No, in general the coordinator cannot subcontract the project management tasks in Horizon Europe. The coordinator has to make sure the project is implemented correctly and manage it effectively. Furthermore, it should act as an intermediary for all communications between the consortium and the funding agency. Last, the coordinator has to distribute the payments to the members of the consortium.

References:

AMGA Article 7 – Beneficiaries

The internal roles and responsibilities of the beneficiaries are divided as follows:

Each beneficiary must:

• Keep information stored in the Portal Participant Register up to date (see Article 19)
• Inform the granting authority (and the other beneficiaries) immediately of any events or circumstances likely to affect significantly or delay the implementation of the action (see Article 19)
• Submit to the coordinator in good time: the prefinancing guarantees (if required; see Article 23) ; the financial statements and certificates on the financial statements (CFS) (if required; see Articles 21 and 24.2 and Data Sheet, Point 4.3) ; the contribution to the deliverables and technical reports (see Article 21) ; any other documents or information required by the granting authority under the Agreement
• Submit via the Portal data and information related to the participation of their affiliated entities.

The coordinator must:

• monitor that the action is implemented properly (see Article 11)
• act as the intermediary for all communications between the consortium and the granting authority, unless the Agreement or granting authority specifies otherwise, and in particular: submit the prefinancing guarantees to the granting authority (if any) ; request and review any documents or information required and verify their quality and completeness before passing them on to the granting authority ; submit the deliverables and reports to the granting authority ; inform the granting authority about the payments made to the other beneficiaries (report on the distribution of payments; if required, see Articles 22 and 32)
• distribute the payments received from the granting authority to the other beneficiaries without unjustified delay (see Article 22).

The coordinator may not delegate or subcontract the above-mentioned tasks to any other beneficiary or third party (including affiliated entities).

However, coordinators which are public bodies may delegate the tasks set out in Point (b)(ii) last indent and (iii) above to entities with ‘authorisation to administer’ which they have created or which are controlled by or affiliated to them. In this case, the coordinator retains sole responsibility for the payments and for compliance with the obligations under the Agreement.

Moreover, coordinators which are ‘sole beneficiaries’31 (or similar, such as European research infrastructure consortia (ERICs)) may delegate the tasks set out in Point (b)(i) to (iii) above to one of their members. The coordinator retains sole responsibility for compliance with the obligations under the Agreement.