For both Doctoral INPhINIT fellows and Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellows, the institution has 2 months from the end of each period (annuity) to complete the justification on the Audit platform https://audits.fundacionlacaixa.org

Whenever a fellow incurs in any situation of temporary suspension of the fellowship, the institution must inform the "la Caixa" Foundation by e-mail as soon as possible.

In such cases, the fellowship period affected by the leave shall be extended by the number of days of the leave. When filling in the justification for this period:

• - during the leave, no labour costs can be charged to the fellowship


• - the dates and supporting documentation of the suspension situation should also be uploaded on the Audit Platform when doing the justification


• - in the case of the Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellowship: research costs, including personnel costs (other persons hired with the fellowship), can be charged during the fellow's leave.

It should be noted that reductions in working hours are considered as active fellowship and therefore do not imply suspension of the fellowship.

The institution must inform the "la Caixa" Foundation by e-mail of any fellow's withdrawal, as soon as the institution becomes aware of it, and at least 3 months in advance (in the case of the Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellowship).

The "la Caixa" Foundation will proceed to modify, accordingly, the periods of the fellowship on the Audit platform, making the fellowship end on the effective date of withdrawal indicated in the letter of resignation.

The institution has a period of 2 months from the effective day of resignation to present the economic justification for the period. Once this has been examined and validated, the "la Caixa" Foundation will send to the institution the settlement form, which will reflect the corresponding amounts as the pro-rated for the number of days of active fellowship.

It should be noted that, in the case of early termination of a Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellowship, the purchase of scientific or IT equipment in the last 3 months preceding the date of resignation cannot be justified. Likewise, other expenses exceeding 1.000€ in the last 3 months preceding the end date must be authorized in advance. Authorization will be required through the "End of fellowship expenses" option in the drop-down menu.

For fellows of the calls 2022, 2023 and 2024, there is a limitation:

• - Postdoctoral Junior Leader fellowship: only a maximum amount equivalent to the 30% of the annual research costs awarded can be transferred (38.500€x30% = 11.550€). Therefore, if the remnant is more than 11.550€, the difference cannot be transferred. See example


• - Doctoral INPhINIT fellowship: only a maximum amount equivalent to the 50% of the annual research costs awarded can be transferred (3.500€x50% = 1.750€). Therefore, if the remnant is more than 1.750€, the difference cannot be transferred. See example

Fellows of call 2025 onwards are not subject to these rules when transferring remaining research costs from one year to the next

The audit criterion is the date of the invoice, regardless of the date of actual payment or the date of enjoyment of the activity.

For example:

A fellow is attending a Congress that will take place at the beginning of the second annuity. For this purpose, registration is done and plane tickets are purchased during the first annuity.

As the invoices for such expenses are dated in the first period, they must be justified in the first period, regardless of whether the Congress takes place in the second period.

Please note that eligible activities (conference attendance, traveling for scientific collaboration, etc.) to be covered by the fellowship must take place within the duration of the fellowship (expenses whose invoice date falls within the fellowship period, but which take place after the end of the fellowship, will not be accepted).

The indicated amounts for both mobility and family allowances are gross and subject to the total labour costs of each fellow incurred by the host institution. In addition, these amounts are subject to the tax withholding legally established.

Family allowance and mobility allowance are justified separately in the Audit platform. If these allowances have been incorporated as gross amounts in the payroll, the labour costs and corresponding deductions to which they have been subject must be justified in the "Family funds" and "Mobility funds" sections, respectively, and not in the "Hiring costs" subdivision of the "Salary" section.

In relation to the family allowance, it is important to highlight the following differentiation:

• - Call 2022 and earlier: the amounts of the family allowance are determined at the beginning of the fellowship and are revised at each annual renewal of the fellowship. These amounts are to be paid in payroll pro rata in 12 monthly instalments.


• - Call 2023 and later: the amounts of the family allowance are determined at the beginning of the fellowship. These amounts are revised during the fellowship and can be justified from the month following the birth or adoption of the child. For this birth/adoption, the fellow will be able to receive the maximum amount of 1.200€ in the affected annuity, without the ”la Caixa” Foundation specifying how the host institution should make the payment.

The amount of overheads to be justified is decided by the institution in agreement with the fellow (the institution must have the fellow's approval to charge these expenses to the fellowship), always bearing in mind that the maximum amount of overheads to be charged in each period is 3.850€ (10% of the annual research costs funds, regardless of how much is actually being used). Likewise, remnants in overheads can be compensated in subsequent annuities.

The Audit platform does not include overheads by default; it is always the institution that must indicate the amount to be justified in this concept. There is a specific box in the Research costs section of the platform to include the amount corresponding to overheads:

The platform will not request the inclusion of any documentary evidence for overheads.

