Person-Months in Horizon Europe: How to Build a Credible Effort and Personnel Budget
- Michel
- 12 minutes ago
- 7 min read
Preparing the budget of a Horizon Europe proposal is not simply an exercise in filling in numbers. The resources requested by the consortium should reflect the work that partners have committed to performing.[1]
Person-months (PMs) are one of the main tools used to make this connection.
For proposal writers, the important question is theren not only “How do I calculate a person-month?” but rather:
How much effort does each partner actually need to deliver its tasks, and is that effort consistent with the proposed budget? [2]
This article explains how to approach person-month planning from that perspective, from analysing the work packages to checking personnel costs and preparing a convincing lump sum budget.
Start with the work, not with the budget
A common mistake when preparing collaborative proposals is to begin with the amount of funding available to each partner and work backwards to determine the number of person-months.
A stronger approach is to start from the work plan.
For each partner, consider:
Which work packages will the organisation contribute to?
Which tasks will it perform?
What expertise is required?
How intensive will its involvement be?
For how long will that involvement be necessary?
Is the partner leading a task, supporting it, or simply contributing with specific expertise?
Once these questions have been answered, the required human effort can be estimated much more realistically.
This creates a logical chain:
Tasks → Responsibilities → Required expertise → Staff effort → Person-months → Personnel costs
When these elements are aligned, the budget becomes much easier to explain and defend. [2]
What does a person-month represent?
A person-month is a planning unit for expressing the amount of staff effort dedicated to a project.
If one person works full-time on project activities for one month, this corresponds to 1 PM.
The same principle applies to partial involvement.
For example, someone contributing approximately 30% of their working time for 10 months would represent: 30% × 10 months = 3 PM
The important point is that person-months describe time and effort. They do not represent the employee's salary.
Two organisations can then allocate the same number of PMs to similar activities while having very different personnel budgets because their employment costs, staff profiles and national contexts differ. [1]
A practical way to estimate PMs for a Horizon Europe proposal
Instead of assigning PMs directly at work-package level, it can be useful to estimate effort task by task.
Imagine that a partner is responsible for stakeholder engagement in a 36-month collaborative project.
Its activities might include:
Activity | Estimated effort |
Stakeholder mapping and engagement strategy | 1.5 PM |
Organisation of workshops | 2.5 PM |
Continuous stakeholder coordination | 3 PM |
Analysis of stakeholder feedback | 1.5 PM |
Contribution to reports and deliverables | 1 PM |
Total | 9.5 PM |
The partner would then require approximately 9.5 PM for this part of the project.
This approach is generally more robust than deciding first that a partner should receive, for example, €80,000 and then calculating how many PMs can fit inside that amount.
The budget should follow the work rather than determine it.[2]
Look for inconsistencies before evaluators do
Once a first allocation has been prepared, it is useful to challenge it.
Ask questions such as:
Does a partner have many deliverables but very few PMs?
This could suggest that the planned resources are insufficient.
Does an organisation have a large PM allocation but only a minor role in the technical description?
The effort may appear difficult to justify.
Does a work package contain complex technical activities but relatively little staff effort?
The work plan and resources may need to be reconsidered.
Are senior personnel being used for activities that could reasonably be carried out by more junior profiles?
The personnel budget may require additional justification.
Do similar partners performing comparable activities have very different resource allocations?
There may be a valid explanation, but the consortium should understand it before submission.
These checks help transform a budget from a collection of individual partner estimates into a coherent project-level resource plan.
Person-months and personnel costs are related but they are not the same thing
Once the required effort has been established, the corresponding personnel costs can be estimated.
A simplified proposal-planning relationship is:
Estimated personnel cost = Person-months × Average personnel cost per month
Suppose a beneficiary estimates:
12 PM of researcher effort;
an average personnel cost of €6,000 per PM.
The estimated personnel cost would be:
12 × €6,000 = €72,000
Another beneficiary might also request 12 PM but have a monthly personnel cost of €4,500.
Its corresponding estimate would be:
12 × €4,500 = €54,000
The difference does not necessarily indicate a problem. Personnel costs vary according to factors such as country, organisation type, salary structure and the seniority of the staff involved.
Converting working days into person-months during proposal preparation
During proposal preparation, partners may estimate the effort required for a project in working days rather than directly in person-months (PMs). To ensure a consistent conversion, the European Commission provides an indicative calculation method based on 220 working days per year.
Under this approach: 1 year = 220 working days
and then: 1 person-month = 220 ÷ 12 ≈ 18.33 working days
The 220-day reference is not an estimate of the actual number of days that every employee works in a year, but a standard planning assumption used to translate estimated working days into person-months consistently at proposal stage.
For example, if an expert is expected to contribute 30 working days to the project:
30 ÷ 18.33 ≈ 1.64 person-months
This conversion is particularly useful when preparing the proposal budget and allocating effort across work packages, as partners and technical experts often estimate the time required for their activities in days.
The resulting person-month allocation should be consistent with the personnel costs included in the proposal budget.
