FAQs

You have questions on the call for proposals? Find answers in this section.

Publication Date
13/12/2023
Reading Time
< 1 minute
FAQs
FAQs

To ask a question related to the call for proposals, please send an email exclusively in English or French to nextmed.questions@regione.sardegna.it. Questions sent to other email addresses or by other means may not be considered. Replies will be given within 10 days.

In the interest of the equal treatment of Applicants, the Programme management structures – including the Managing Authority, the Joint Secretariat and the Branch Offices – cannot give a prior opinion on the eligibility of an Applicant, a partner, a project or specific activities.

Questions presenting a general interest, together with the answers, will be published in this section. It is therefore highly recommended to consult it regularly.

FAQs are organised according to the below categories:

No, according to paragraph 2.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, each proposal shall indicate one Specific Objective only within the concerned Priority. The online Application Form will not allow to choose more than one Priority and one Specific Objective.
Yes. According to paragraph 4.4.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, the same organisation can apply only once as Applicant (Lead Partner) under each Specific Objective. No limitation applies for the participation of the same organization at partner level. In case an organisation participates in more than one project as Applicant under the same Specific Objective, all concerned projects submitted under that Specific Objective will be rejected.
The limitation on the number of applications that the same organization can submit as Applicant is one for each of the 9 Specific Objectives of the call. Paragraph 4.4.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, footnote n. 16, clarifies the meaning of organization, which is: Any legal entity, indicated under Reference to the par. on the eligible partners and according to the national legislations of Mediterranean Partner /IPA countries, which is provided with juridical, economic, technical, and human capacities committed by the legal person as a whole. These conditions must result from supporting documents (such as statutes, registration papers and/or other official documents) proving the capacity to undertake legal obligations (signing contracts), to assume financial liability and to manage the resources for the achievement of stated purposes (i.e., public administrations or universities will be considered as ONE organisation represented by ONLY ONE legal person despite the functional independence of their departments or units). The participation of each organisation will be checked under step 1 (relevance and quality of the design) on the basis, among others, of the following information: national registration number (e.g., VAT, national code, social security etc.), name of the organisation and name of the legal representative.
According to section 4.4.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, an Applicant cannot be awarded more than two (2) grants as Lead Partner under this call for proposals. In case more than two (2) proposals from the same Applicant are shortlisted according to the rules for this call, only the two (2) best ranked proposals will be retained in the list to be financed.
As per section 2.6 of the Guidelines for Applicants, these three positions (project coordinator, financial manager and communication manager) should be part of the staff of the Lead Partner organisation, either as permanent staff or staff specifically recruited for the purpose of the project, while subcontracting of project coordination, financial and communication management functions to private companies should be avoided to ensure the full ownership of the Lead Partner on the project.
Whilst project partners should appoint a sufficient, yet a reasonable number of human resources to efficiently and timely contribute to the project implementation and reporting, the project management structure should reflect a logical division of tasks consistently with the partnership principle, avoiding the duplication of similar functions.
No. As stated in footnote n.16 of the Guidelines for Applicants which defines the meaning of organisation, the participation of “each organisation will be checked under step 1 (operational evaluation) on the basis, among other things, of the following information: national registration number (e.g. VAT, national code, social security etc.), name of the organisation and name of the legal representative”.
No, the project ideas will not be assessed by the Managing Authority (MA) or the Joint Secretariat or by the Branch Offices. In fact, in the interest of equal treatment of Applicants, the MA cannot give a prior opinion on the eligibility of an Applicant, a partner, a project or specific activities.
According to paragraph 4.4.4 of the Guidelines for Applicants, the
duration of project proposals shall not be lower than 24 months and
must not exceed 36 months.
The updated list of National Contact Points can be found here.
Changes such as the name of the legal representative or in some
cases registration number due for example to the merge of an
institution with a pre-existing one are allowed provided that these are

fully explained through the supporting documents to be sent for the
verification of eligibility. In particular, the supporting documents will
have to prove that the institution indicated in the e-Application Form
has not changed and justify the modifications regarding the above-
mentioned elements. Therefore, copies of a new law, for example,
that explains the merge of an institution with another one etc., must
be provided. All changes should be indicated in a letter addressed to
the MA attached to the supporting documents to be sent within the
deadline specified by the MA in the notification letter addressed to
the Applicant of the projects admitted to step 2 of the evaluation
process.
