News archive - [Event Review] “Surviving the EC Audit” – Pitfalls and Problems, Survival and Success Stories (WBC-INCO.NET capacity building workshop)

In the frame of capacity building activities of the WBC-INCO-NET the project workshop on financial regulations in EU-funded programmes “Surviving the EC Audit” was organized in Belgrade on 10 September 2013.

The workshop addressed the needs of financial project managers and successful researchers in FP7. 43 participants from different counties, which were nominated by the respective Ministries in charge of Science, visited the workshop; in addition many project managers from the region joined the workshop on their own initiative. 

The workshop was split into two parts. 

  • The first part covered all relevant topics regarding first and second level audits like: General audit regulations, different types of audits, Funding Regimes, Lump Sums, Flat Rates, Funding Rates, Activities Personnel Costs, Average Personnel costs, Employment issues, Students, Receipts, Eligible & Ineligible costs, Overheads, Possible Methods, Direct Costs Vs Indirect Costs, Bookkeeping, Accounting Records, Timesheets, Cost Recording, Financial Reporting, Financial Statement.

    Katarina Rohsmann, legal and financial expert at the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) led the introduction on general audit regulations and on funding rates in FP7 in an interactive way by collecting already existing knowledge of the group about the relevant topics.

    Claudia Koegler from Austrian KPMG and Nevena Sicevic from Serbian KMPG, a well known European auditing institution, provided details and shared their personal experiences and concrete examples on most common pitfalls in the process of audits. Most interest and discussion obtained personnel costs: The rules and regulations of FP7 do not allow for any financial incentives for the (miserably paid) employed researchers of the Western Balkan Countries and at the same time their hourly rate (in average 8-9 EUR for the highest qualified and experienced researcher) extremely diverge from an average western European rate for the same performance. Lots of questions were raised also about interaction and validity of national, organizational and FP7 rules.​​
     
  • In the second part the participants learned about the pitfalls from Austrian Academy of Science and University of Novi Sad, Serbia. Bedana Bapuly and Vladimir Crnojevic shared their experience on audits, they presented the most common mistakes, the possible consequences, their experience and their strategy to solve the appeared problems, relating to concrete audit as well as regarding future structural or organizational changes.

Subsequently participants had the opportunity to receive “private consultations” and all speakers were booked for the next two hours. Organizers and presenters agreed that due to confidentiality the content of the workshop will not be published, neither the presentations nor the questions.

Country
Serbia
Geographical focus
  • Western Balkans
Scientifc field / Thematic focus
  • General

Entry created by Desiree Pecarz on September 19, 2013
Modified on October 15, 2013