Role assignment in the Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal in Horizon 2020

There are two main role categories:

• Organisation roles: These roles relate to the entire organisation and its data, but do not grant access to projects.
• Project roles: These roles are assigned for each project separately and grant various different rights (read, write and/or submit).

Some roles are assigned automatically based on information provided in the project proposal. Most roles can be assigned as required. One user can have several roles at the same time.

However, the following two roles are a mandatory requirement of the EU Commission:

• LEAR (Legal Entity Appointed Representative) – organisation role
  The LEAR serves as the administrative contact for the EU Commission. In addition to being responsible for all organisation-related data on the portal, the LEAR also has certain appointment rights (e.g. LSIGN, FSIGN).
  There can only be one LEAR per organisation. LEARs are validated by the Validation Services of the EU Commission.
• PCoCo (Primary Coordinator Contact) – project role
  This role denotes the main person responsible for a project, who can submit requests, reports and notifications to the EU Commission on behalf of the consortium.
  There can only be one PCoCo per project.

Here is an overview of the individual roles:

Reference: online manual of the EU Commission

Organisation roles

• LEAR (Legal Entity Appointed Representative): see above
• Self-registrant: person who first registers an organisation in the Participant Register before the LEAR is validated
• Account Administrator: supports the LEAR in fulfilling its tasks
• LSIGN (Legal Signatory): nominated by the LEAR or an Account Administrator; can be assigned to a particular project by the CoCo or PaCo
• FSIGN (Financial Signatory): see LSIGN

Project roles

• (P)CoCo ((Primary) Coordinator Contact): main contact point between the consortium and the EU Commission for a particular project
• PaCo (Participant Contact): representative of any other organisation in the consortium that is not the coordinating organisation
• TaMa (Task Manager): can perform some restricted tasks
• TeMe (Team Member): limited access rights (search and read-only access) possible
• PLSIGN (Project Legal Signatory): as the right to sign grant agreements (GA) and amendments on behalf of the organisation
• PFSIGN (Project Financial Signatory): has the right to sign financial statements (Form C) on behalf of the organisation

Please note: There are some different rules for ERC and MSCA actions.

Questions and Answers

Question: How is a new LEAR appointed when the existing one leaves the organisation?

Answer: The new LEAR is validated directly by the Validation Services without having to register the organisation again. It is sufficient to send an e-mail to the Validation Services (REA-C3-SECRETARIAT@ec.europa.eu or REA-LEAR-RECOVERY-TEMPORARY@ec.europa.eu or to the Research Enquiry Service) explaining the situation and attaching all necessary documents.

Question: Where can I find information related to the new roles "Primary Audit Contact (PAUCO)" as well as "Audit Contact (AUCO)"?

Answer: In the Funding & Tenders Opportunities Portal of the EU-Commission under "Roles and access rights".

More information can be found …

• the Annotated Grant Agreement (AGA), article 52.1
• the Online Manual of the EU Commission (e.g. "Roles and access rights", "Funding and Tenders Portal")
• in the presentation of the EU Commission "H2020 Coordinators' Day - Grant Agreement Preparation"