The meaning of indicator RC02 “enterprises supported by grants” may be used when the project foresees to implement activities whose final beneficiaries are the enterprises (training courses, involvement in pilot initiatives etc.).
As indicated in the Programme Document, section 2.1, the Specific Objective 2.1 of the Programme is “Promoting energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions”. Even though the type of actions (non-exhaustive) indicated in the Programme Document do consider Renewable Energies, the main focus of the objective, as set in its title, is on energy efficiency. That is the reason why two of the three (041 and 044) field interventions that you can find in the Programme for the Specific Objective 2.1 are dealing mainly with Energy Efficiency while field intervention 046 is open to actions that contribute to the low carbon economy and to resilience to climate change. Please consider that the contributing to the specific objective set by the Programme should be the main purpose of the submitted proposals.
NO, these two mandatory WPs are under the responsibility of the Lead Partner. Project partners should be involved in these two work packages but under the coordination of the Lead Partner.
No, the MA, the JS and the BOs cannot give a prior opinion on these issues
since they will be examined during the verification of eligibility. If further
information is needed on the eligibility of an organisation involved in a
project, the MA will send a request for clarification to the Applicant.
The obligation to provide an external audit report applies to Applicants and
partners but it does not concern public administrations, public bodies,
bodies governed by public law and international organisations. In the
report, the data concerning the financial capacity (i.e. for companies the
total annual income, net income – profit and loss -, current assets and
current liabilities, and, own funds and total liabilities) have to be pointed out
and/or highlighted (see par. 5.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants).
No. As per section 4.3.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, “associates may be
involved in the project but cannot receive funding from the grant”.
Therefore, the role of the associate is not compatible with that of sub-
contractor.
As per section 5.4.2 “Verification of the eligibility of Applicant and Partner organisations” of the Guidelines for Applicants, both Applicants and partners shall submit an external audit official report made by chartered auditors of the partners’ annual accounts for the last 2 financial years, if available. Those entities which are not requested by the national law to produce such official annual reports will have to provide the annual accounts for the last 2 financial years signed by the legal representative.
No. As stated in the Guidelines for Applicants (see par. 4.4.1, footnote n. 16), “One organisation can be represented by ONLY ONE legal person despite the functional independence of its departments or units”. The same organisation – with one legal representative and one single registration number – cannot be represented more than once within the same project.
International organisations can participate in this call following the rules set in section 4.3.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, in particular:
– pursuant to Article 156 of the EU Financial Regulation 2018/1046 on the General Budget of the European Union, international organisation means international public-sector organisations set up by intergovernmental agreements, and specialised agencies set up by such organisations
– these organisations may have a worldwide or regional scope. Organisations created under national law are not international organisations (e.g. national NGO with several regional/country offices);
– international organisations can participate only if they have an agreement with the government of the country in which they are going to carry out project activities;
– international organisations can participate as Applicants or Partners only if they have an operational office in the eligible area (see section 4.3.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants). The said office must have the capacity to undertake legal obligations (signing contracts) and assume financial liability.

Finally, international organisations cannot be taken into consideration in calculating the minimum number of countries within a partnership. As far as the 50% rule is concerned, if an international organisation is based in a Mediterranean Partner Country (MPC), its direct costs will be calculated as part of funds managed by MPCs.
The principle is that only legal entities can participate. Therefore, if a branch office is registered as a separate legal entity in a country different than the head office, it can be considered as a partner coming from that country. As a minimum requirement, a partnership shall represent 3 different eligible countries, of which at least one EU country and one Mediterranean Partner Country. However, situations, whereby this minimum requirement is satisfied for example by a partnership including the head office from Italy and branch offices from Spain, Lebanon and Egypt, should be avoided. Therefore, a partnership should comprise other eligible partners alongside with the branch offices if they participate in the project.
As per the Guidelines for Applicants, par. 4.3.2. the organizations participating in the Programme must be legal entities, therefore the participation in the first call for projects is only open to legal persons (i.e. organisations). Natural persons are not allowed to participate in calls for proposals as applicant or partner.
