Action plan
An action plan should break down the strategy goals and objectives into specific tasks. It should include the sequence of steps to be taken, or activities that must be performed, for a strategy to succeed. Therefore it should include a time line, the financial resources and a definition of the responsible actors. This type of output can relate either to the development of new or further improvement, revision and/or update of existing action plans as well as their subsequent implementation. It should not be mixed up with the concept of Working Plan.
Tags: Working Plan
Activity
An activity can be defined as a process, what is done for a particular purpose. Each Work package is divided into activities. Activities have to lead to the development of one or more project outputs.
Tags: Work Package ; Output
Additionality
One of the three main programme criteria, to be respected by all proposed project activities; it means that the activities proposed to the Interreg MED Programme have to be different from the normal and regular tasks of the partners involved in the project. In particular, the actions have to represent additional activities that would not be carried out without the support of the Interreg MED Programme.
Ref: InfoRegio glossary
Administrative and eligibility check
First step of the proposal assessment process after the closure of a call for proposals. The purpose is to verify whether an application complies with the administrative and eligibility criteria established by the Interreg MED Programme for the projects of the call. Failure to comply with any of these criteria leads to outright rejection of the application.
Advanced payment
Pre-financing payment of a percentage of the approved budget of the partner to be recovered during the project implementation by reducing the reimbursement accordingly. In the case of Interreg MED Programme the advanced payment are allowed only to IPA partners.
Amount certified (CA)
Amount of eligible expenditure included in the certificate of the Certifying Authority (CA).
Amount certified (FLC)
Amount of expenditure included in the certificate of the First Level Controller (FLC).
Applicant
An organisation which is applying for funding.
Application form (AF)
Binding document which describes the project (objectives, results, outputs, partnership) and gives detailed information on the work plan and financial figures. The AF has to be submitted during the selection process and is assessed by the programme bodies, in order to select the projects to be funded by the programme. Once the project is approved, the AF becomes the reference document for the whole implementation of the project until its closure. The content of it may change to a certain extent during the implementation, but only according to the programme’s project modifications rules and procedures.
Assessment
One part of the project selection process. It implies in-depth quality assessment of the project application.
Tags: Evaluation ; Verification (MA/JS)
Assessment criteria
See “Quality assessment criteria”
Tags: Quality assessment criteria
Associated partner
Institution involved in a project without financially contributing to it.
Audit Authority
Functionally independent from the Managing Authority and the Certifying Authority, the Audit Authority (AA) is responsible for verifying the effective functioning of the management and control system. The AA is an inter-ministerial commission (CICC) reporting to the Prime Minister, who appoints its members, and is assisted by a group of independent auditors composed of a representative from each State participating in the programme. The representatives of the participating states to the Group of Auditors, that assist the AA, shall not be involved in any other management or certification activity under the MED programme.
Audit trail
An adequate audit trail ensures that the accounting records maintained and the supporting documents held at the level of the Certifying Authority, Managing Authority/Joint Secretariat, National Authorities and beneficiaries are adequate to trace expenditures.
Automatic public contribution
The programme funds meet only a proportion of the project expenditure. The remainder has to be covered from other sources, which can be the partner’s own resources or it can come from external sources, but not from another EU fund. Public funding automatically allocated to a project partner from national/regional sources. Some Member States/regions provide public support to organisations in their territories in order to facilitate their participation in cooperation programmes.
Tags: Contribution ; Public contribution
Baseline
A baseline is the value of a result indicator at the beginning of the programming period (for example, the number of start-ups in that year for a priority that intends to drive up the number of start-ups in a region). Each result indicator requires a baseline value (art. 6, ERDF regulation, art. 5, CF regulation; art. 16, ETC regulation).
Tags: Result indicator ; Output indicator ; Target value
Ref: Guidance document on monitoring and evaluation Commission, March 2014.
Benchmarking study
Benchmarking is a measurement of the quality of an organisation’s policies, products, programmes, strategies, etc., and their comparison with standard measurements, or similar measurements of its peers. The benchmarking process includes the identification of best practices and comparison of the results with those of the studied targets. The objectives of benchmarking study are (1) to determine what and where improvements are called for, (2) to analyse how other organisations achieve their high performance levels, and (3) to use this information to improve performance.
Tags: Deliverable
Beneficiary
Partner of a MED project receiving ERDF funds (or IPA funds in Mediterranean candidate or potential candidate countries). Beneficiaries should not be mixed up with End-users and Target Groups, who benefit from the Programme activities and may even be involved in the operations (for target groups only), but do not receive any funding from the MED Programme.
Tags: End-user ; Target Group
Benefit
The measurable improvement resulting from an outcome perceived as an advantage by one or more stakeholders.
Blue energy
Blue energy refers to all forms of renewable energy production from sea, including ocean energy (i.e. wave and tidal energy production, thermal energy conversion) and offshore wind energy production, and relevant technological developments.
Tags: Renewable energy ; Blue growth
Ref: “Value chain scheme for cooperation”, BLUENE report
For more information: DG Mare – Ocean Energy
Blue growth
Blue Growth is the long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole. It recognises that seas and oceans are drivers for the European economy with great potential for innovation and growth. It is the Integrated Maritime Policy’s contribution to achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
Tags: Blue energy
Bottom-up approach
A “bottom-up” approach is one that works from the grassroots—from a large number of people working together, causing a decision to arise from their joint involvement.
Tags: Top-down approach
Budget line
A set of cost centres that facilitates reporting on expenditure and revenue. Each cost item can be allocated to one budget line only, according to the nature of the cost. The Interreg MED Programme budget lines integrate the five categories of costs defined in Article 18 ETC Regulation (EU) 1299/2013. NOTE: The term budget line is used as an equivalent of the term category of expenditure used in the regulations.