Minutes of the TC2N First Steering Committee

Lille – July 11th 2011

Participants:

Magalie BENARD:

Myriam BERNAUDIN:

Lyke BOSMA:

Adèle BOURMAUD:

Hélène CASTEL:

Virginie CHAMEROY:

Leslie CHEVALIER:

Julien CHUQUET:

Pierre DECHELOTTE:

Aurélie DELEGLISE:

Ivor EBENEZER:

Edouard GATINEAU:

Pietro GHEZZI:

Paolo GIACOBINI:

Olivier KAH:

Jean-Claude LE MEVEL:

Emmanuelle MARIE:

Eric MAUBERT:

Vincent PREVOT:

Frank SCHUBERT:

Charles TYLER:

Floor VAN OORT:

Peter VANDENABEELE:

David VAUDRY:

  • 9 h 30 – 12

After an introduction by Vincent Prévot of the Neuroscience research in Lille, the morning was devoted to short presentations of the teams and core facilities involved in the project.

List of the people who have presented their activity and research interest:

-Vincent PREVOT

-Peter VANDENABEELE

-Pietro GHEZZI

-Ivor EBENEZER

-Charles TYLER

-Pierre DECHELOTTE

-Floor VAN OORT

-Magalie BENARD

-Adèle BOURMAUD

-Hélène CASTEL

-Olivier KAH

-Jean-Claude LE MEVEL

-Frank SCHUBERT

-David VAUDRY

  • 13 h 30 – 16 h

It has been decided that the presentation,that David Vaudry prepared for the afternoon discussion,regarding the different aspects of the project, would be sent to all participants. Further information (PPT documents, excel files…) provided by JTS at the Lead Partner Seminar (01/07/2011) are available in the news section of the TC2N web site.

After a brief review of the objectives of the project, various aspects regarding the activities, the administrative duties and the financial aspects of the project have been discussed as reported below:

-Cooperation activities

It has been discussed that for each activity, we would like to identify a coordinator who will contribute to writing the report of the activities. It was reiterated that each activity is associated with deliverables as indicated in the project application. Most of the time so far was devoted to the preparation of the application. Nevertheless, some activities have already been conducted (conferences for the lay public, copy of protocols, press release...). David Vaudry reminded participants that all information related to these activities needs to be e-mailed to Leslie Chevalier ()to be annexed to the report.

Planned activities include: Science festival, Larc Neuroscience Meeting, workshop ‘Software for data analysis in cellular Imaging in Rouen, genomic and proteomic’, Brain Awareness Week,Workshop ‘Experimental models of brain diseases: Stroke, Glioma and Multiple Sclerosis’ in Caen. See PDF document (TC2N 1st Steering Committee 2011 07 11) e-mailed by Leslie Chevalier on July 15, 2011.

-Partner coordinator

When several teams are affiliated to the same partner, it has been discussed that a coordinator has to be identified (in particular for partners comprising several teams). It has been proposed that David Vaudry coordinates for INSERM and Rouen University. Darek Gorecki will coordinate for Portsmouth. Floor van Oort will coordinate for Rotterdam. A coordinator for CNRS still needs to be designated.

-Mailing list (list of people involved, affiliation, category)

A word document has been proposed to collect the details ofthe project participants and to identify their implication in the project. This Word document has been e-mailed to the participants of the meeting and other people in our mailing list. It should be completed by team members (statutory and students) involved in the project. Leslie will collect the documents and will implement a database. People in this database will receive a log in and PWD to access the restricted area of the TC2N website.

-Partnership agreement and subsidy contract

The partnership agreement was explained by Virginie Chameroy. The partnership agreement contains 2 parts. Part A has been written by the JTS and cannot be modified. Part B can be modified. Virginie Chameroy will make a proposal based on a partnership agreement from another Interreg project and proposed by Sussex University.The possibility of having the partnership agreement only in English was discussed. After the meeting, Floor van Oort confirmed that we do not need the Flemish version.

Voting rules have been discussed. It has been decided that some decision should be taken at team levels while some others should be at partner levels. This point will be included in the partnership agreement.

It has been reminded that all documents have to be kept until December 2025.

