Role assignment in the Funding & Tender Opportunities Portal

There are two main categories:

• Organisation roles: These roles relate to the entire organisation and its data, but do not grant access to projects/contracts. This category includes audit roles, which are only assigned in case of an audit.
• Project/contract roles: These roles are assigned for each project/Grant Agreement (GA) separately and grant various different rights (read, write and/or submit).

Some roles are assigned automatically based on information provided in the project proposal. Most roles can be assigned by the organisation as required. One person can have several roles at the same time.

However, the following two roles are a mandatory requirement of the EU Commission:

• LEAR (Legal Entity Appointed Representative) – organisation role
  The LEAR serves as the administrative contact for the EU Commission. In addition to being responsible for all organisation-related data on the Portal, the LEAR also has certain appointment rights (e.g. LSIGN, FSIGN; Please note: The LSIGN and FSIGN role for a specific project/GA is assigned by the CoCo or PaCo of the project/GA concerned).
  There can only be one LEAR per organisation, which is validated by the Validation Service of the EU Commission.
• PCoCo (Primary Coordinator Contact) – project role
  This role denotes the main person responsible for submitting requests, reports and notifications to the EU Commission on behalf of the consortium.
  There can only be one PCoCo per project.

Here is an overview of the individual roles:

Source: Online Manual of the EU Commission

Organisation roles

• LEAR (Legal Entity Appointed Representative): see above
• Self-registrant: person who first registers an organisation in the Participant Register before the LEAR is validated
• Account Administrator: supports the LEAR in fulfilling its tasks
• LSIGN (Legal Signatory): nominated by the LEAR or an Account Administrator; can be assigned to a particular project by the CoCo or PaCo
• FSIGN (Financial Signatory): see LSIGN
• PAuCo and AuCo ((Primary) Audit Contact): Nomination only in case of an audit; LEAR is automatically assigned as PAuCo and nominates further (P)AuCos.

Project roles

• (P)CoCo ((Primary) Coordinator Contact): main contact point between the consortium and the EU Commission for a particular project
• PaCo (Participant Contact): representative of any other organisation in the consortium that is not the coordinating organisation
• TaMa (Task Manager): can perform some restricted tasks
• TeMe (Team Member): limited access rights (search and read-only access) possible
• PLSIGN (Project Legal Signatory): as the right to sign grant agreements (GA) and amendments on behalf of the organisation
• PFSIGN (Project Financial Signatory): has the right to sign financial statements (Form C) on behalf of the organisation

Please note: There are some deviations for ERC and MSCA actions.

Questions and Answers

Question: How is a new LEAR appointed when the existing one leaves the organisation?

Answer: The new LEAR is validated directly by the Validation Services without having to register the organisation again. In this respect, the procedure described in the Online Manual of the EU Commission needs to be followed.

Question: What can be done if access to the validated PIC of the organisation is lost?

Answer: Primarily, the LEAR and/or the "account administrators" of the organisation should be contacted. If the LEAR is not available (anymore) and there are no "account administrators", a new LEAR must be appointed for the organisation.
Under this link you will optain limited access to a specific section of the "Participant Register" where you can encode the necessary data and generate, sign and upload the required documents for the new appointment of the LEAR.
After submission of the documents, you will be able to directly contact the Validation Service of the EU Commission.

Detailed information can be found in the FAQ of the EU Commission.

Question: Where can I find information related to the roles "Primary Audit Contact (PAUCO)" as well as "Audit Contact (AUCO)"?

Answer: In the Online Manual of the EU-Commission under "Roles and access rights".

Question: Do non-beneficiaries ("third parties") have to get roles in the Portal as well?

Answer: No, non-beneficiaries (e.g. subcontractors, affiliated entities, associated partners) do not need any roles, as they do not get access to the Portal. All necessary steps in the Portal need to be undertaken by the coordinator or rather beneficiary.