The glossary of key terms

Beneficiary - a natural or legal person implementing a project financed with the state budget or foreign sources on the basis of a decision or agreement on the project cofinancing.

Co-financing - direct payment of non-commercial nature, made to a particular beneficiary in order to make it possible for him to take adequate actions and finance some part of the project’s budget. Forms of payment have been defined in several decrees of the Minister of Regional Development. Co-financing have several forms:

1. partial reimbursement of costs eligible for support which have been already borne by the beneficiary,
   
2. whole amount of co-financing in form of prepayment in one or several tranches,
   
3. part of granted co-financing in form of prepayment in one or several tranches but the rest of co-financing is provided as reimbursement of some of the costs which have been borne earlier by the beneficiary
   
   

Implementing Authority - a public or private body entrusted with tasks related directly to beneficiaries under an operational programme.

Managing Authority - an body responsible for the development and implementation of an operational programme.

Competition procedure - recruitment and evaluation of project applications. It may be held on a continuous basis until a specified amount of funds is used up or in cycles with the starting and closing dates of the call for project applications set in advance.

Eligibility of expenditure - meeting of cost-related criteria under operational programmes: compliance with the provisions of a given operational programme as set forth by the Managing Authority and with other terms and conditions laid down for the particular source of financing. All the costs must be justified.

Formal evaluation - verification of the applicant’s eligibility, completeness of documentation and of the date of submission of application. Failure to meet any of the formal evaluation criteria results in a rejection of the application or the project provider is requested to complete and correct the application.

Technical evaluation - verification of the documentation prepared by the project provider in terms of satisfaction of the criteria set for a  given measure and the project’s compliance with the objective and scope of the operational programme.

Project - a project implemented under an operational programme on the basis of a decision or a co-financing agreement.

Reimbursement of expenditure - refund of the expenditure incurred in the course of project implementation. The refund is based on an  application for payment drawn up on the basis of invoices or accounting documents of equivalent probative value in the form of periodic payments or payment of the final balance.

Own contribution - the portion of expenditure incurred by the beneficiary on the project implementation, which is not subject to a refund.

Application for payment - an application submitted by the beneficiary to the authority responsible for the implementation of the measure concerned, based on which the expenditure actually incurred and duly documented, closely related to the project delivery, is refunded.