Morten Møller, vedúci Unit-u ICT Operations Unit (C5) DG Information Society and Media, vysvetľuje ako funguje proces právnej a finančnej legalizácie organizácie v 7. RP. Vysvetlenie dáva na podnet viacerých účastníkov a je nasledovné:
In the past, participants had to provide to the Commission their legal and financial information every time they submitted a proposal or negotiated a contract.
Under FP7 the process has been simplified and organisations now only need to register their legal data once via in the Unique Registration Facility (URF) hosted in the Participant Portal (except if the legal data changes for the organisation). The organisations also need to annually to deliver updates of their financial information justifying the financial capacity of coordinators or beneficiaries receiving an EC contribution above €500 000).
Once the legal information has been submitted by the organisation, a temporary Participant Identification Code (PIC) is assigned and the validation services of the Research Executive Agency (REA) - managing the FP7 central participants database on behalf of the Commission - proceed with the validation of the legal entity. Upon validation, the Participants Identification Code is confirmed (the final PIC) and communicated to that organisation.
In handling all validation requests, the REA gives priority to requests linked to projects currently under negotiation and the handling time for validations can therefore vary significantly.
Organisations which are uncertain on the progress of their validation requests, especially when this risks to result in delays on ongoing negotiations, often contact their NCP on this matter. The REA therefore suggests to NCPs to advise these organisations to raise their concerns to the REA instead directly via the e-mail address: REA-UEF-Validation@ec.europe.eu by specifying in the "subject line" of the e-mail the temporary PIC number of the organisation and, when available, the project number to which the beneficiary is participating. A member of the team will then respond to that organisation in the shortest possible delays.