The eligibility criteria concerning the legal status of an organisation are defined in the Guidelines for Applicants (section 4.3.2). A “non-exhaustive” list is also contained in footnote n. 13 of the Guidelines for Applicants. Please note that since natural persons are not mentioned in the Joint Operational Programme, they are not allowed to participate in calls for proposals as Applicant or partner (see footnote n. 13 of the Guidelines for Applicants). As a consequence, only legal entities established in accordance with national legislation, laws and regulations can participate in calls for proposals. Please note that it is in the interest of the Applicant and of the whole partnership to know the correct legal status of an organization, since this is relevant to determine the financial capacity.
According to section 4.3.1 of the Guidelines,  Applicants and partners shall come from one of the eligible territories of the countries participating in the Programme.
According to section 4.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, all activities financed in the framework of the project should be implemented inside the Programme eligible area. Exceptionally, specific activities outside the eligible area may be included, provided that their added value to the Programme area is well justified. Their eligibility will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
According to section 4.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, there is no specific requirement concerning the maximum number of partners to be involved in a project. However, a maximum number of organisations in the partnership (from 5 to 7) is recommended. The partnership shall not include more than two (2) organisations from the same country.
According to the Guidelines for Applicants, the minimum number of countries to be represented in a partnership is 3, including at least one EU Mediterranean Country and one Mediterranean Partner Country).
Despite not recommended, there is no formal requirement that the location of activities must be restricted to the eligible regions of the countries where the Applicant and partners are registered. However, this must be clearly mentioned in the description of the project activities, together with the methodology and the reason why the project wants to implement activities in an eligible region not represented in the partnership.
In this case, the location of the event is something the Lead Partner and partners cannot influence. As long as the participation in such events (seminars, training, conferences, study trips, etc.) is relevant to the rationale of the project and is essential to achieve its objectives, it could be considered as eligible for financing (such participation will, however, have to be duly justified in the Application Form).
Yes, provided that the minimum partnership criterion is fulfilled (at least three different countries, representing at least one EU Mediterranean Country s and one Mediterranean Partner Country). However, please note that according to paragraph 4.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, the partnership shall not include more than two organisations from the same country.
Associates do not have to meet the criteria set in section 4.3.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants on geographical eligibility. This means that associates may also be established in countries other than those eligible under the Programme. Associates are not partners. Therefore, they cannot, in any case, contribute to reaching the minimum partnership requirement. They may not receive Programme funding. They can attend project meetings and events and their subsistence (per diem) and travel costs will be paid by the Lead Partner or by one or more of the partners. In the event they want to play a role in the implementation of the project activities, a description of their tasks will have to be included in the Application Form: this will be assessed during project evaluation, provided that associates have to implement the activities at their own costs. There is no maximum number of associates, however, all of them must sign the Associated Partner Declaration to be uploaded in the E-Application Form and they should also sign a memorandum of understanding with the Lead partner and partners in order to define their exact role as well as who will pay for their subsistence and travel costs. Associates do not need to sign the Partnership Agreement (compulsory only for the Lead Partner and project partners).
Yes, according to paragraph 4.3.1 of the Guidelines of Applicants, the participation of Applicants and partners not having their main headquarter but only a decentralised registered office or structure in the eligible regions is admitted. The said structure must have the capacity to undertake legal obligations (meaning that there must be a responsible person of this office who is independent in terms of being able to launch call for tenders, recruit temporary staff  and sign contracts) and assume financial liability (for example the said person shall be able to sign payment orders referred to the contracts signed with contractors, etc.), provided that this office has been established for at least 2 years before the deadline set for the submission of the Application Form. These conditions must be proved by supporting documents (such as statutes, registration papers and/or other official documents). The supporting documents shall be provided only upon request of the MA as foreseen by section 5.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants. Since the possibility to comply with the above-mentioned conditions may vary depending on the national legislations, in case of doubt please refer to the concerned National Contact Point.