Important: the 220-working-day assumption is an indicative method for estimating human effort in person-months. It should not be confused with the rules and calculations applicable to the declaration of actual personnel costs during project implementation, which are governed by the applicable Grant Agreement. [1] [3]
Why PM planning becomes particularly important for lump sum proposals
Resource planning deserves even greater attention when preparing a Horizon Europe lump sum proposal.
Under the lump sum model, applicants establish detailed estimates during proposal preparation. The logic is different from simply reimbursing individual actual costs during implementation.
The consortium needs to demonstrate that the proposed resources are sufficient and reasonable for completing the activities described in the work packages.
For personnel, three questions are especially useful:
How much effort is required?
Which staff profiles are required?
Are the corresponding personnel costs reasonable?
This means that reducing PMs simply to make the proposal budget smaller can create problems.
If the technical work clearly requires substantial human involvement, an artificially low allocation can make the implementation plan less credible.
The opposite is also true: a large number of PMs needs to be supported by meaningful responsibilities and activities. [4]
Using the Horizon Dashboard for lump sum evaluations
The European Commission provides a Horizon Dashboard for Lump Sum Evaluations that can be used as a reference when assessing proposed personnel costs. The dashboard presents information from Horizon Europe grants and allows personnel-cost data to be explored according to criteria such as country and organisation type. [4]
The dashboard displays the distribution of funded person-months across different personnel-cost levels, including a range between the 20th and 80th percentiles for the selected country and organisation type. [4]
Importantly, the dashboard should be treated as an orientation and benchmarking tool rather than a personnel-cost ceiling. A proposed monthly personnel rate outside the displayed range is not automatically unacceptable.
Higher personnel costs may be justified when the project requires particularly senior or specialised personnel. Historical data should also be interpreted carefully, as personnel costs can evolve over time due to factors such as salary increases and inflation.
Where comparatively high personnel costs are proposed, applicants should provide a clear explanation in the comments section of the detailed lump sum budget table. [4]
A useful three-level check before submitting the proposal
Before finalising the budget, at NETO Innovation, we recommend reviewing person-month allocations at three different levels.
1. Partner level
For each beneficiary, verify that:
its PMs reflect its actual tasks;
enough effort is available to produce its deliverables;
coordination responsibilities have been considered;
the required staff profiles are realistic;
personnel costs correspond logically to the proposed effort.
2. Work-package level
For each work package, check:
whether sufficient overall effort has been allocated;
whether the WP leader has adequate resources;
whether effort is concentrated among the partners actually performing the work;
whether the distribution reflects the technical description.
3. Project level
Finally, examine the consortium as a whole.
The total human resources should be credible in relation to the project's duration, ambition and expected results.
This final review often reveals inconsistencies that are difficult to identify when each partner prepares its budget independently. [2]
Person-months should tell the same story as the proposal
A strong Horizon Europe budget is ultimately an extension of the work plan.
If a partner has an important technical responsibility, its resources should reflect it. If an organisation leads a work package, its coordination effort should be visible. If specialised expertise is required, the personnel profile and associated costs should make sense.
Before submission, consortium partners should be able to answer a simple question:
Can we explain why every significant person-month allocation is necessary for delivering the project?
If the answer is yes, the resource plan is likely to be much more coherent and defensible. [2]
How NETO Innovation supports Horizon Europe budgeting
At NETO Innovation, we support organisations throughout the preparation of Horizon Europe proposals, connecting the technical work plan with a realistic and coherent project budget.
Our support can include:
structuring work packages and tasks;
allocating responsibilities between consortium partners;
estimating person-month requirements;
preparing and reviewing partner budgets;
developing lump sum budgets;
checking personnel costs and PM consistency;
reviewing resource allocation across work packages;
identifying inconsistencies before submission;
supporting partners in justifying their proposed resources.
The objective is not simply to make the numbers fit the available budget.
It is to build a proposal in which activities, responsibilities, human resources and costs reinforce the same implementation strategy.
Whether you need support with Horizon Europe proposal writing, budget preparation, person-month allocation, lump sum budgeting or the overall consistency of your application, NETO Innovation can help you build a strong, realistic and well-structured proposal.
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References
[1] EMDESK Academy, Person-Months in EU Projects: What They Mean and How to Calculate Them. https://www.emdesk.com/horizon-2020-horizon-europe-basics-guide/person-months-eu-projects-calculate?utm_source=mailjet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=academy-newsletter-2026-08&no-registerwall=1
[2] European Commission, What is ‘human effort’ (person-months) and how to calculate it?, 5 February 2019. https://ec.europa.eu/newsroom/just/items/643967
[3] CASRAI Dictionary, Person Months (Horizon Europe), updated 18 July 2026. https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/person-months-horizon-europe
[4] European Commission – EU Funding & Tenders Portal – Horizon Dashboard for Lump Sum Evaluations: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/programmes/horizon/lump-sum/dashboard
Direct access to the dashboard :
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