ESA UNCLASSIFIED – For ESA Official Use Only

Appendix 4 to
ESA CfP/5-50054/23/NL/MH/yd
FAQs
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ESA CfP/ CfP/5-50083/24/NL/MH/yd

First Fixed Call for Proposals under the Requesting Party Activity (RPA) in
Poland

Activity No 1000040746 in in the ‘’esa-star’’ system

24 June 2024

The Agency would like to draw your attention to the following list of frequently asked
questions and their corresponding answers.

Contents
Administrative ............................................................................................................................ 1
Budget & Industry co-funding .................................................................................................... 1
Key Personnel ............................................................................................................................. 3
Consortium structure ................................................................................................................. 4
PSS forms.................................................................................................................................... 4
Project duration ......................................................................................................................... 5
Publicity material on ESA projects .............................................................................................. 5
Intellectual Property Rights .................................................................................................... 5

Administrative
Question 1: What should the proposal number be? Should this include the esa-star reference
number?
Answer 1: The proposal number is the bidder’s unique internal identifier/reference number for
the proposal; it is not the same as the esa-star reference for the Call for Proposals.

Budget & Industry co-funding

Question 1: How to address labour / work contributions of people already working at the
institution submitting the proposal, i.e. staff whose payment is already refunded from other
sources of national funding?

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Appendix 4 to
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FAQs
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Answer 1: In this event, the bidder shall state any co-funding in place from other sources of
national funding. The hourly rate of the staff should be presented to reflect the reality of the
hourly costs of the staff used for the project. Please include an explanation note to clarify/justify
the hourly rate used in the proposal. This information should be presented in relation to the
job function / labour category, not specifically to individuals.

Question 2: Is it allowed to include labour price for new employment, i.e. new staff working
on the project 100% of the time?

Answer 2: Yes, this is allowed. No distinction is made by ESA. ESA expects to pay for the
needed man hours to perform the work under the Contract.

Question 3: Is the procurement of equipment (i.e. full price) eligible for the budget, or only the
partial costs during the project implementation?

Answer 3: The procurement of equipment is authorised as long as it is clearly justified for the
sole need of the activity. However, please note that the procurement of infrastructure and
generic tools or equipment (Hardware and Software), which should be already available or
could be reasonably expected to be needed for an entity with the stated background and
expertise, is considered out of scope of the Call and not eligible for the budget. In any case,
the equipment details must be filled out in the relevant sections of PSS-A2 and Exhibit A to
PSS-A2.

In addition, all items produced or purchased under the Contract, including electronic
components, special jigs, tools, test equipment, which are paid for under the Contract with an
individual or batch / assembly value (value of group of items / prototype) equivalent to or above
five thousand (5,000) Euro are to be considered “deliverables” to the Contract and as such
must be physically delivered to ESA in the end of the activity and cannot be used for any
purpose except that of the Contract.

Question 4: Attention is drawn to the fact that partners from other Participating/Member
States are limited to 20% of the Firm Fixed Price (FFP) project budget; however, are there any
budget thresholds or recommendations for national partners that are also registered in the
subject Participating/Member State?

Answer 4: There are no limitations to the share of the cost of the activity to subcontractors
which are also registered in the same Member State. The limit of 20% is for the sum total of
the subcontracted work going outside of the Member State with regard to the FFP. However,
it is required that the Prime contractor is responsible for the most significant core part of the
work and effort. Additionally, the long-term reoccurring benefits of the work should remain
within the Participating/Member State. In particular, bidders are reminded that the Intellectual
Property Rights (IPRs) of what is being pursued with the activity must lead to a
product/application/service with national IPRs (please refer to the Cover Letter) owned by the
Prime, with subcontractors registered in the subject Participating/Member State being entitled
to the ownership of IPRs too, as long as the IPRs remain within the subject

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FAQs
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Participating/Member State. For the sake of clarity, it is further noted that “external services”
supporting the work (e.g. consultancy, test services, launch services etc.) are not considered
in this 20% limit, which strictly relates to subcontractor relationships.

Key Personnel
Question 1: Can the bidder propose employment of additional employee(s) after the project
is granted?

Answer 1: The proposal shall present the overall team composition, including a description of
the key and non-key personnel, details on their reporting lines, their tasks, position and
authority.
In case some non-key employees have not yet been hired, the proposal should clearly explain
the intended tasks and needed competences of the new personnel as well as the intended
recruitment timeline and process.
CVs for all key personnel must be included as part of the tender. The CVs may not be
submitted by the Tenderers as part of the proposal document. They shall be submitted
separately in the dedicated Curriculum Vitae folder in esa-star. This is a requirement by the
ESA Data Protection Policy to ensure that personal data, which is shared with ESA, is
appropriately protected and deleted by the system upon expiration of the retention period. In
case a key person is not yet hired, the recruitment timeline and process must be described.
The recruitment must be completed, and key personnel nomination approved by ESA before
a Contract for the activity can be signed with ESA.
The Contractor is allowed to propose a replacement of the key personnel who shall possess
equivalent qualifications to the key personnel being replaced. The Agency may raise an
objection for justified reasons within (10) ten days from having received the notification for
replacement. If the Agency deems that the key personnel does not have equivalent
qualifications to the key personnel being replaced, and the Contractor is not able to select
such candidate for the future execution of the activity, the Agency may terminate the contract.

