The need for simplification and reduction of administrative burden for beneficiaries of the ESI funds have been already widely recognised – it is time to move on to its practical implementation. Simplified cost options (SCOs) allow focusing on the projects’ content for achieving results with less bureaucracy, reduction of costs of controls and  decreasing the level of potential errors. 

However, so far SCOs were mainly a topic from a purely finance perspective. It is time to change that. Project and programme finances cannot be looked upon separately from the content and this is why the event aims at bringing in both PROJECT and FINANCE OFFICERS to join forces in building the SCOs and ‘shipping’ them into the real world. This 1,5 days workshop will be a platform for participants to connect, exchange on their programmes’ experience with SCOs, to jointly work on designing the new SCOs. We will use different methods: brainstorming and generating fresh ideas, looking from different angles at things we used to do in a traditional way, trying to build SCOs in small groups, analysing different types of projects and projects’ activities and matching them to the relevant SCOs.

As an outcome of the workshop, we expect participants to get ideas (traditional and new ones) on how to implement and make the best use of SCOs in their programmes.

Relevant results will also be shared with the HIT network for the next programming period.

 

Objectives

During this meeting, you WILL NOT:

• learn about basic features of SCOs – you are expected to be familiar with the options available or to be a practitioner, an active ‘user’ of the SCOs in your programme,
• discuss the benefits of using SCOs – advantages they offer are taken for granted as a point of departure when you decide for the meeting.

 

Instead, during this event you WILL:

• examine how to approach and how to build good methodologies for different SCOs (a step-by-step journey from A to Z),
• discuss which simplified cost option is best suited for which type of projects, project’s activities, beneficiaries,
• generate ideas (Interreg-specific SCOs – why not?),
• potentially establish an Interreg working group on SCOs.

 

Target group

The event is dedicated and limited to the experienced Interreg programmes’ project and finance officers. To ensure participation of a wide range of programmes, the participation is limited to 2 representatives per programme (involved in finance and/or content).