Ich habe mir kürzlich das LIFE+ Programm der EU angesehen. Im aktuellen Call mit einer Deadline Ende November 2007 werden grenzüberschreitende Partnerschaften in kritischer Offenheit betrachtet.
Im “General Application Guide” finden sich auf Seite 12 folgende Zeilen:
Projects involving partnerships between beneficiaries are only encouraged when this partnership brings an added value to the project. A meaningful collaboration can be expected for instance when the partnership strengthens the feasibility or the demonstration character of the proposal, its European added value and/or the transferability of its results and lessons learnt.
Overall, the experience of the previous LIFE programmes has shown that multi-beneficiary projects are more difficult to manage and involve higher technical and financial risks. It is therefore strongly advised to keep the number of associated beneficiaries in a proposal to the necessary minimum. It is generally recommended not to involve more than 5 associated beneficiaries in a LIFE+ proposal. Should the proposal involve more, this should be explicitly justified.
There is no obligation to involve associated beneficiaries in a LIFE+ proposal. A proposal that is submitted without any other participant other than the coordinating beneficiary itself is perfectly eligible. On the other hand, a beneficiary should not hesitate to associate other beneficiaries if this would bring an added value to the project.
Die Aussage, dass Projekte mit zahreichen Partnern schwierig zu managen sind und größere Risiken in sich bergen, ist richtig. Allerdings steht sie im Widerspruch zu sonstigen EU-Programmen. Üblicherweise ist die Einbeziehung von Partnern aus verschiedenen EU-Ländern ein Aspekt der “europäischen Dimension” eines Projekts. Daraus eine Änderung der Förderpolitik abzuleiten dürfte allerdings verfrüht sein.