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Account set up & process

To set up a new account, email the following documents with a request to open a new FAST account.

• notice of award letter/notice – if the sponsor (granting agency) sends the letter/notice to you directly, please send it to Research Services
• copy of your research application – all required signatures should have been obtained through RAIS
• ethics and safety approvals – if your research involves human participants or biological materials, animals or bio-hazards
• conflict of interest declaration and management plan – if applicable

Other documents may be required based on the nature of your research grant.

• ORS will create a ticket and assign it to a reviewer
• a project account is created for the Principal Investigator (PI) once all required documents are received
• Research Services sends an open account memo (OAM) through RAIS to Research Accounting and notifies the PI by email. All the above documents are attached to the RAIS record and can be viewed and downloaded at any time

Common delays for account set-up

• Research Services did not receive notice of award, so they are not aware that the grant has been awarded
• if sponsors do not specify what the fund request or cheque was intended for, it may take time to reach Research Services
• if the award is received and appropriate ethics requirements are not in place (noted as pending in the application), the PI will be contacted
  • if ethics approvals are received after the award is granted, the PI is responsible for notifying Research Services
• negotiation of grant/clarification of terms is unacceptable to UVic, there are unreasonable or risky terms and conditions or conflicting UVic/sponsor policies
• potential financial risks are found with the sponsor or the terms of the contract
• other conditions required by the sponsor, such as receipt of matching contribution 

How to check account balances

In RAIS

The "post-award" page shows funding awarded for current and past projects. You can monitor the balance and view predicted installments for your projects.

You can also access:

• RASF and application materials
• award notice
• open account memos
• deferral and extension memos

In FAST 

Although RAIS provides a summary of the FAST account budget and balance, you need to access your account in for full functionality and details of all transactions.

Grant amendments

You may have to make amendments during the lifespan of a grant, depending on the needs of the project.

Example amendments:

• extensions
• budget amendments
• additional funding requests
• deferrals
• change in PI requests
• any type of grant amendment where the granting agency needs to be notified

There are different ways to request an extension. In most cases, Research Services submits the grant amendment on the behalf of the PI. Due to exceptions, it’s important that Research Services is notified to update our records and minimize processing delays.

Email us for any type of extension or amendment to your grant. Please include the following details:

• RAIS ID
• type of amendment (extension, deferral, additional funding request)
• explanation as to why you need a grant amendment
• dates (if applicable)

Transferring funds – sub-awards

What is a sub-award?

Researchers often work with co-investigators at other institutions and therefore need to transfer funds for use by their co-investigators.

Sub-awards are used to clarify each institution's obligations and intellectual property. UVic researchers can enter collaborations as sub-award recipients or as sub-award providers. Sub-awards are also known as sub-grants, sub-contracts, grant transfer agreements or transfer of funds agreements.

Eligibility

Not all sponsors allow sub-granting of their funding. Please verify with the funder or with Research Services before you enter such collaborations.

In some cases, the sub-award recipient must be either listed as a co-applicant on the application or the Notice of Award, and be approved by the sponsor. Some Canadian sponsors will only permit grant transfers within Canada.

UVic will only release funds if enough money is in the UVic account to cover the transfer amount.

Timeline

Allow up to 1 month for sub-grant transfers and up to 3 months for transferring funds to foreign institutions via contractual arrangements.

Expectations of a sub-award recipient

The recipient institution is responsible for providing non-financial reporting to the PI and financial reporting to the lead institution. Under some circumstances, funds can be held until a financial report is received.

Transferring funds from UVic to co-investigators at another institution

When a UVic PI collaborates with a PI in another institution (sub-recipient) to carry out a portion of a project awarded to UVic, Research Services will issue a sub-award agreement to allocate a portion of the work to take place at the sub-recipient institution. The sub-recipient PI is responsible for the design, conduct and reporting of their part of the research. 

The sub-recipient institution must have the appropriate facilities to carry out the work, and the institution's policies and procedures must be sufficient to ensure the responsible use of sponsored funds. 

