Best Practice of the Month #003 — Periodic and Final Reporting
Producing the periodic reports is a key part of the European Project Manager’s job. These reports will be reviewed by the Project Officer (PO) with the help of a sectorial expert to assess the scientific documents. Together, they will decide whether the project has progressed adequately, and if activities are properly reported. If not, the PO can decide to suspend the payment, or even end the project. It is critical to prepare ahead and invest time into preparing a high-quality report to avoid bad surprises.
The Periodic Report is split into 2 parts: Part A is automatically generated from the information entered on the Portal; Part B is a narrative technical report, prepared using the template provided by the EC. It is completed by a financial report, that your colleagues from the financial department should take care of and is generated automatically based on the researcher’s declarations entered on the portal. Moreover, all deliverables submitted during the time of the reporting period will be reviewed.
The technical report (Part B) will vary depending on your project and your project officer, yet we could draw a few best practices that will help all the Project Managers in the Reporting period.
1. Plan early
There are two periodic reporting periods: at the end of the second year (M24) and after the end of the project. From there, a new tab will appear on the Portal, below the “Continuous Reporting” tab. You will have 2 months to complete the reporting, which, once you’re in the thick of it, is not that much time. To avoid issues:
- Keep the “continuous reporting” up to date thorough the project, so that you don’t have a lot to update for the reporting;
- Inform your consortium early that you will be requesting information from them, and remind the key people closer to the start of the reporting period;
- Inform your consortium of the importance of this reporting and impact that a poor reporting may have (= suspension of payment!);
- Check with your PO if they have any specific requirements regarding the lengths, level of details, etc.
2. Define the roles of each person and hold them accountable
Your role as the manager is to make sure that everybody is aware of what is expected from them, and that they have clear instructions and deadlines.
- Inform the Scientific coordinator, Work Package leaders and researchers of their expected contributions;
- Get in touch with the team in charge of financial reporting to make sure they are aware of the reporting period, and they have all the information required to do so;
- Make sure each project beneficiary has a Financial Signatory assigned! They will need to sign the financial report, and if none is assigned, this will block the report submission (and it can take a while to get sorted).
3. Don’t get too creative — follow the template
While creativity may come in handy when it comes to justifying deviations, when it comes to the reporting document, stick to the template provided by the EC. You can download it from the Sygma portal on the first day the periodic report opens.
Importantly, do not remove sections from the template, even if they don’t apply to you, as it may be seen as an omission. Instead, write N/A or “not applicable”.
4. Justify ALL deviations
The PO and external expert will review all of your reported work and compare it with the Description of Action submitted at the proposal stage. Things may have changed, and even though the updated plan may have been already communicated to the PO, make sure to explicitly justify all the deviations in the Periodic or Final Report.
As a side note, it is considered a good practice to keep your PO informed of major challenges or deviations as they occur. Early communication is also an opportunity to receive advice and guidance on how to solve specific issues, thus reducing the risk of handling a situation in a manner that is not acceptable for the EC.
⚠️ Challenges and points of attention
You may already have gathered that preparing the Periodic and Final Reporting is not an easy task! Specifically, you should pay particular attention to the following points:
- Obtaining the information / reports from the stakeholders in time, and with the right level of details can be difficult. Plan enough time to be able to proof-read and request corrections if needed, impose strict deadlines and send reminders as necessary;
- In ITNs, only beneficiaries could update secondment information in the researcher tab — so work with them EARLY! Some partners only log-in to the EU portal once a year, so getting them to complete the researcher declaration and secondment information can be cumbersome: be prepared to provide step-by-step guidance and check that they have submitted everything correctly. Luckily, in DNs, the coordinating institution can collect secondment information directly and update this in the recruitment tab. Double-check that the researchers do not go over the 10,2 month limit (30% of their time);
- The Project Manager may have the best / succinct overview of the project, but it is imperative to update and inform the coordinating PI, as they will be contacted by the PO and should be informed on the general trends and updates that have affected the project (administratively as well as scientifically).
💬 Do you have any tip or experience from your Periodic Report? Let us know in the comments!
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