On the other hand, as the overheads constitute a part of the research costs, in case of a withdrawal it would be necessary to pro-rate exactly how much research costs correspond to the days of active fellowship. Thus, an amount of overheads higher than this pro-rata could not be charged.

Here's an example:

If the fellow resigns having only enjoyed 10 days of the period, the corresponding research costs pro-rata is 1.054,79€, so 3.850€ of overheads could not be justified as it is more than the corresponding research costs.

For fellows of calls 2022, 2023 and 2024, the dashboard is designed to limit the amount of funds that can be justified in each annuity. In this sense, if you try to charge more funds than the funds awarded (59.000€), a message of error will be displayed:

If the institution has had a higher salary expenditure, you should reduce the percentage of dedication of any salary expenditure line so that the total expenditure does not exceed 59.000€, while respecting that the gross salary reflects at least 44.300€, and insert a comment to the auditors explaining this so that they can understand why it has been justified like that.

For fellows of call 2022,2023 and 2024, the dashboard is designed to limit the amount of funds that can be justified in each annuity. In this sense, if you try to charge more funds than the funds awarded (34.800€), a message of error will be displayed:

If the institution has had a higher salary expenditure, you should reduce the percentage of dedication of any salary expenditure line so that the total expenditure does not exceed 34.800€, and insert a comment to the auditors explaining this so that they can understand why it has been justified like that.

We remind you that for INPhINIT fellows from call 2024 onwards, the funds awarded in labour costs have been increased to 35.800€. If the institution has had a higher salary expenditure, you should reduce the percentage of dedication of any salary expenditure line so that the total expenditure does not exceed 35.800€, while respecting that the gross salary reflects at least 25.000€, and insert a comment to the auditors explaining this so that they can understand why it has been justified like that.

In the first 2 years of fellowship the center can justify less salary to compensate for the overexpenditure in year 3 as a result of the end-of-contract compensation payment. Specifically, what the centre must do is calculate the pro rata of that compensation for the 3 years of fellowship (for example, if the compensation is 3.000€, the pro rata corresponding to each year is 1.000€).

Continuing with this example, when justifying years 1 and 2, the center could set aside 1.000€ as a provision in each of these years, indicating it in this information box located under the justification of the salary for each period:

Thus, in in years 1 and 2 the center would provision 2.000€ in total (1.000€+1.000€), and in year 3 the centre will fully justify the 3.000€ as an expense line in the payroll in which the centre pays it.

It is important to note that the minimum gross salary established by each call cannot be affected by the provision.

The same procedure applies to those fellowships lasting 4 years, calculating the pro rata of the compensation for 4 years and provisioning in the 3 first years.

Yes, when filling in the justification, expenses of the same nature can be grouped on the same justification line, taking into account the following considerations:

• The possibility of grouping is only applicable to the typologies of expenditure "Consumables" and "Travel expenses and per diem for congresses, seminars and conferences".


• Each individual item of expenditure must not exceed 200€, with no limit being set for the overall maximum amount of the grouping.


• In the event that the system requires the uploading of documentary evidence for that grouped expenditure line, the supporting documentation to be provided will be an Excel file with the detail of all the expenses included, with the same fields as those required when they are registered individually in the Audit platform. From this detail, the auditor may subsequently request the supporting documentation for the expenses they consider.

In principle, invoices should be charged exclusive of VAT, since the institutions will be able to deduct this tax when filing their periodic declarations.

VAT should only be charged in those specific cases where for specific reasons it will not be possible for the institution to deduct the associated VAT, either fully or partially.

In this matter, the institution's own policy is applicable. For this purpose, when justifying such expenses, a duly signed document of approval from the host institution must be attached, detailing the number of days and the amount of the daily allowance according to the per diem policy of the host institution, as well as the corresponding proof of payment. When, alternatively, the fellow is being reimbursed for the specific expenses incurred, the receipts and proof of payment must be attached.

The justification of labour costs is divided into two main concepts: Gross salary and Hiring costs.

Any in-kind economic remuneration, expense compensation or social benefits received by the fellow from the host institution on the basis of the institution's policy, such as meal allowances, restaurant tickets or family allowances, shall not be taken into account for the purposes of calculating the minimum gross annual salary, and must therefore be justified in the Hiring costs section.

If it is possible to include the expense in a subsequent annuity, you can do so by adding an explanatory comment for the auditors so that they can understand why the expense is justified there despite belonging to another annuity based on the invoice date.

If it is not possible to include it in subsequent annuities, please note that from the closure of the justification by the "la Caixa" Foundation, the host institution will have a period of two months to incorporate corrections, bearing in mind that the time exceeded to complete the initial justification is subtracted from the period for corrections.

