as quantitative indicators of success

- occasional visits by the UKF Secretariat representatives

- evaluation of the project by the UKF Secretariat and Steering Committee (including scientific supervision performed by independent evaluators) after the half of the period of implementation has passed, or after the 50% of the funds have been used

- financial review by an independent auditor organized by the leading organization

- final evaluation of the project by the UKF Secretariat and Steering Committee (including final scientific evaluation done by independent evaluators)

- participation in public presentations of the Fund

- obligatory participation in activities of the Fund (seminars, workshops, internet platforms, questionnaires on UKF performance indicators …)

(iii) The evaluation of approved projects within programs will be realized in accordance to the previously defined implementation indicators. These indicators must be measurable, separately defined for every program and set out in the contract.

(iv) The complete set of measurable indicators that will apply to programs depending of program and instruments is following:

- key publications in which the project participants were the lead authors

- newly developed products and processes and other applications of research

- applications to international funds and foundations

- amount of funds received from private sources and etc.