On the 10th of October 2025, the report “IGLO in Action: Workshop and Survey on Simplification – Summary Report” was published, summarising the workshop in Brussels, which took place on the 4th and 5th of June 2025, and the accompanying survey.
The new report presents key findings and recommendations for simplifying the rules and procedures of the Horizon Europe program, based on the collective expertise of research managers and administrators from across Europe. Sixty-three participants from 14 countries took part in the survey. The workshop was attended by 22 research managers from public universities and research institutions in 12 European countries, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Research Executive Agency, and the ERC Executive Agency.
The new report presents the main findings and recommendations for simplifying the rules and procedures of the Horizon Europe program, based on the collective expertise of research managers and administrators from across Europe. Sixty-three participants from 14 countries participated in the survey. The workshop was attended by 22 research managers from public universities and research institutions in 12 European countries, as well as representatives of the European Commission, the Research Executive Agency, and the ERC Executive Agency.
During the workshop in Brussels (4th and 5th of June 2025), participants discussed essential aspects of simplifying the rules and procedures of Horizon Europe, covering a wide range of topics: from lump sums and other simplified cost options, through the interpretation of rules and guidelines, the EU Funding & Tenders Portal, project proposal templates, time to award grants, to reporting, reimbursement of actual costs, financial audits, and the involvement of third parties.
Key recommendations include:
1) Staffing and cost simplifications
• settlement of personnel costs based on actual costs
• simplification of working time records
2) Eligibility rules and technical costs
• Reimbursement of repair and maintenance costs
• Reporting of total depreciation costs only once during the project
3) Contracting and contract amendments
• Simplification of the contract amendment process
- Streamlining the process for making minor changes
4) Reporting
• streamlining of reporting
• extension of the reporting deadline
5) Audits and compliance
• recognition of national audits
• appropriate selection of auditors with a recommendation of knowledge of national law
• raising the threshold for mandatory use of CFS
6) IT tools and document standardization
• automatic transfer of data from an approved application to the SyGMa platform
• introduction of templates for non-scientific parts of project applications
7) Support and communication with the grant provider
• launch of a telephone hotline
The report emphasises the importance of clarity, credibility, and stability of funding rules, as well as the need for early and continuous involvement of practitioners in the development of new measures.
The report can be downloaded at: HERE
IGLO is an informal network of Brussels-based, non-profit R&D liaison offices whose objective is to facilitate and streamline interaction, information exchange, and cooperation between IGLO members, their national research systems, and EU institutions in the area of framework programs.
The PolSCA office is the only Polish representative actively involved in IGLO, representing the interests of Polish institutions, sharing implementation practices, and initiating the exchange of experiences.
One of the results of our activities was the co-financing of the participation of Joanna Kartasiewicz (ICTER – Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences) and Anna Demner (University of Warsaw) in the “Simplification” workshop.
• Valorisation of knowledge (January 2025) KoWi published a summary and a short report on the event.
• Lump sums (October 2023) — “IGLO in Action: Second IGLO Workshop on Lump Sum Funding — Summary Report.”
