Managing an award support
Our Post-Award Team provide administrative support throughout the life of your research grant. We'll help you comply with the terms and conditions of your award and University and sponsor guidelines, produce any financial reporting required, verify staff appointments and extensions and arrange for sub-contracts to be drawn up for partners as necessary.
New award setup
Once your sponsor confirms funding, we will set up a new research project. We take the following steps:
- reply to your sponsor to formally accept the grant award
- create a project and cost code in the Unit4 financial system
- allocate the appropriate budgets to the project according to the application and confirmed level of funding
- calculate the research incentive (Essex users only) available to the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigators
- ensure that, where necessary, ethical approval is granted before the project is officially announced and funds are released
- work with our Contracts team to ensure that any issues relating to subcontracts or other legal obligations are finalised before research starts
- send out an award announcement which makes the cost code and budgets available to the Principal Investigator. In some cases, we will make official returns to your sponsor regarding the start date of the research, depending on their requirements.
Award announcements
The award announcement is sent out at the start of the award, and contains basic information about the project including the names of staff, budgets and sponsor details as well as internal and external references and project start and end dates.
If there are changes to a project, such as a no-cost extension to the time period or a revised budget, we will circulate a revised award announcement to the relevant parties.
Internal monthly financial report
We send monthly finance reports to the named Principal Investigator and the relevant departmental administrator. These show the funds as the project progresses, including the total budget, spend to date and remaining budget.
Official financial returns for sponsors
We are responsible for producing and distributing financial reports and claims, as laid out in your grant agreement.
The conditions that apply to research grants vary with each sponsor. However, most require periodic financial and academic progress reports as well as a final financial claim form and academic report.
We produce all official financial returns for sponsors. You must ensure that reports of an academic nature are returned to your sponsor at the right time. We will try to remind you of any impending deadlines, but encourages you to familiarise yourself with all of the conditions that relate to your grant.
Staff appointments
If your project requires a Research Assistant, this will have been recognised at the time of application and integrated into the proposal.
If you wish to employ Research Assistants you should contact Human Resources who will liaise with us about funds. If there are sufficient funds in the project budget, HR will then advertise the post. If there is insufficient funding available, we will discuss this with you to agree the best solution.
Sponsor liaison
We will liaise with the sponsor or research co-ordinator on your behalf. This might be necessary, for example, if the Principal Investigator wants to request a no-cost extension or follow a new course of enquiry in the research.