Yes, according to paragraph 4.3.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants, Ministries or National Public Administrations located in non-eligible areas of the participating countries can participate, as Applicant or partner, if not represented locally in the eligible areas or if they have a local office that cannot take legal or financial obligations, provided that they can demonstrate that the activities will be carried out in and for the full benefit of the eligible regions of the Programme. In case a Ministry or a National Authority is represented at the local level in an eligible territory, the project activities should be implemented by the local structure. During the verification of the eligibility within the evaluation process, the MA may require proof of the territorial competence of the institution.
There is no pre-defined list so Applicants and partners shall refer to the criteria mentioned by the EU Directive reported in par. 4.3.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants. Since the inclusion under this category may depend also from national legislations, in case of doubts please contact the respective National Contact Point of the concerned participating country.
No, as per par. 4.3.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, “Private organisations are eligible under the Interreg NEXT MED CBC MED Programme, but they shall be established at least for 2 years from the launching date of the call to participate.” No derogation is foreseen for start-ups and any private organization must be established for 2 years before the 15.12.2023, date of the launching of this call for proposals.
‘EUMCs’ mean ‘EU Mediterranean Countries’ participating in the Programme and include: Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain. ‘MPCs’ are ‘Mediterranean Partner Countries’ participating in the Programme and include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Tunisia and Türkiye. For the list of specific eligible regions pertaining to the EUMCs and MCPs, please refer to paragraph 4.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants.
There are no specific limitations regarding the type of organization that can submit a proposal under the youth strand. Please note that according to the section no. 2.3 of the Guidelines, the institution has to demonstrate at least two years of experience prior to the date of the launching of the call in leading or participating in projects addressing youth with similar managed budget as for the share of the requested grant.
According to Guidelines for Applicants par. 4.2, a minimum co-financing of at least 11% of the total costs of the project must be provided by the partnership. Since sub-contractors are not involved in the partnership, they cannot be requested to co-finance the project. According to paragraph 4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, the co-financing can be provided with the Applicants’ and partners’ own resources, or with public or private (national/regional/local) sources other than the European Union Budget and the European Development Fund. Please note that co-financing in kind is not eligible. Expenditure for staff (Human Resources) is not considered as an “in-kind” contribution and may therefore be considered as part of 11% contribution to be provided by the project as co-financing.
In general, the budgeted direct costs shall be allocated on the basis of the actual involvement of each organization in the management/implementation of the project and according to some specific financial limitations foreseen by the call for proposals (see par. 4.4.3 of the Guidelines for Applicants) as follows:
– maximum percentage of directs costs that can be allocated to the same organization: 35%;
– minimum percentage of budgeted direct costs to be dedicated to activities implemented in MPCs territories: at least 50%;
– maximum percentage of direct costs dedicated to Cost Category “Staff Costs”: 40% (see par. 4.6.4 of the Guidelines for Applicants).
No. Unlike during the ENI CBC MED Programme, there is no fixed threshold for the costs linked to the verification of expenditures. Nevertheless, the general eligible costs rules apply (see art. 14 of the Model of Grant Contract published for information within the call for proposals application package).
According to par. 4.6.4 of the Guidelines for Applicants, “Staff costs” shall correspond to the “actual gross salaries and any other costs directly linked to salary payments incurred and paid by the employer, such as employment taxes and social security including pensions, provided for in an employment document or by law, in accordance with the national legislation, and not recoverable by the employer”.In order to fill in the budget, Applicants and partners shall include the indicative amount of HR that they expect to incur in for each WP. That means that, unlike in previous editions of the Programme, the budget does not have to detail into specific budget lines per type of staff involved. Each applicant and partner will have to indicate one budget line of HR per each WP (the only dedicated and mandatory separated budget staff costs are those of the project coordinator, financial manager and communication manager).
It is important to remark that the Applicant and partners should try to indicate amounts as realistic as possible, for each concerned organization, in order to avoid overrated HR costs that will lead to complex implementation.
In general terms, there is no maximum or minimum percentage of costs foreseen for the different Work Packages (WP). The only limit applies to the cost category of Human Resources which is limited to 40% of the total eligible costs. No other thresholds are foreseen for other cost categories.