-Auditor recruitment

The procedure for the recruitment of the auditor was explained, with input from the JTS representatives that were participating at the meeting (see power point document). Some additional information with useful links has been provided by e mail by Lyke Bosma after the meeting. Briefly, before contracting with the auditor, in UK, NL and FR it has to be approved bythe respective authority. If internal, auditor has to be professionally independent from the unit dealing with the activities and finances (accounting, salary calculations and payment orders). The auditor must come at least once on site. The auditor of the lead partner will verify that the audit of the partners has been done properly. A second level audit is possible. Five percent of the expenditures of the program get audited at second level. Such audit would involve the lead partner and one of the partners. We need to make a first payment claim as soon as possible but we need the partnership agreement to be signed before this first payment claim occurs. If it takes time, this first payment claim could involve only INSERM (Lead Partner). The other partners would then declare all their expenditures at the second claim which should be started by the end of the year.

-Preparation of first and second payment claim

All information related to the activities of the project need to be collected. For the first payment, information will probably be related to the preparation of the project. Information regarding the planned activities over the next 6 months should also be provided.

Regarding the question of saving empty chemical bottles, Lyke Bosman indicated that it is not necessary to save them to ensure a transparent audit trail. But, evidence of the payment (such as invoices) must be kept and prove of the use for the project must be available.

-Financial report

Each partner has to provide a financial report using an excel file provided by the JTS. The compilation of these reports will be used to make the project financial report.

If a major modification is needed, it can be requested but will have to be justified based on the activities of the project. We can only request 2 major modifications during the life of the project.

For the indirect costs (overheads), the administrations need to be able to provide pro-rata calculation (supported by self-certification statements, overall supporting documents, etc...). Otherwise, the administration must provide invoices or other equivalent accounting documents directly attributable to the project or project staff to justify direct general costs.

-Communication aspects

It has been reminded that all information related to the project (press release, photos, article mentioning the Interreg support, posters or oral presentation mentioning the Interreg support, protocols…) should be sent to Leslie Chevalier. In the future, each team will be able to upload the information on the TC2N website.

It has been proposed to include some Flemish pages on the web site but the text will have to be provided by partners from Gent or Rotterdam.It has also been proposed that the web site includes a forum. The web site could propose some recorded video conferences. David Vaudry would like that the person recruited in Portsmouth to help for the management of the project, contributes to the implementation of the TC2N and LARC-Neuroscience websites in coordination with the website developer that will be recruited in Rouen.

The obligations in terms of publicity of the programme were emphasised. The minimum requirement is to include the European logo in all publications, but a cartouche has also been presented which contains all informations requested by Interreg. A french, english and flemish version of this cartouche has been mailed to participants by Leslie after the meeting.

JTS reminded participants that it is necessary to provide a description of our communication strategy with the 2nd progress report. This point has to be discussed at the second steering committee.

It has been indicated that a budget would be allocated to the communication (flyer, USB key, neuroscience letter…). Several people have highlighted that a brochure presenting the project for the lay public and SMEs should be the first thing to set up.

-2nd steering committee and 15th Annual Meeting of the LARC-Neuroscience network in Rennes

The next steering committee will take place in Rennes on October 27, 2011, just before the 15th Annual meeting of the LARC-Neuroscience network. People should propose David Vaudry some issues they want to address during this second meeting.

-3rd steering committee (and the following)

Myriam Bernaudin proposed that steering committee number 3 could take place in Caen on April 6th, 2012.

Frank Schubert proposed that steering committee number 4 could take place in Portsmouth on October 2012, just before the LARC-Neuroscience meeting.

David Vaudryindicated that he would like to organise with Serguei Fetissov the 17th LARC-Neuroscience meeting in Rouen and proposed that steering committee number 6 could take place in Rouen on October 2013, just before this meeting.

Peter Vandenabeel proposed that steering committee number 7 could take place in Gent as well as the final conference.

-16th Annual Meeting of the LARC-Neuroscience network in Portsmouth (2012)

The Portsmouth delegates renewed their interest to organise the 2012 LARC-Neuroscience meeting in Portsmouth. It has been discussed that 12000 to 14000 € could be used to allocate travelling support to students participating to the LARC-Neuroscience meeting in Portsmouth. The procedures for allocating should be discussed at the 2nd steering committee.

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