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Research Operations Office

 

Published on 6 July 2012


Wellcome Trust Visit

A final reminder that The Wellcome Trust will be visiting the University on July 12th.

Dr Michael Dunn will give a presentation about Funding Opportunities and strategic initiatives at the Wellcome Trust. PIs and Administrators are invited to attend one of two sessions to be held on this date.

Seminar times & locations:

  • 11am - Alice Fisher Lecture Theatre - Clinical School, Addenbrookes 
  • 2pm - Arts School Room A, New Museums Site

Wellcome Trust: new initiatives

Open Access Policy: The Wellcome Trust has announced that it will be strengthening the manner in which it enforces its open access policy with immediate effect. Failure to comply with the policy could result in final grant payments being withheld and non-compliant publications being discounted when applying for further funding.

Further information can be found at:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2012/WTVM055745.htm


  • When Wellcome Trust funded researchers prepare end of grant reports, the principal investigator's head of department will be required to provide signed assurance that all papers associated with the grant comply with the Trust's policy. If they are unable to do this, the final payment on the grant will be withheld.
  • Wellcome Trust funded researchers will be required to ensure that all publications associated with their Trust-funded research are compliant with the Trust's policy before any renewal or new grant awards will be issued.
  • Non-compliant publications will be discounted as part of a researcher's track record in any renewal of an existing grant or new grant application.

Wellcome Trust eVal
The Wellcome Trust are currently rolling out a new online progress reporting system to some grant-holders (the system has been already made available to all Investigator Award recipients; other grant holders may be contacted an invited to submit reports). The system will allow researchers to report any progress, outputs and impact-related information throughout the life of the award and will replace all other existing paper-based reporting.

  • In developing this system the Wellcome Trust have worked with the MRC and other funders to introduce commonality across the types of progress and outputs-type questions where this makes sense. However, whilst the system carries much of the same functionality as the existing MRC e-Val, it has a different emphasis and question set and is therefore currently a stand-alone system.

RCUK Assurance (previously FAP Research Grants)

RCUK have announced that they will be visiting the University on November 14-16 to conduct an audit. The RCUK Assurance will comprise:

  • Doctoral Training Grants
  • All other Research Grants
  • QAV (TRAC methodology)

A Project group has been convened to oversee the process and further information will be issued in the near future.

X5 User Acceptance Testing

The new Research Pricing and Costing Tool being developed to replace pFACT, X5, is now in the second phase of User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and members of the research community are needed to test the system. Further information about the X5 project can be found on the project website: http://www.x5project.net/

During the UAT sessions, testers will be given pre-set scenarios to follow. Using the system, testers will carry out the scenarios and assess whether the system has performed in a way that would be expected. It will also allow testers to provide feedback on the usability and configuration of the system.

The dates and venues for the testing are as follows:

  • Wednesday 1st August 2012 (9.00am to 1.00pm) – Clinical Schools, Addenbrooke’s Site
  • Thursday 2nd August 2012 (9.00am to 1.00pm) – Greenwich House, West Cambridge
  • Monday 6th August 2012 (9.00am to 12.30pm) – 17 Mill Lane, City Centre
  • Monday 6th August 2012 (1.00pm to 4.30pm) – 17 Mill Lane, City Centre
  • Tuesday 7th August 2012 (9.00am to 1.00pm) – Greenwich House, West Cambridge

Should you be interested in testing and are available on the dates given above please email x5project@admin.cam.ac.uk with your preferred date.