European Association of Innovation Consultants'
Code of Conduct
This Code of Conduct is part of the initiative to create a forum (EAIC) where best practices, mutual respect, and basic competition rules are promoted among Innovation Consultants.
The key missions of the European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) are
All members of EAIC subscribe to and believe that the following principles are fundamental to the behaviour of their members if European institutions, stakeholders and society are to have that necessary confidence in and recognition towards European Innovation Consultants.
1. Trust & Integrity
The EAIC members shall:
2. Responsibility
The EAIC members shall:
3. Fairness to others
The EAIC members shall:
4. Impartiality
To avoid conflicts of interest, the EAIC members shall:
5. Validity of this Code of Conduct
This code of conduct is mandatory for all European consulting companies that are part of the EAIC.
The key missions of the European Association of Innovation Consultants (EAIC) are
- to create synergies between European consulting companies specialised in R&I (Research, Development and Innovation) financing and management,
- to promote and defend the added value their specific expertise and professionalism bring to R&I collaborations and
- to enhance towards European institutions and stakeholders the recognition of the increased impact EAIC members deliver to the European research community.
All members of EAIC subscribe to and believe that the following principles are fundamental to the behaviour of their members if European institutions, stakeholders and society are to have that necessary confidence in and recognition towards European Innovation Consultants.
1. Trust & Integrity
The EAIC members shall:
- Act at all times in the legitimate interest of the client;
- Provide all services with integrity and in accordance with the principles of good faith, legality and the rules of good professional practice;
- Not fail their client's trust nor serve interests that are in conflict with those of the client in the development of a project or service;
- Maintain an honest and diligent relationship with the companies in the sector, the clients, the European Commission, any European, national or regional R&I funding agencies, the Administration, and all those entities with which they have professional contact, keeping confidential everything they know about third parties in the exercise of their activities.
2. Responsibility
The EAIC members shall:
- Be committed to providing service to the client, and to communicate, respecting the conditions of confidentiality, all the information that they consider could have an impact on the choices and decisions of the client;
- Advise the client on the limits of the services acquired, specifically the chances of success of a given grant proposal, and represent truthfully the client input when developing a grant proposal;
- Ensure that their total support fees charged for advisory services to develop new R&I projects shall never be charged to the project post Grant Agreement and to do best efforts to encourage their clients to adopt the same good behaviour:
- In their capacity as specialists, undertake to constantly maintain the knowledge and skills of their teams at the required level, considering the evolution of applicable regulations;
- Ensure compliance with the rules on intellectual property and data protection.
3. Fairness to others
The EAIC members shall:
- Neither carelessly nor intentionally do anything to injure the reputation or business of others;
- Neither directly nor indirectly attempt to take the place of another consultancy, already appointed for a specific work;
- Ensure that its employees or independent contractors (including freelancers supporting proposal writing) respect the present Code of Conduct.
4. Impartiality
To avoid conflicts of interest, the EAIC members shall:
- Preserve their independence against all kinds of interference and against their own interests or that may affect impartiality and professional judgement;
- Inform the client of any potential conflict of interest that might arise in the performance of services to the client;
- Ensure, specifically in but not limited to the context of specific R&I funding programmes (such as Fast-Track-To-Innovation / FTI, EIC-Accelerator) and to avoid conflicts of interests, that none of their staff and independent contractors supporting EIC / FTI-project proposal development act as EC evaluator for those funding programmes;
- Document the capabilities of the project, their team and partners in truthful manner;
- Not accept remuneration which prejudices honest judgement.
5. Validity of this Code of Conduct
This code of conduct is mandatory for all European consulting companies that are part of the EAIC.
