OPTICON NEWS JANUARY 2004



STATUS of the FP6 I3 programme, OPTICON. January 26, 2004

By Gerry Gilmore.


In late July 2003 our I3 proposal was recommended for funding of
19.2Million Euros of EU funds, as their contribution to our
programme.

The OPTICON programme after reduction as required to match the
approved budget now includes 52 Contractors as legal partners,
representing 84 separate research organisations from 17 countries and
3 International agencies. The final programme has a budget of
33.5M euro, of which 19.2M euro comes from the EU. The FP6 I3
programme will run from 1-January-2004 to 31-December-2008.

Of the total 33.5M euro budget, 2.7M is devoted to networking
activities, 5.5M to the observing Access programme, 1.2M to
management, and 24.5M to technical studies


The detailed contract `negotiation' process with the EU is still
underway. This process involves an extremely detailed analysis and
justification at the microscopic level of every part of our
activities, even though we (at least in name, if not in fact) have
delegated authority to manage our resources.  No problems have been
identified, and we are assured that `at least 95percent' of our
proposed program is already understood and will be allowed to proceed.

We expect final approval on a daily basis, but based on experience so far,
on present timescales we are unlikely to have a final signed
legal contract until March-April 2004.  Real money will not be available
until 1-2 months after contract signature, or mid-2004.

The FP6 approved programme however started on January 1, 2004, which will
be the formal contract starting date.

The means that work on the FP6 programme, contract negotiations, etc,
which started on or after January 1 2004, can be charged to the FP6
programme.

Some institutions are able to begin advertising for positions, having
detailed planning meetings, negotiating contracts, etc, on this basis,
and have started work. Others require full contract signature before
this is possible. Your ability to charge expenses, advertise, etc is
in the interim a decision for your local legal authority.  The formal
legal statement is that your local financial system must underwrite
any expenses and commitments for work/contracts/meetings until actual
contract signature, or must make any advertised positions, contracts,
etc provisional, subject to OPTICON contract signature.


I appreciate this is a regrettable delay for all of you. It is out of
our control.

CONTRACT Finalisation Proceedure

When we eventually get from the EU a real contract, we will have three
copies of an ``Accession to Contract'' form for each contractor. We will send
these three to you: all three must be signed by your legal
authorities, as your way of signing the full contract, and returned to
Cambridge. When *ALL* 52 sets of copies are received here, the master
contract can be signed, and sent to Brussels for their final
signature. After that, one of your three ``Accession to Contract''
signed forms, also now counter-signed by the Coordinator, will be returned to
you, with a copy of the full contract.

This process is going to take a lot of effort to ensure it happens in
a timely fashion. Be ready.


Consortium Agreement Signature

We have now a finalised Consortium agreement. This must be signed by
all 52 Contractors BEFORE signature of the Contract. It is the legal
basis on which we operate.

The present version has been developed by agreement between the legal
team at the Coordinator and those OPTICON Contractors who represent
the main national funding agencies.

It is not feasible to have every single Contractor amend the present
agreement, so it must be accepted as is, except in very exceptional
circumstances.

Please note that the signature is for the Agreement, and not the
Schedules to the agreement. These Schedules, which include for example
a list of Contractor's bank accounts, are needed by the Coordinator to
allow payments, but are not an essential part of the legal agreement.
They will be completed and circulated when ready.

The proceedure for signatures is as follows: each Contractor will be
sent a copy of the Agreement. this is available as a password-locked
pdf file, which can be printed but not edited, and/or by courier, as
you prefer. TWO copies of the relevant page which needs your
signature, and only that page, should be returned to Cambridge. The
Cambridge lawyers will then affirm on the master copy that all
signatures are received. A certified copy, with one of your signed
pages counter-signed by the Coordinator, will then be returned to
each Contractor.  This process, while elaborate, meets all approriate
legal requirements.


All available relevant documents are available at

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~gil/opticon/

If you don't know the passwords, contact John or Gerry.

These files are updated regularly