Under HORIZON 2020 rules, both staff employed for the project and salaried personnel can be assessed  as direct costs. The prerequisite is that all project personnel:

• are employed directly by the grant beneficiary according to national regulations,
• are employed under the sole supervision and responsibility of the grant beneficiary and
• the remuneration of the project staff corresponds to the usual practices of the grant beneficiary.

 The payment of personnel costs is on the basis of an hourly rate. To calculate the hourly rate, the gross annual salary of the relevant project staff member is divided by the annual number of productive hours. The resulting hourly rate is then multiplied by the number of hours actually worked on the project.

A fixed number of hours amounting to 1720 hours per year for full-time employees (pro-rata for part-time employees) is used to calculate the annual productive hours.

The following must be taken into account when calculating the hourly rate:

• the calculation is on the basis of a completed financial year (exception: employees who were appointed during the current financial year (basis = reporting period).
• No adjustments for recalculating the hourly rate after completion of the relevant financial year are possible.

Documentation of Personnel Costs

As only the personnel costs for the hours worked on the project may be reimbursed, the working time during the total project lifetime must be substantiated with time sheets.

Exception: for persons spending 100% of their working hours on the project there is no longer an obligation to keep a time sheet. In this case, the time sheets may be replaced by a declaration for each period.

Recruitment and working conditions for researchers

• In order to implement the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers (working conditions, transparent recruitment based on merit, career development) the beneficiary must ensure that the researchers and third parties involved are aware of them.

Gender equality and ethics

• Obligation to aim for gender equality for all levels of personnel assigned to the action, including supervisory and managerial level.

• Compliance with ethical principles - highest standards of research integrity - exclusive focus on civil applications - no action aiming at human cloning for reproductive processes etc.

• Principles of the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers - the beneficiary must ensure that researchers and third parties involved are aware of them.