The aim of this page is to outline the principles for Europol’s participation in grant project proposals. It ensures alignment of all partners involved during the proposal preparation, and potential contract negotiations and implementation phases.
Please note that Europol cannot be involved in the preparation/submission stage of project applications/proposals under the EU Funding Programme “Horizon Europe”, where it supports the European Commission in the preparation of Work Programmes, in the evaluation of project proposals, and in the implementation of the funded projects.
Principles
- The work (and associated man-hours) performed by Europol Staff funded from the Europol budget (or from another grant) will not be charged to the project. Any work performed by Europol staff (e.g. management, operational experts, shared services) should not be significant in volume or importance for delivery of the action.
- Dissemination activities in which Europol participates shall not include the commercialisation of the products and shall exclude any form of corporate sponsorship, which is prohibited under Europol’s financial regulation.
- No operational data will be shared by Europol, before, during or after the project. More generally, Europol shall in no circumstances be required to provide information to a project where this would breach Europol’s legal regime.
- Public procurement rules are acknowledged to apply to all publicly funded entities. No commitment to any future purchase is made by Europol to any partner or related entity. Access to results and publication decisions shall take into account the interest of the public sector partners in avoiding lock-in or market dominance.
- All partners are expected to commit to protecting the information provided on the tactical and operational practises of LEAs (which in any case will only be shared where this would be compliant with Europol’s legal framework).
- All communication and visibility actions relevant to Europol should receive prior written consent of Europol. This includes any use of Europol’s logo, for which a specific permission is required. The partners are not permitted to further discuss or disclose tactical know-how or operational methodologies that becomes known to them through their work on this project. This includes operational strategies, privacy concerns, challenges, failures of tested software, points for system improvement or needed customisation etc. Partners shall ensure that any person within their employ or commissioned by them are bound by these obligations of confidentiality and discretion. Access to document rules (e.g. freedom of information requests or similar) will be handled in consultation with the originator/owner of a document to ensure that any legitimate expectations of confidentiality are asserted.
- Europol understands that a degree of risk-taking is inherent to innovation. Europol shall be indemnified by its partners for third party IPR breaches over which Europol had no knowledge or influence. The partners during the development and production of the project results, are required to act responsibly to check that their IPR contribution to the project does not use IPR belonging to a third party without sufficient consent(s). This extends to IPR background contributions on which the project deliverables seek to build.
- Europol shall in principle not be required to commission any separate additional audit but shall remain subject, including as regards any amounts received under an awarded grant, to the regular audit regime applicable to Europol as a matter of law.
- In the event that Europol has a formal legal successor (e.g. modification of legal basis), the entity thus created by law shall inherit all rights and obligations without the need for separate consent from partners.
If Europol is expected to be part of a consortium as a beneficiary to a grant (not possible under Horizon Europe), the following conditions also apply:
- If Europol is beneficiary to a grant, and as such is awarded funding outside of its budget, Europol will recruit dedicated personnel for the project with the awarded funding. To ensure that Europol budget is not required to be engaged (which would hamper delivery of Europol’s main work programme), the entity in receipt of grant funds shall transfer the Europol portion in advance and without delay.
- Regarding the exploitation of the project results, Europol and the participating LEAs shall receive access to the Results of the projects at no charge, as well as to any background material that is required for the meaningful use of the Results, for the duration of the project and beyond for their operational, non-commercial remit. For Europol, this includes supporting operational investigations and using the results to offer the operational services within its mandate to MSs and third parties with agreements with Europol.
- The consortium shall make use of specific voting- and veto rights to ensure that the interest of public sector partners are properly preserved (in particular to avoid the risk of reputational damage), for example by setting a quorum of public voices to be represented for a vote to be valid.