Finance and Procurement services: Research Finance Services

Research Finance Services (RFS) provides a seamless service provision to Academic staff for the end to end management of research grant applications and awards. Working closely with Tayside Medical Sciences Centre, TASC, we also administer non-commercial research grant applications on behalf of NHS Tayside.

The RFS team provides professional support across all aspects of application and award management.  Academic staff have a single point of contact for provision of costs, advice on scheme terms and conditions and submission of grant application, through to set up of project code in 1U, monitoring awards, submitting claims, submission of final expenditure statements, audit and award transfer.  The team support maximum cost recovery on research awards through extensive knowledge and experience of the funding environment.

RFS provides data, analysis and reports on research activity to support strategic management and decision-making at both School and University level.  The team are also responsible to provide research finance data for regulatory reporting such as HESA and REF.

RFS maintains strong collaborative relationships internally across Schools and Directorates as well as sector-wide with other universities and external funding bodies.

Useful information and forms

• Worktribe Pre-Award
• Full Economic Costing (fEC)
• Estimating your time on a project using full fEC
• Frascati Definition of Research
• SLS Research funding application guidance
• UoD Carbon Offset Policy
• Timesheet Requirements, Process and Template

Grant applications: pre-award

The RFS Research Finance Officer:

1. acts as the primary point of contact within RFS for support with grant applications
2. facilitates the process of costing and submitting grant applications working in conjunction with academic staff and School administrative staff as appropriate
3. provides advice on terms and conditions of funding, including the eligibility of cost elements
4. undertakes calculation of staff and indirect costs in line with Full Economic Costing methodology
5. provides assistance with the submission of applications, which is increasingly software based
6. ensures compliance with University and NHS Tayside policies during the grant application process
7. liaises with Contracts Managers, Research  Development Managers, IPR Managers (all RIS), School administrative staff and other administrative offices, both within and out-with the University, in order to complete grant applications.  Maintains dialogue with funding bodies on behalf of academic staff to clarify application procedures
8. maintains electronic records of the progress of grant applications to award/failure including the RFS database system

Grant applications: post-award

RFS will:

1. create new project code within One University for new research projects
2. confirm to the People team that adequate funding is in place for appointments to the research award
3. undertake invoicing/claims and correspondence with funding bodies including annual reconciliations, statements and reports
4. oversee expenditure activity and income on research projects
5. allocate overhead recoveries
6. liaise with grant holders, heads of departments and external agencies
7. assist with budgeting and forecasting; ensuring project budgets are maintained and information regarding income and overhead achievement is shared with the Schools
8. close projects within One University in a timely manner
9. meet any audit requirements, internal and external   

Reporting

Please send any requests for regular and/or ad-hoc reporting on research grants to 
[email protected].

RFS also provides data for external reporting to funding bodies as well as contributing to statutory returns such as SFC Knowledge Exchange Metrics, REF and HESA.