According to par. 1.3 of the Guidelines for Applicants, a minimum co-financing of at least 11% of the project total costs must be provided by the partnership at the project level. This means that the percentage of co-financing chosen in the budget will be the same for each organization involved in the partnership. Moreover, according to par.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, the co-financing can be provided with the Applicant’s and partners’ own resources, or with public or private (national/regional/local) sources other than the European Union Budget and the European Development Fund. Please note that co-financing in kind is not eligible. Expenditure for staff (Human Resources) is not considered as contributions “in kind” and may, therefore, be considered as part of 11% contribution to be provided by the project as co-financing.
No, the Programme finances up to a maximum of 89% of the total eligible costs of a project, regardless the legal status of an organization (therefore also NGOs or private companies may receive this percentage).
No, the full amount of the equipment is eligible.
Yes, each organization must have its own budget for the verification of expenditure. In fact, it is not possible to have one single auditor for the entire partnership due to the need for validating the selected auditors at national level through the Control Contact Points or National Controllers of the participating countries. More details on the validation of the auditors will be provided during project implementation.
Unlike during the ENI CBC MED Programme, this call for proposals does not foresee the use of sub-grants.
No, preparatory costs are not foreseen among the eligible costs.
As indicated in the Note on how to fill in the Financial Capacity section in the e-form published with the Call for Proposals, section 7 “The Financial Capacity for non-profit entities”, the “subvention rate” will be considered as adequate if the result is lower than 1. As a reminder this rate is the result of dividing the EU contribution requested by the partner (prorated by the duration which can be 2 for 24 months, 2,5 for 30 months and 3 for 36 months) by the total of subsidies of the partner for the years taken into consideration for the Financial Capacity. In principle, as for section 5 of the document, the years to be taken into account are 2022 and 2021, unless other duly justified circumstances.
By “subsidies”, Applicants have to understand all grants or similar amounts that a non-profit partner has received from any donor (Global, EU, National, Regional, etc.). Please, note that in the E-form, the subsidies will have to be indicated under the section the line “Capital Including Reserves” of the Balance Sheet. In case of doubt, during the evaluation step “Verification of the eligibility of Applicants’ and partners’ organisations” (see Guidelines for Applicants, section 5.4.2), the Managing Authority will verify that the amounts introduced in the e-form match the actual amounts of the Financial Annual Accounts to be submitted by the Applicant upon request of the Managing Authority.
As per the Note on how to fill in the Financial Capacity section, the financial data to be provided in the e-form will correspond to the years 2022 and 2021. In case an entity was founded in 2021 and has no full financial account available for 2021, it may use partial data for 2021. If the partial data would provide a unrealistic and/or irrelevant picture of the financial situation of partner, the data for 2022 can be the only ones to be used. It has to be noted that these circumstances will have to be duly justified.
Provided that evaluation costs are eligible (and mentioned under external expertise and service costs), there is no obligation to foresee a specific budget line for this. In particular, par. 2.6.1 of the Guidelines for Applicants foresees that when describing project management (to be described in WP1) Applicant need to pay attention to “…Ensure that WP1 integrates evaluation and monitoring mechanisms. Any deviation from the approved project road map must be detected and mitigated in the shortest delays…”. The choice of the mechanisms and related costs (and cost categories) remains a decision of the Applicant and partners.
As per Interreg Regulation 2021/1059, articles 39 to 44, there are six cost categories of eligible expenditures and any expenditure incurred in the framework of an Interreg Project will necessarily fit under one of these six categories. Unlike the ENI CBC MED Programme, there is no possibility to accept Sub-grants as eligible costs. Nor can “vouchers” or any equivalent direct financial contribution paid by the Lead Partner or the Project Partners to final beneficiaries be considered eligible. Hence, the project proposals should include none of these elements.
Having said that, it is important to remark that a project can provide support in the form of services or equipment, that fit under the cost categories “External expertise and services costs” and “Equipment costs”, as indicated in articles 42.p and 43.h of the said regulation, stating that “other specific expertise and services needed” and “other specific equipment needed” for the projects will be eligible, provided that the general eligibility criteria of expenditures as mentioned in the Guidelines for Applicants (section 4.6.2) are respected.
