When exactly does a Grant Agreement get signed?

Only after your proposal is selected for funding, during the Grant Agreement Preparation phase on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. The coordinator finalises the Description of Action and budget, the granting authority runs legal and financial checks on every participant, then the Coordinator and the EU sign electronically — the EU's signature is what brings the Grant Agreement into force. Other beneficiaries join afterwards through Accession Forms, due within 30 days of entry into force.

Do we need a formal amendment every time something changes?

No. Small administrative changes — organisation name, address, bank account — are updated directly in the Participant Register, no amendment needed. A formal amendment is required only for changes the Annotated Grant Agreement lists as such, such as a new coordinator, an added beneficiary, or a change to Annex 1 or Annex 2 beyond agreed budget flexibility; the Coordinator submits it and the granting authority then has 45 days to accept or reject it.

What is a Grant Agreement?

A Grant Agreement (GA) is the legal contract signed between the European Commission (or an EU agency acting as granting authority, such as EUSPA) and a project's coordinator once a proposal — under Horizon Europe, the EU Space Programme, the European Defence Fund or another EU funding programme — is selected for funding. It fixes the description of work (Annex 1), the estimated budget (Annex 2), the project's start date, reporting periods and payment schedule, and the rules the consortium must follow until the project closes. Other beneficiaries don't sign the Grant Agreement itself — they join it through Accession Forms.

Getting from selection to signature

Once a proposal is selected, work moves into the Grant Agreement Preparation phase inside the Portal's Grant Management System. The coordinator finalises the Description of Action with input from every partner, while the granting authority runs legal, financial and non-exclusion checks on each participant. The Portal locks in the start date, reporting periods, the pre-financing amount and any grant-specific options. Signature runs through a "chain of trust": each beneficiary's nominated signatory signs a declaration of honour, the coordinator's signatory signs the Grant Agreement itself, and an EU Authorising Officer countersigns last — that final signature brings the Grant Agreement into force. Other beneficiaries never sign the GA directly; each accedes via an Accession Form, due within 30 days of entry into force.

Annexes and reporting periods

A Grant Agreement is a short core legal text plus a stack of annexes: Annex 1 is the Description of Action, Annex 2 (and 2a) the estimated budget, plus declarations of honour and other programme-specific annexes. Its Data Sheet fixes how many reporting periods the project runs on. Each period ends with a periodic report — a technical report (structured Part A data plus a narrative Part B on progress and deviations) and a financial report of individual and consolidated financial statements — due 60 days after the period closes, with payment following within 90 days. The final period's report doubles as the project's closing report.

Amendments, and what a Grant Agreement isn't

Formal changes — a new coordinator, an added or replaced beneficiary, changes to Annex 1 or Annex 2 beyond agreed flexibility — go through a formal amendment: prepared together by the consortium but launched and submitted only by the coordinator, with the granting authority given 45 days to accept or reject it. Bidding for ESA procurement instead? None of this applies — ESA places contracts under its own General Clauses and Conditions, not a Grant Agreement, though both are non-repayable, non-equity funding. The European Defence Fund and EU Space Programme grants, by contrast, use the same mechanism as Horizon Europe.

Official source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal — Grant preparation, Grant signature, Amendments and Reports and payment requests.

Written by Tymofiy Badikov, founder of VIRA.space (Virtual Innovation Research Assistant) — operated by Space Tech Gateway Sp. z o.o., Kraków Technology Park. VIRA tracks live European space funding calls and checks your eligibility free: see live tenders.