Published on 28 July 2023
Royal Society’s University Research Fellowship – changes to the scheme
The Royal Society’s University Research Fellowship scheme is now open with a funder deadline of 7th September 2023. This year’s scheme has changed, in line with the Royal Society’s Grant Funding Guidance which was published earlier this year.
The main changes are:
- Introduction of a maximum grant value - applicants can now apply up to a maximum award value over eight years (£1.83 million for the 2023-2024 round)
- The annual ‘caps’ on salary and research expenses have been removed to enable greater flexibility for grant holders
- A minimum expected level of salary for the Fellow has been introduced
- Minimum expected levels of research expenses have also been introduced, although lower levels may be included but must be justified
- Inflation is to be included for the full duration of the grant and the level of inflation must be justified
The Scheme Notes and Grant Funding Guidance must be read together, as key information is distributed between both documents. For example, their stipulated costs for PhD stipends and fees are only detailed in the Grant Funding Guidance and not mentioned in the Scheme Notes.
A crib sheet and new X5 Scheme will be available w/c 31st July 2023. Any costings already in X5 will need to be updated once the scheme is released into X5, to ensure inflation and studentships are captured appropriately.
European Research Council Starting Grants 2024 call
The ERC has opened a call for the 2024 Starting Grants. An updated crib sheet reflecting some novelties in the application format and evaluation procedure can be found on ROO website. Please contact your Research Development Team for further guidance.
This call is not currently covered by the scope of the UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee, which covers call deadlines up to and including 30th September 2023. However, the advice of the UK Government is to continue applying to any Horizon Europe calls with deadlines after this date.
Here is a reminder of the deadline:
| ROO Deadline | 13th October 2023 at 16:00 |
| Funder Deadline | 24th October 2023 at 16:00 (17:00 Brussels local time) |
Research Grant Timesheet Requirements and Guidance
For further guidance on the recording requirements of staff time on a research grant, we have produced a decision chart for you to use to work out whether timesheets or declarations are required for the following funders: UKRI, Innovate, H2020, Horizon Europe and US Federal.
Please go to the Research Grants Timesheet SharePoint page for the latest information and best practice.
Transforming Research Support (TRS) Programme - Worktribe roll out
The first phase of work being delivered in the TRS Programme is the Grant Management Support (GMS) Project. This will include the launch of a new collaborative grant management platform called Worktribe which will replace the grant costing tool X5 as well as some other tools.
We will be rolling out Worktribe with pre-award and contracts modules in 2023-24 using a phased approach:
- In November 2023 release Worktribe to one school
- In February 2024 release Worktribe to two more schools
- In March 2024 release Worktribe to the three remaining schools and non-school institutions
Decisions on the order of roll out are still to be made with the GMS Consultation Group which includes more than 60 members of staff from across the grants management community. We believe this phased approach will ensure that Worktribe can be embedded successfully in each school and non-school institutions. The introduction of the post-award module will follow later in 2024.
If you have any questions or comments please email transformingresearchsupport@admin.cam.ac.uk
RGUG Meeting 20th July 2023 - recording and presentations now available
Thank you to those who were able to attend the Research Grants User Group Meeting (RGUG) on 20th July 2023. The recording and slides are now available. The next meeting is schedule for 28th September 2023 at 11:15am and this will be a hybrid meeting for you to join either online as a Teams call or in person at The West Hub, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge.
Further details will be circulated nearer the time and if you have any questions, please contact Hannah.Pawson@admin.cam.ac.uk.