Published on 16 December 2022
UKRI Timesheets Update
Thank you all for your support and engagement with the new timesheet process. UKRI have given us positive feedback on the work that we have all been doing to address the audit findings. Please continue to upload into your all historic timesheets (before 1st July 2022) into your SharePoint library.
During our conversations with UKRI, they have confirmed the following at Final Expenditure Statement (FES) stage -
| Missing timesheets up to 1st July 2022 | Can still claim these unevidenced costs from UKRI |
| Missing timesheets after 1st July 2022 | Cannot claim these unevidenced cost from UKRI |
Therefore, focus on making sure that all timesheets from 1st July 2022 are in the SharePoint Final Library at FES stage. Otherwise part-funded DI staff costs not evidenced by timesheets from 1st July 2022 onwards, cannot be claimed and instead would need to be covered by Department funds.
You do still need to complete a UKRI hours tracker spreadsheet with staff details. This helps you to monitor staff hours during the lifetime of the project and at FES stage, reconciliation of unevidenced staff costs can take place. The updated timesheet template, spreadsheet tracker for UKRI and other guidance is available on the Research Grants Timesheet SharePoint Site.
X5 Salary Scale & National Insurance Updates
The following updated pay scales with an effective date of 6/11/2022 were uploaded into X5 on 14th December 2022
- NHS grades for nurses: NHS6, NHS7 and NHS8a grades. Note: these are different to Research nurses grades,
- Banded rates (RDR0, SLEC0, PRF Grades) have also changed, due to their included NI calculation
The National Insurance rate files in X5 have also been updated to reflect the latest change by Government,
- For funders who pay the Apprenticeship levy, please use the file dated 07/11/2022
- For funders who do not pay the Apprenticeship levy, please use the file dated 06/11/2022
For existing costings, the Rates tab will show the Salary files and NI Rate File as out of date. To apply the new rates to existing costings, go to the rates table tab and update the out of date files by clicking on "apply all updated files now". Please be aware your costs will change in value.
Wellcome Trust Organisation Spend Report – Departmental Expenditure Checks
An Organisational Spend Report (OSR) is submitted quarterly to the Wellcome Trust (WT) by the Research Operations Office (ROO) for the months of March, June, September and December. Before ROO submits the next OSR, please could Departments check and verify all their WT expenditure on CUFS and make any amendments before the December 2022 General Ledger period closes.
If you have any queries, please contact Sarah.Saemian@admin.cam.ac.uk
New Position Titles in the Research Office
Position titles for roles formerly known as Senior Research Support Advisor and Research Support Advisor have been updated to reflect the work and approach of these teams more accurately.
Below is a summary of the changes:
| Previous title | New title |
| Senior Research Support Advisor | Senior Finance Analyst – Research and Grants |
| Research Support Advisor | Finance Analyst – Research and Grants |
No changes have been made to the Research Support Manager and Deputy Research Support Manger titles. Contact details can be found on the Research Operations Office Website.
UKRI Guarantee Guidance
New updates have been introduced to the UKRI Guarantee Guidance dated 5th December 2022. The scope of the guarantee is still the same: to guarantee funding for all eligible, successful applicants to Horizon Europe calls with final submission deadlines on or before 31 December 2022. The new version includes various changes which are listed in this document.
Horizon Europe Work Programmes 2023-2024
On the 6th December 2022, the European Commission adopted the main Horizon Europe work programme 2023-24 with a budget of around €13.5 billion to support researchers and innovators in Europe. The final versions of the dedicated work programmes for clusters and missions can be reached via Funding and Tenders Portal. The European Innovation Council (EIC) 2023 annual Work Programme was adopted on 7th of December 2022 and the ERC already published its 2023 Work Programme in July 2022.
Public consultation on the past, present and future of the European research and innovation programmes 2014-2027
On 1st December, the European Commission opened a public consultation on the past, present and future of the EU's Horizon research and innovation programmes 2014-2027. This consultation is expected to contribute to the final and interim evaluations of Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe, as well as the preparations of the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027.
The consultation asks for a wide range of views including research institutions, businesses and non-governmental organisations. Individual researchers and innovators can reply to the consultation and the University of Cambridge is considering an organisational response. Further details are available about the consultation which will run until February 2023.
HR Transformation Programme
The HR Transformation Programme is keen to interview staff from across the University for our second round of user research. We’ve had a good response so far but would like to speak to some more academics and researchers who would like to share their thoughts and experiences of HR processes and systems at the University of Cambridge.
We are grateful to the staff who participated in our first round and would now like to validate these insights and deepen our understanding of staff experiences, goals and challenges in relation to HR.
To find out more and register your interest, please use this form.
Reminder - Symplectic Elements Link to Researchfish until Friday 13th January
The annual submission period for UKRI, NIHR, BHF, CRUK and other funders is 6th February to 16th March 2023 during which time PIs need to use their Researchfish account to submit a return on their research outputs. Prior to the submission period, please encourage PIs to enter their research outputs into Symplectic Elements by 13th January 2023. This is so that the bulk upload from Symplectic to Researchfish, of links from grants to research outputs can take place.
After 13th January 2023, we will not pass data to Researchfish from Symplectic Elements and any additional links, and the outputs themselves, will need to be input directly in Researchfish during the submission period.
Note that the research outputs being uploaded from Symplectic Elements to Researchfish are journal articles, conference proceedings, book chapters and data sets where they have a unique identifier (DOI).
Reminder - Christmas and New Year Deadlines for Applications
Due to the Christmas vacation the Research Operations Office (ROO) will close from 5pm on Friday 23rd December 2022 and will re-open on Tuesday 3rd January 2023. Therefore, please be aware of the following deadlines and ensure that your researchers are made aware of these arrangements.
If you have applications with a funder deadline in the first week of January, the 5 working day deadline is before Christmas. For example,
| Funder deadline | Friday 6th January 2023, 5pm |
| 2 working day deadline | Wednesday 4th January 2023, 5pm |
| 5 working day deadline | Thursday 22nd December 2022, 5pm |
As a reminder, the ROO asks for a minimum of four weeks’ notice of the intention to submit to a particular scheme. Some funders have very short turnaround times which means that it's not always possible to give the ROO four weeks' notice of intention to submit. In these circumstances, please continue to contact us at the earliest opportunity so that we can assess the resource requirements to support the application. Full details of the deadline policy and the application deadline calculator can be found on the ROO website.