Build the European food safety knowledge ecosystem, ensuring safe food as the basis for healthy diets and sustainable food systems.

The focus of the EU-FORA fellowship programme will be targeted to activities falling within EFSA’s remit, so as to attract professionals from relevant fields such as: agriculture, biochemistry, bioinformatics, biology, biometrics, biotechnology, chemistry, dietary exposure, environmental sciences, epidemiology, food science, food technology, genetics, health and food safety, human medicine, life sciences, mathematics, microbiology, molecular biology, natural sciences, nutrition, pharmacy, public health, statistics, toxicology, veterinary medicine or related areas.

The specific objectives of this call are to:

• select hosting sites for the training of one or more fellows for a period of 12 months;
• select fellows as proposed by their institutions of origin.

• Agriculture - Food
• Education and training
• Health
• New Entrepreneurship
• Other Thematic Category
• Public Administration

• International Organisations
• Legal Entities
• NGOs
• Other Beneficiaries
• Semi-governmental organisations
• State-owned Enterprises
• Training Centres

In order to achieve the objectives of the Call, the two eligible organisations (competent organisations under Art. 36 of the EFSA founding regulation) must be from two different EU countries, Norway or Iceland.

To be eligible, applicants must be on the list of competent organisations designated by the Member States in accordance with Article 36 of Regulation (EC) 178/2002 and Commission Regulation (EC) 2230/2004.24.

In order to achieve the objectives of the call, proposals must be submitted by a consortium of two eligible organisations from two different EU countries. Norway or Iceland. The applicant (consortium leader) is responsible for identifying consortium partners. The fellow hosting site will be the consortium leader (applicant) and will propose a work programme and be responsible of the training of the fellow. The other partner in the consortium is the fellow sending organisation and will propose a fellow to be trained under the proposal.

Applicants may search for a consortium partner through:

• their designated Article 36 Organisation’s contact person having granted the access to the Article 36 Database and/or
• their respective EFSA national Focal Point.

EFSA national Focal Points have the role to support and facilitate the creation of consortia acting as a networking interface between national organisations (e.g. having access to EFSA databases of contacts, project ideas and other networking activities facilitating MS engagement in fields of EFSA’s remit, among others).

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
For proper understanding of this call it is important to have clarity on the terminology regarding involved organisations and their roles.

Proposals submitted by consortium:

• The Applicant submits the proposal to EFSA on behalf of the consortium. The applicant is the leading entity of the consortium and the hosting site. There can only be one applicant per application.
• The Partner is the other entity in the consortium and the fellow sending organisation, in charge of the identification of a staff member to be trained under the proposal. There can only be one partner per application.

Once the grant is awarded, the grant agreement is signed between EFSA and the applicant (leading entity of the consortium).

Partners do not sign the grant agreement directly but instead sign a mandate (template provided by EFSA) authorising the applicant to sign the grant agreement and any future amendments on their behalf.

As soon as the grant agreement is signed, the applicant becomes the Coordinator and the partner becomes co-beneficiary. The coordinator and co-beneficiary are referred to as the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are jointly and severally liable for the technical implementation of the project as described in the proposal which becomes Annex 1 of the grant agreement. If a beneficiary fails to implement its part of the project, the other beneficiaries become responsible for implementing that part.

The coordinator has the following important roles:

• Takes part in implementing the project;
• Provides supervision and training to the fellow and liaises daily with them and liaises directly with EFSA on issues related to supervision of the work programme;
• Monitors the action is implemented properly;
• Act as intermediary for communication between the consortium and EFSA;
• Receives and answers all claims EFSA might have in relation to implementation of the project;
• Requests and reviews any documents or information required by EFSA and verifies their completeness and correctness before passing them to EFSA;
• Informs EFSA and the partner/s of any event that is likely to substantially affect implementation of the project;
• Submits the deliverables and reports to EFSA;
• Requests and receives payments from EFSA and distributes the funds to partner/s without unjustified delays.

The coordinator may not delegate the above-mentioned tasks to the co-beneficiary or subcontract them to any third party.

The other beneficiary:

• Takes part in implementing the project;
• Continues to pay the salary to the fellow during the whole period of fellowship, including the time of placement at the hosting site;
• Ensures that the fellow remains subject to the national social security and pension rights system;
• Releases the fellow from their working obligations to ensure adequate performance of the working programme and training;
• If applicable, liaises with the hosting site to ensure the fellow is adequately insured for, e.g., lab work if so required;
• Forwards to the coordinator the data needed to draw up reports, financial statements and other documents required under the grant agreement;
• Informs the coordinator of any event or circumstances likely to substantially affect or delay the implementation of the project.

For help related to this call, please contact: EFSAProcurement@efsa.europa.eu

• Funding & Tenders
• Call for Proposals and Guide for Applicants