What does co-financing mean in the context of funding?

Question

I'm applying for funding for a joint R&D project between a university and a company. One of the terms from the funding agency is as follows:

The project must be co-financed with at least 150% and can consist of both companies 'and public actors' wage costs for the eligible activities carried out. When calculating the value of employee hours with the project partners, a fixed hourly rate of EUR 50 or actual salary is used.

How am I to understand what "co-financing" means? Does it imply that if the funding agency provides X amount, the recipients (either academic or industrial) should match that amount with 1.5×X?

EDIT: Here is the call.

Answer 1

Does it imply that if the funding agency provides X amount, the recipients (either academic or industrial) should match that amount with 1.5×X

Yes, that's likely what co-financing means. Co-financing means that there is a requirement that recipients of the funds (or, more accurately, their employers) are expected to contribute a certain amount of resources themselves. This can be either in money or through "in-kind" contributions, for instance staff dedicated to the project.

That said, the details of such co-funding agreements vary (and are very important). I don't speak Danish, so I can't say how your call specifically works, but questions you should resolve before applying include:

• Is co-funding required for academic partners, industry partners, or both ? It's common to have a different co-funding requirement for different types of partners (not rarely with a co-funding rate of 0% for universities).
• Is co-funding calculated across the entire project volume, or per partner? Is it ok if one partner contributed 2X and another partner 0X as long as it's >= 1.5X overall?
• What kind of co-funding is required? Does staff delegated to the project count? Do software licenses count?
• How strict are they in checking co-funding requirements after the project ends? Will you be in trouble / will you need to reimburse money if your project ends up using too much of the funded money and too little of the co-funding / in-kind contributions?

All in all, I recommend that you talk with your economist or somebody else in your institution with experience with this call before handing in your proposal.