The European Association of Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO) and other technology bodies have established a blog, “Meeus A self-help information resource for the FP7 user community”, which can be found at www.meeusfp7.eu. The aim is to answer questions concerning the FP7 research programme.
In particular, the blog provides background on the Desca consortium agreement for parties involved in FP7 projects.
These agreements cover the internal organisation of the consortium (eg membership of management bodies, voting rights, settlement of disputes between partners); the distribution of the Community financial contribution (eg when should the project coordinator distribute advance payments from the Commission to the other partners?); the management of intellectual property and access rights to results (eg when, and on what terms, should access to results be provided to other partners and their affiliates?); and liability and confidentiality arrangements between partners (eg the extent of liability of the partners to one another and towards third parties).
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
