Staff costs – Unit costs

Staff costs must be related to the project activities and the responsibilities of the staff member concerned.

Definition of a staff member in a project:
– a person employed by any of the partner organizations and have a task in the project activities.

Unit costs (regular projects call 7):
The hourly rate per country is the same for all staff no matter the position and the same unit cost are to be used throughout the duration of the project. The actual salary paid to the person is not relevant for reporting. The actual costs of the project partner and the sums reported and received from the programme will not match. This is a recognised feature of the Simplified Cost Options.

• Swedish partners = 534 SEK /hour
• Finnish partners = 39 EUR /hour
• Norwegian partners = 584 NOK /hour

Project partners have to complete, sign and deliver a report of hours and an employment confirmation per employee to verify staff costs in the payment applications. The signed documents shall be delivered as attachments to the payment applications. Templates will be available and mandatory.

• Report of hours – verifies the number of hours worked for the project. 
• Employment confirmation – verifies and confirms that the person is employed by the partner and working for the project. 

Project partners must report the staff costs based on the number of working hours that their employees need for project implementation under the following conditions:

• A project partner cannot declare more than 1,720 hours per full time employee per calendar year. This maximum number of hours is reduced to a pro- rata of 1,720 hours for employees working part-time. The maximum number of hours applies to all projects co-financed by Interreg Aurora. If the same employee works on several projects, the sum of productive hours declared for the employee in these projects cannot exceed 1,720 hours or the applicable pro-rata per calendar year. This maximum number of hours is also reduced to a pro-rata of 1 720 hours for reporting periods shorter than 12 months. The check will be done through the Report of hours document per reporting period; for a 6-month period the maximum allowed hours per each project staff member/employee will be 860.
• A project partner can report only actual (productive) hours that were worked and that were dedicated to project related tasks. Non-productive hours relating to holidays, sick leave, maternity leave, etc. are not eligible.

The programme accepts handwritten signatures and advanced and qualified e-signatures. If the document is signed by e-signature, make sure that the document contains metadata or traceable results of the e-signature validator.

Project partners have to keep on their premises, original employment contracts or equivalent employment documents of the persons whose working hours are the subject of the programme co-financing. Project partners do not have to attach those documents to the payment application, but they have to keep it available and deliver it upon request of the programme or any other authorised body (Audit Authority, European Commission, etc.).