THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN THE TENDER DOCUMENTATION FOR THE 2018 VERSUS 2017

Changes in connection with the amendment to Act No. 130/2002 Coll., on support for research, experimental development and innovation from public funds and on amendments to certain related acts, as amended:

1.3 Definition of terms (new) paragraphs (7) and (17)

A research, development and innovation project (hereinafter referred to as 'project') means activities falling under one or more categories of aid, intended to fulfil an indivisible task of a precise economic, scientific or technical nature with clearly defined objectives, formulated by the tenderer in a research, development and innovation call for tenders or by the provider in the context of a research, development and innovation contract award.

Eligible costs are those costs or expenditure in research, development and innovation which are allocated to specific categories of aid and which may be incurred by the beneficiary for or in connection with research, development and innovation activities, namely

1. personnel costs or expenses for researchers, technicians and other support staff to the extent necessary for the purposes of the project, including scholarships for research, development and innovation pursuant to Act No. 111/1998 Coll., on Higher Education Institutions and on Amendments and Additions to Other Acts (Higher Education Act), as amended,

2. the cost or expense of acquiring tangible assets to the extent and for the duration of the use of those assets for the purposes of the project; if the cost or expense is not incurred within the project over their entire useful life, only depreciation over the life of the project, calculated on the basis of generally accepted accounting principles, shall be considered eligible,

3. the cost or expenditure for the acquisition of intangible assets, knowledge and patents purchased or acquired under licence from external sources under normal market conditions and used exclusively for the purposes of the project,

4. costs or expenses for services, contract research or consultancy and equivalent services used exclusively for the purposes of the project,

5. ancillary costs or expenses incurred in a direct temporal and material connection in the course of the project, the incurrence of which will contribute to the implementation of the project, this definition being understood as a share of the organisation's common operating costs (overheads) as costs that cannot be directly attributed to a specific project (so-called indirect costs); the share of these costs is then determined in the percentage set by the provider (so-called flat rate) or in the amount of actual overheads determined in accordance with the organisation's uniform methodology for the application of full indirect costs in projects (so-called full-cost).

Proof of eligibility:

According to the amendment to Act No. 130/2002 Coll., criminal record is no longer to be proved by an extract from the criminal record when submitting project proposals for any of the applicants. According to Article 4.2(1)(c) of the tender documentation, the tenderer/co-tenderer shall prove eligibility pursuant to Article 18(2)(c) to (i) of Act No 130/2002 Coll. by means of an original or a certified copy of an affidavit (according to Annex 2 of the tender documentation - see Article 9.2), whereas eligibility pursuant to Article 18(2)(e) and (f) of Act No 130/2002 Coll. in the case of legal persons, shall be demonstrated by the persons who perform the function of the statutory body of the tenderer or its member (or all members of the statutory body), with the exception of persons for whom conditions for the performance of the function of the statutory body or its member are laid down by another legal regulation (e.g. public universities and public research institutions). A criminal record certificate is then to be produced after the announcement of the tender results before the contract is concluded with the successful tenderer (see Article 4.2(2)(b) of the tender documentation).

Changes following the change to the ISVP information system

changed according to the terminology of the ISVP application

Clarification of the definition of active participation in conferences

Active participation in conferences means a presentation in the form of a lecture or poster with an abstract in a professional journal or proceedings, where the author is named and the topic must be related to the project (see Article 5.4.3.(3) of the tender documentation).

Amendment of the effectiveness of the contract on the provision of special purpose aid in relation to Act No 340/2015 Coll., on special conditions for the effectiveness of certain contracts, publication of such contracts and on the register of contracts

The contract shall become effective on the date of its publication in the Register of Contracts in accordance with Act No.340/2015 Coll., on Special Conditions for the Effectiveness of Certain Contracts, Publication of Such Contracts and on the Register of Contracts (Act on the Register of Contracts), as amended, provided that the beneficiary has demonstrated its eligibility for the project in accordance with the tender documentation (see Article 9, Annex 11 - 1.1, paragraph (4) of the tender documentation).

Added evaluation of the completed project (see Article 9 Annex 11 - 4.5 (3) of the tender documents)

The basic categories of evaluation are as follows:
V = excellent project results (with international significance, etc.), which means that the project objectives and its expected results as stated in the contract or the decision to provide support have been met;
U = succeeded according to the assignment, i.e. the project's objectives and its expected results as stated in the contract or the decision to grant aid were met;
O = failed to meet the assignment, but the contract was complied with; S = failed to meet the assignment, the penalty provisions of the contract were complied with.

Changes in the course of the project

If there is a substantial change in the circumstances relating to the project which the beneficiary could not have foreseen and was not caused by the beneficiary, the beneficiary shall request the provider to change the structure or amount of the eligible costs, to change the amount of the special purpose aid or to amend the aid contract or the decision to grant the special purpose aid in writing no later than 7 calendar days from the date on which it became aware of such a fact. Where the amendment concerns a change in the financial means of the aid granted in a given calendar year, it must be submitted no later than 60 calendar days before the end of that calendar year (see Article 9, Annex 11 - 5.1, paragraph (2) of the tender dossier).

Changes to evaluation project proposals

(for details see Article 9, Annex 12.4. of the tender documentation)

In Phase One:

Each project proposal is assigned to two panel members - rapporteurs (in the case of interdisciplinary projects, a third Rapporteur from the secondary evaluation panel is additionally assigned). Chair together with the vice-chair of the evaluation panel will determine the first rapporteur for each project proposal, the second Rapporteur is determined by random selection.

The rapporteurs will study the project proposal and each independently draw up their own assessment.

Each of the rapporteurs will independently and objectively assign a score evaluation 0-100 to each of their assigned project proposals using the criteria for evaluation project proposals via an electronic application.

At the review panel meeting, the panel will review the judgments of the individual rapporteurs for each project proposal and assign the project proposal a score evaluation 0-100 for the panel. Based on a predetermined algorithm, the application produces a ranking from the highest value (highest scoring project proposal) to the lowest (lowest scoring project proposal). From this ranking, the panel discussion produces a list of at least 30% of the lowest ranked proposals from all project proposals assessed in the panel, which are not recommended for the second phase and therefore will not be sent to foreign or Czech external referees for assessment.

In Phase Two:

evaluation One opinion on the project proposal is obtained from a foreign opponent and one opinion on the project proposal from a Czech external opponent (if more than one opinion is obtained on the project proposal, the first opinion received will be taken into account in the order of the opponents' address).

Prior to the meeting of the evaluation panel, all members of the panel will be familiarised with the individual documents for all project proposals that have progressed to the second stage of the evaluation.

The application will be used to rank the project proposals according to the scores evaluation of the first phase and the scores evaluation of the opponents, which will be discussed at the panel meeting in the second phase.

After detailed discussion and justification, the evaluation panel may change the final score for individual project proposals by ± 10%. Furthermore, a ranking of the individual project proposals is established from the highest value (best project proposal) to the lowest (lowest scoring project proposal).