To this end, the host institution wishing to make corrections must request this by e-mail. If the request is approved, the Audit platform will enable the possibility of incorporating changes in the justification, and the maximum deadline for introducing the corrections will be specified. Once the deadline for corrections has passed, no further changes can be made.

Certain expenses require authorization (either because the Manual itself indicates that they require authorization, or because they are not directly listed as eligible in the Manual).

Requests for authorization must be submitted through the Audit platform before or after the expenditure is incurred. In the latter case, the host institution assumes the risk that the “la Caixa” Foundation may not authorize the allocation of an expense that has already been incurred.

To do this, you must access the "Authorization Request" section on the platform and complete all the fields indicated, with the due justification of the need for the expenditure in the "Comments" section.

In the case of the Doctoral INPhINIT fellowship, the Authorization form must also be attached, duly completed and signed (you will find the template in the repository).

Authorizations to hire support staff have different fields to be filled in compared to those in ordinary authorizations.

When filling them in, you should bear in mind that:

• - One single authorization will be valid for all annuities


• - The gross annual salary of the person hired cannot exceed the annual allowance for research costs specified in the agreement (38.500€).


• - For the purposes of verifying eligibility, and irrespective of the duration of the contract, the gross salary and hiring costs corresponding to an annual contract must be indicated. The requested amount box must indicate the amount that will actually be charged to the fellowship in the corresponding annuity.


• - In the case of a part-time contract, the % compared to a full-time contract should be indicated in the comments.


• - If the name of the person to be hired is not yet known, this circumstance should be indicated on the authorization request and the "la Caixa" Foundation should be informed of the name of the person as soon as it is known.


• - You must include a reasoning of the interest of this hiring in relation with the development of the project, as well as the tasks to be carried out by the person hired.

In the platform you will find explanatory comments next to the different fields to be filled in, which will help you to complete the authorization request.

The institution is responsible for requesting the corresponding funds from the "la Caixa" Foundation.

• - The first annual payment must be requested after the signature of the agreement.


• - From the second year onwards, the annual payment can be requested once the economic justification of the expenses incurred in the previous annuity has been assessed as correct, although exceptionally and at the request of the institution, it can be paid in 2 instalments:


• A first payment corresponding to the first annual 50%,


• A second payment of the remaining 50% when the economic justification for the expenditure incurred in the previous year has been received and assessed as correct.

Payment requests:

• - are to be made using the template available in our repository


• - must be carried out separately for each program and by modality, one for Incoming and one for Retaining


• - should be sent in PDF format to [email protected] for automatic processing, taking into account that:


• only one request per e-mail is accepted


• only requests in PDF format are accepted


• it is essential that the order number is indicated in the request

From call 2023 onwards, tuition fees are a separate category. The host institution will be responsible for requesting from "la Caixa" Foundation the amounts incurred for tuition fees. To this end:

• - The request for the tuition amount must be done to reimburse the amount previously paid by the host institution, and not as an advance.


• - The host institution must use the same template as the template used to request the payment of the annuities


• - The template requires a specific order number that the host institution must request from "la Caixa" Foundation.

PRE-APPROVED BUDGET FOR IT EQUIPMENT

INPhINIT and Junior Leader fellows from call 2025 onwards: within the research costs, a pre-approved budget of 2.500€ is established for the purchase of IT equipment during the fellowship. For these purposes, we consider the following items to be eligible:

• Computing devices:
• PC (desktop/laptop)
• Tablet
• Other similar devices (such as digital notebooks)
• Peripherals: monitor, keyboard, mouse, hard drive, pencil, headphones, speakers, adapter, connector, microphone, voice recorder, webcam, docking station
• Licenses
• Accessories (such as a computer case or stand)

Any other IT items not specified in the list will require authorization in order to be charged to the fellowship. Likewise, once the pre-approved budget limit (2.500€) has been exceeded, additional IT equipment may be charged provided that its allocation to the fellowship is authorized by the “la Caixa” Foundation.

Please note that this pre-approved budget is subject to the other restrictions and limitations set out in the guidelines (prohibitions in the last year, end-of-fellowship expenses in Junior Leader, prohibition of more than one computing device with similar functions throughout the INPhINIT fellowship, etc.).

PRE-APPROVED BUDGET FOR SCIENTIFIC EQUIPMENT (INVENTORIABLE)

Junior Leader fellows from call 2025 onwards: within the research costs, a pre-approved budget of 5.000€ is established for the purchase of scientific equipment (inventoriable) in each year (except for year 3), without establishing a list of items directly eligible. Once the pre-approved budget limit has been exceeded (5.000€/year), other scientific equipment may be charged provided that its allocation to the fellowship is authorized by the “la Caixa” Foundation.

Please note that this pre-approved budget is subject to the other restrictions and limitations set out in the guidelines (prohibitions in the last year, end-of-fellowship expenses, etc.).