DESCA: New Model Consortium Agreement for lump sum projects in Horizon Europe

With the participation of representatives of the European Commission and numerous stakeholders coming from all across Europe, the newly developed DESCA (Development of a Simplified Consortium Agreement) 2.0 Consortium Agreement model was published in Brussels on 6 February 2024.

The broader context for this was the celebration of more than 15 years of DESCA's success as a frequently used model that supports and facilitates the cooperation of universities, research institutions and other partner institutions in Horizon Europe (HE) collaborative projects.
The current DESCA HE 2.0 model includes separate sections and options regarding the use of lump sums, and thus considers the growing importance of this funding model in Horizon Europe. The DESCA Consortium Agreement model was developed by the DESCA Core Group, a working group that is coordinated by Fraunhofer and Helmholtz and which includes KoWi as well as ANRT, EARTO, LERU, VTT and ZENIT.
As well-established in the past, the new DESCA HE 2.0 version also contains elucidations for individual articles within this special model that are dedicated to the focus of lump sums. The main changes compared to the previous version (DESCA for Horizon Europe, 1.0) are summarised in the DESCA launch presentation.

Lump sum funding has now also been introduced for some EIC calls, such as the EIC Pathfinder Challanges and EIC Transition.

Source: KoWi