Question 2: How to treat a key person who is employed at another esa-star registered
institution (i.e. other faculty at the same university). Is it correct that this is not considered
subcontracting, since no procurement will be made?

Answer 2: The decision to include a subcontractor is not linked to the existence of a

procurement agreement. In the case of one single person providing consultancy to the project,
depending on the nature/level of the contribution the person may either be hired by the
company or loaned by the cooperating faculty/organisation or be contracted as external
service. External services are defined as services to be rendered by a third party, such as hire
of facilities, computer services, manpower services including consultancies, semiconductor
foundries, plating of parts, services for procurement of HIREL parts, etc.
External services are allowed in a proposal provided that they represent a small fraction of the
total cost of the activity and are necessary to run the activity (justification is needed). In any
case, for costing visibility, it is necessary to fill in Exhibit A to PSS-A2, in addition to PSS-A1,
PSS-A2 and PSS-A8.

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A clear description of the scope of work shall be provided for any consultancy that is an
external service.

ESA requires direct employment or subcontracting if the expert is contributing to the

generation of IPRs and, in this case, external services are not permitted.

Consortium structure
Question 1: Would a consortium where the company is the prime contractor (and providing
its own co-funding) and the end user (also providing co-funding) is the sub-contractor be
deemed appropriate by ESA?

Answer 1: The structure of the team needs to be a prime contractor with subcontractors. Each
entity in the consortium may provide their own co-funding or the prime may provide the entirety
of the co-funding. However, attention is drawn to the fact that the core of the work and the
rights to further exploit and commercialise the products and services resulting from the work
should reside with the prime.

Question 2: If the Prime contractor intends to involve a Canadian partner (Canada is a

Cooperating State), can it be accepted?

Answer 2: Yes, a Canadian partner is allowed within the budgetary and programmatic
constraints.

Question 3: for Type B and Type C activities the Prime contractorship must be led by industry
and must include a potential end customer.

Does it mean that end customer must be included in the consortium as subcontractor?

Answer 3: The potential end customer can be either a subcontractor or an external service.
In case of external service, a letter of support should be provided.

PSS forms
Question 1:
In the header of the PSS Forms, what shall be the contractual phase for the subcontractor’s
PSS-A2 and PSS-A8 forms, when the subcontractor is responsible for only one work
package?

Answer 1:
The line “Contractual Phase” in the header of the PSS Forms does not need to be filled in if
the proposed work is not organised in contractual phases.

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FAQs
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The PSS Forms of the subcontractor shall reflect the total Firm Fixed Price to be paid to the
subcontractor for the scope of the work assigned to the entity as part of the activity.

Project duration
Question 1: Can the duration of a Type B activity be longer or shorter than 18-36 months, as
stated in the Cover Letter?

Answer 1: Paragraph 4 of the Cover Letter indicates the expected duration of the activities
according to their type. Deviation from this duration is possible, however, it shall be duly
explained and justified for the proposed programme of work.

Publicity material on ESA projects

Question 1: Is it allowed to publish public relations (PR) / promotional material on activities
regarding proposals submitted to ESA?
Answer 1: No publicity material should be published until a Contract is signed by both parties.
After the signature of a Contract, it is allowed to publish PR material provided that it takes into
account the guidelines laid out in the Contract (usually to be found in Article 1.3.6).
Bidders are invited to refer, for the preparation of publicity material, to the web link
https://brand.esa.int/logo. There, bidders can find the logos to be downloaded and used with
the disclaimers specified in the Contract. Anything beyond standard flyers, power points and
the deliverables planned in the contract should be shown to the ESA Branding and
Partnerships team prior to authorising the start of promotional work (e.g. videos, exhibits,
apparel: t-shirts, face masks, etc.). Bidders may prepare the proposal which would need to be
sent to [email protected]. They can check the compliance with the ESA brand
manual. Promotional material is at the expense of the project team and should NOT be
included in the activity costing.

Intellectual Property Rights

Question 1: If, in a consortium, the prime intends to use Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)
developed under a previous ESA Contract, are they to be considered Background IPRs or
Foreground IPRs?

Answer 1: Any IPRs developed a previous ESA Contract are deemed Foreground IPRs
(FIPRs) for the purpose of a new Contract.

Question 2: In case of consortia, are subcontractors entitled to claim ownership of FIPRs, or

should the Prime alone own all the FIPRs?

Answer 2: Subcontractors generating FIPRs can claim ownership thereof insofar as the
company is registered in the subject Participating/Member State.