Fund transfer process:

1. Complete, sign and email a Request for Issue of a Subgrant form to Research Services. We'll prepare a letter of agreement or contract between UVic and the recipient institution and send it to their research office.
2. Upon receipt of the request, Research Services begins compliance checks on the sub-recipient institution, determines the most appropriate type of sub-award agreement and prepares a letter of agreement. We'll verify that the sub-grant agreement complies with the grant agreement.
3. Research Services sends the sub-award agreement to the sub-recipient's research office.
4. The sub-recipient's research office will verify the terms, conditions and certification requirement (e.g. human/animal ethics certificates/biohazard/funding agency compliance). Additional negotiation of the sub-award terms may be necessary.
5. Upon final agreement between UVic and the sub-recipient, the sub-recipient will sign the agreement and return it to UVic Research Services.
6. Research Services will sign the returned agreement and provide a fully executed sub-award agreement to the sub-recipient and UVic Research Accounting. Research Accounting will release funds or a cheque to the sub-recipient institution.

UVic is accountable for all funds, including sub-awards. Research Accounting requests financial reporting from the recipient institution as required by the sponsor.

Sub-awards close-out

• Research Accounting is responsible for obtaining yearly/final financial reports from the sub-recipients and retaining a copy (i.e., supporting documentation for all expenditures and financial statements)
• other final reports (e.g., property reports, patent reports) may be required
• UVic PIs may be asked to help obtain necessary closeout reports from the sub-recipient on time

Award closure

As a project nears its end, the PI and Research Accounting have several closeout responsibilities:

PI

• review financial reports prepared by Research Accounting
• prepare and submit any required progress/scientific/technical reports or deliverables to the sponsor
• provide Research Services with the confirmation of the final account balance, completion of all contractual commitments and submission of all reports required by the sponsor
• ensure that all project requirements are completed

Research Accounting

• review all costs and remove those that are ineligible
• provide the PI or department with the account reconciliation for review
• coordinate with the PI to ensure that all expenditures are finalized and adjustments are processed to reach a final balance
• prepare and submit the final financial report to the sponsor
• submit any required invention/property reports to the sponsor
• close sponsored award fund sources in the financial system

Research Services account closure checklist

• PI has submitted the final technical report – all milestones and deliverables have been met
• all funding has been received from sponsor
• all inter-institutional advances to partners have been received and accounted for
• all payments to sub-awardees and vendors have been made
• outstanding commitments are cancelled
• outstanding travel advances are reconciled
• all financial reporting and invoicing is complete
• balance is at $0 

Residual balance

Residual balance refers to unspent funds on a research grant or contract that has terminated or expired.

If you have unspent funds in your project account by the end date and need to access these funds, contact Research Services and request an extension. Failure to request an extension may prevent access to the remaining funds.

For SSHRC and NSERC programs, please follow the no-cost extension of Tri-Agency programs procedure under research finance's No-cost extensions section.

• if your remaining balance is more than 50% of your original budget, the funds will have to be returned to the granting agency, and no extension will be granted
• if the grant expired more than a year ago, you will not be eligible to access them through the General Research Fund

For CIHR grants, any funds remaining at the end of the  must be returned to the agency. For other programs, please check the specific sponsor guidelines.

Some sponsors will not release the last portion of the budget until the final reports are received, so please ensure reporting timelines are met.

Final financial report

A final financial report is required for most sponsored projects. Research Accounting prepares the financial report with the PI and submits the report to the sponsor. For final financial reports:

• outstanding commitments must be cleared
• unspent balance must be addressed
• over-expenditure must be cleared 

Final progress report

The PI is responsible for preparing and submitting the final progress report to the sponsor. Please check the deadline to submit the final progress report.

Need help?

Contacting these finance emails will create a ticket and notifications to which you can reply.

• post-award support, grant amendments, extensions, installments
• general questions/inquiries, sub-grant requests, partial funding releases
• ChromeRiver expenses, travel award expense claim