In general, according to the Note on State Aid included in the First Call, the threshold of 22.000 euro (VAT included) should be taken into account when the pilot projects involve stakeholders who operate in the market and could benefit from this aid. The MA cannot give a prior opinion on each activity since the a specific state aid check will be performed by external state aid experts within STEP 2 of the evaluation process.
The registration number depends on the national legislation and can correspond to the VAT number, fiscal or social security code, etc. Please check with your National Contact Point in case you need more information (contact details available here).
This grid must be filled in by all organizations coming from the EU, Egypt, Tunisia, Türkiye and Jordan. Stamp and signature of the concerned organizations are not requested. Please note that if in sections 1.1 and 1.2 the box “No” has been selected, section 2 shall not be filled in. Sections 3 and 4 must always be filled in while section 5 needs to be filled in only by organizations coming from the above Mediterranean Partner Counties for which the State aid regulation applies.
The Applicant shall upload one single pdf file, containing the scanned documents of each concerned organization, into the “Documents” section of the e-application form.
WP1 and WP2 are considered as “transversal” work packages (WPs) concerning management (WP1) and communication (WP2). Both WP1 and WP2 are mandatory WPs, as no project may be funded without these two components. Please note that you may consider an indicative list of technical outputs to be included in these WPs (see the courtesy form). Finally, WPs from WP3 and up to WP6 are linked to the selected Results and Output indicators in the section “Logical Framework”. You can find the list of Result indicators and outputs indicators by Specific Objective in the Methodology Performance Framework document published within the Application Package. Results and outputs are not preestablished (only indicators are) and will be defined by the partnership. The Applicant and partners may use the non-exhaustive lists of type of actions to be funded under each specific objective (see Programme Document, Section 2).
There is no fixed number of outputs per work package (WP). There must be at least one output per WP. Nevertheless, there is a limit of three main activities per output.
No, these documents shall not be provided with the proposal. In fact, according to par. 5.4.2 of the Guidelines for Applicants, “These documents will be requested by the Managing Authority only to Applicants and partners whose proposals ranking higher after the quality evaluation.”
The maximum total number of WPs is 6, including the two mandatory WPs (WP1  Management and coordination and WP2 – Communication and dissemination). This means that up to 4 technical WPs can be added.
The overall objective of the project will automatically correspond to the selected Programme specific objective. There is no predefined list of project specific objectives or expected results to choose from while result/output indicators shall be chosen from those contained for each Specific objective in the Programme Document (section 2) and will be automatically sorted out in the e-application form.
To fill in the Financial Capacity section of the e-form, applicant and partners will always use the amounts of the financial accounts in the original currency. The e-form will automatically perform the currency conversion.
Each proposal – depending on the priority addressed and the level of information required for the environmental check – shall include all information required in the e-application form. Moreover, the following mandatory documents have to be uploaded in the e-application form (section “Documents”):
• Declaration by the Applicant;
• Partner Statement;
• Declaration for International Organisations (to be submitted only in case one or more international organizations are involved in the project. If an international organisation presents a project proposal as an Applicant, it shall also submit the “Declaration by the Applicant” in addition to the “Declaration for International Organisations”);
• Associate  declaration (to be submitted only in the case associates are involved in the project);
• Declaration for youth-oriented projects (to be submitted by the Applicant only in case of projects under the “youth-oriented” type of projects.
• State aid self-assessment grids (all the grids must be scanned in one file).
Large organisations such as universities, national research centers etc., should indicate the financial and technical information at “department” level (the one involved in the project). If this information is not available, a weighted average of the overall structure divided by the number of departments according to the amount that they manage per year can be indicated.
There are no result indicators to include in the WP1 and WP2.
NO, despite one or more outputs can have the same output indicator, each output is linked to main project activities. Therefore, in each WP the main project activities (max.3) shall allow to deliver the related output.
All the project proposals submitted within this first call for proposals (point 12 and 22) and those submitted under the same field (points 13 and 23) in the last 12 months under other EU or national programmes either as Applicant or project partner, shall be indicated.
As set in the courtesy budget available in the Programme website, the Managing Authority decided for a simplified budget which requires to fill in only 1 budget line (BL) per partner per cost category in each Work Package (WP). For further details please check the user guide available at Interreg NEXT MED 2021 – 2027

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