Finance Business Systems
Support and financial appraisal of research proposals
Sponsors' Funding Guidance
Regular and major sponsors of research activities will often provide potential applicants with a copy of their funding guidelines. The guidelines outlines those costs that are eligible and those that are ineligible. Specific attention needs to be paid to these guidelines as sponsors can reject applications on the basis that the financial section was not completed correctly.
Many of our regular sponsors can be found at the following RBI link:-
http://rbi.uwe.ac.uk/internet/Research/ResearchFunding/uweMajorFunders/default.asp
The major issues that a sponsor’s funding guidelines will cover include:
- For which type of staff you are able to claim
- Whether you can claim inflation and or increments
- How named and un-named staff are treated
- At what pay point can new staff be appointed
- Allowances for Studentships
- Travel and subsistence
- Consumables
- Exceptional Items
- Equipment
- Indirect costs
- Inadmissible costs
- Audit
Probably the most fundamental piece of information contained in the financial guidelines is that relating to the price bases. Often sponsors will talk about “The Current Price Base” – this simply means that the prices quoted should not be increased for any anticipated price rises (inflation). Many sponsors are happy to pay increments but would prefer to pay inflation themselves. Therefore the costings have to be prepared accordingly. It is important to remember that when a sponsor asks for the ‘Effective Date of your Salary Scales’ this is what they are trying to determine i.e. when was the salary scale last updated for inflation – once that has been established the sponsor then has a reference point to pay inflation from.
Funding guidelines will also indicate how the budget should be laid out and in which type of year(s) i.e tax, calendar, academic, project start date etc.
