A consortium is - in general - a group of institutions or companies acting together in the same project under common interest. In FP7 it refers to all the participants/beneficiaries in the same project. Most funding schemes require proposals from a number of participants (usually at least three) who agree to work together in a consortium. The list of organisations in the WBC-INCO.NET consortium can be fund here: http://wbc-inco.net/object/organisation/teammember

Consortium agreement

The signature of a Consortium Agreement between the partners of a research project is mandatory for almost every FP7 project. But partners in a projects often draw up an agreement to govern

• the internal organisation of the consortium;
• the distribution of the Community financial contribution;
• additional rules on dissemination and use including intellectual property rights arrangements, as appropriate;
• the settlement of internal disputes.

The European Commission publishes a checklist for consortium agreements (Checklist for the Consortium Agreement) and it is also possible to use DESCA (Development of a Simplified Consortium Agreement), a comprehensive Model Consortium Agreement which offers a reliable frame of reference for project consortia. DESCA is a simple and comprehensive model Consortium Agreement, stripped of all unnecessary complexity in both content and language. (see http://www.desca-fp7.eu)