Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A 12-partner Horizon Europe consortium signs a DESCA-based consortium agreement before the project start date, setting out IP-access terms and a General Assembly voting procedure.
- Is an instance
A consortium agreement's default clause activates when a partner withdraws mid-project, reallocating its tasks and specifying how its accrued IP rights are treated.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
The Grant Agreement itself, signed between the consortium and the European Commission, is not the consortium agreement -- it is a separate contract that the CA supplements and cannot contradict.
Editorial commentary
For Horizon Europe and most other multi-partner schemes, a consortium agreement (CA) must be signed among all beneficiaries before the project starts — typically before the Grant Agreement itself is signed, or shortly after. It is a private-law contract between the partners, distinct from the GA, which is the contract between the consortium and the funder.
What a standard CA covers
Most Horizon Europe consortia use a standard template rather than drafting from scratch — DESCA (Development of a Simplified Consortium Agreement) is the most widely used. A standard CA defines the consortium’s governance bodies (typically a General Assembly for major decisions and, in larger consortia, an Executive Board for day-to-day coordination), the specific role and authority of the coordinator, intellectual property terms covering background IP (brought into the project), foreground IP (generated during it), and sideground IP (developed in parallel but outside the funded work), access rights among partners, default rules setting out what happens if a partner fails to deliver or withdraws, dispute-resolution procedures, and confidentiality obligations.
Where a CA yields to the Grant Agreement
A consortium agreement supplements and refines the GA — it cannot contradict it. Where the two conflict on anything that touches the funder-facing relationship (reporting obligations, eligible costs, the funder’s own rights), the Grant Agreement prevails; the CA’s own scope is everything the GA leaves to the partners to work out among themselves.
Why it matters before the project starts, not after
Negotiating IP allocation, access rights, and default consequences becomes far harder once a dispute has actually arisen — a CA signed before work begins gives partners a pre-agreed process to fall back on rather than an ad hoc negotiation under pressure. Late or absent CA signature is also a common source of delayed project start, since many funders and institutions will not authorise spending until it is in place.
References
- DESCA Horizon Europe model consortium agreement; European Commission Horizon Europe consortium-agreement guidance (Annotated Grant Agreement).
Also known as
CA · DESCA agreement · Consortium contract
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Consortium agreement"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/consortium-agreement" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/consortium-agreement",
"name": "Consortium agreement",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/consortium-agreement",
"description": "A private-law contract signed among all beneficiaries of a multi-partner grant, in addition to and subordinate to the Grant Agreement with the funder, that governs the internal relationship between partners: decision-making bodies, the coordinator's role, intellectual property allocation, access rights, liability for a defaulting partner, and dispute resolution. It binds the partners to each other, not to the funder.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-finance#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/consortium-agreement",
"sameAs": [
"CA",
"DESCA agreement",
"Consortium contract"
],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"author": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#editorial-team"
},
"datePublished": "2026-05-21T02:22:58",
"dateModified": "2026-08-22T19:42:54",
"inLanguage": "en-GB",
"isAccessibleForFree": true
}
