Complementing Implementation Rules of the “Fund Management Measures for National Key R&D Programmes”

On 29 September 2020, the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the Complementing Implementation Rules of the “Fund Management Measures for National Key R&D Programmes” (Guo Ke Fa Zi [2017] No. 261). The Complementing Implementation Rules provide additional provisions to the Fund Management Measures for National Key R&D Programmes (Cai Ke Jiao [2016] No. 113) published in March 2017, and include two main documents:

• Budget Preparation Guidelines for National Key R&D Programmes: outlining the specific definition, requirements, instructions, procedures and templates for drafting budget proposals to be submitted by applicants to NKP calls.
• Budget Evaluation Norms for National Key R&D Programmes: illustrating the mechanisms, criteria, procedures and methods through which budget proposals are evaluated:
  • Mechanisms: In general, evaluation of NKP proposals is divided into two main legs:
    • Technical evaluation (i.e. specific research tasks and deliverables): conducted by the NKPs’ project management agencies;
    • Financial evaluation of the budget proposals submitted by applicants in order to deliver the technical targets: conducted objectively, independently and impartially by external professional auditors entrusted by the NKPs’ project management agencies.
    • Passing the financial evaluation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the final approval of NKP proposals, as one proposal might have a strong and rational budget but lack the necessary technical targets indicated by the NKP tender guidelines);
  • Evaluation criteria:
    • Conformance of the proposed budget’s expenditure scope and standards with relevant national financial regulations and fund management measures;
    • Relevance of the budget proposal with the NKP’s R&D tasks, objectives, and content;
    • Rationality and feasibility of the budget proposal.
  • Evaluation procedures are divided as following:
    • The entrusted external auditor selects five to nine experts from the national S&T experts pool; around one-third of which should be experts from financial or management fields, the remaining being technology experts;
    • Preliminary evaluation: within 15 days, the external auditor conducts a preliminary round of evaluation of the budget proposals of those shortlisted applicants selected by the NKP’s project management agencies. The preliminary evaluation focuses on “direct expenses” (in contrast to “indirect expenses”, which are automatically calculated according to certain percentages);
    • Feedback after preliminary evaluation: the NKP’s project management agency submits its feedback to the applicant via the national S&T service platform, and eventually requests further clarifications and explanations;
    • Final evaluation: after receiving further clarifications, a final evaluation of budget proposals is conducted through peer review;
    • Conclusion and reporting: the final evaluation outcome of the external auditor is formally written in a stamped ad hoc report, to be submitted to the NKP’s project management agency.
  • Evaluation methods include the following:
    • Policy comparison: assessment of the conformity of the budget proposals with relevant policies, financial and audit regulations;
    • Objectives and tasks comparison: assessment of the relevance of the budget proposals with the objectives and research tasks indicated by the NKP tender guidelines;
    • Survey method: assessment of the rationality of proposed budget through a survey of expenditure standards and costs of similar research activities in the same sector;
    • Experts’ experience: assessment of the rationality of the proposed budget according to the evaluation experts’ experience and understanding of budget expenditure and patterns;
    • Reference to previous cases: assessment of the rationality of proposed budget expenditure through review of previous similar cases in the same sector;
    • “Backstepping” of expected outputs: assessment of the rationality of proposed budget according to the value of expected outputs specified in the project proposal.
  • Quality control measures. External auditors should:
    • Establish a set of principles that evaluating experts should respect;
    • Organise trainings for evaluating experts;
    • Constantly monitor all evaluation procedures to ensure the timely completion of evaluation tasks as required;
    • Adopt the necessary measures to ensure an independent, objective and impartial evaluation;
    • Adopt the necessary measures to avoid and punish conflicts of interest or bad practices;
    • Keep records of all phases and procedures of evaluation.

External link:

http://www.most.gov.cn/tztg/201709/t20170929_135160.htm

See also:

Interim Measures for the Management of National Key R&D Programmes

Fund Management Measures for National Key R&D Programmes