v2026.1 · 100 entries
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Lab equipment lifecycle assessment
A structured environmental impact assessment of a laboratory instrument or equipment item across all life-cycle stages, from raw-material extraction and manufacture through use, maintenance, and end-of-life.
Carbon accounting (research)
The systematic measurement, calculation, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions across research activities, applying standard methodologies and emission factors to produce auditable CO2-equivalent totals.
Scope 1 / 2 / 3 emissions (research org)
The categorisation of a research organisation's greenhouse-gas emissions following the GHG Protocol: scope 1 (direct on-site combustion), scope 2 (purchased electricity, heat, steam, cooling), and scope 3 (indirect emissions across the value chain, including procurement, commuting, travel, and waste).
Climate impact statement (in DMP)
A structured section in a data management plan or research proposal that estimates and discusses the environmental impact of planned research activities, including travel, computing, equipment, consumables, and data storage.
Climate-aware funding
Research funding policies and award practices that explicitly incorporate climate and environmental sustainability considerations into eligibility, proposal review, and reporting.
Open infrastructure energy efficiency
The energy and carbon performance of shared, community-governed scholarly infrastructure (open repositories, identifier services, preservation systems), considered as part of the sustainability profile of the open scholarship ecosystem.
Sustainable procurement (research)
The process of purchasing research goods and services with explicit consideration of environmental, social, and governance criteria across the full supply chain, in addition to price and performance.
5R Framework (lab sustainability)
A hierarchical decision framework applied to laboratory consumables and waste: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle, considered in that order of preference.
Hybrid conference
A scholarly meeting that simultaneously supports in-person and remote participation, with intentional design choices to give remote attendees substantive interactivity rather than passive viewing.
Virtual conference
A scholarly meeting held entirely online, with no physical venue or in-person attendance, using video-conferencing, virtual poster halls, and asynchronous discussion channels.
Conference travel emissions
The subset of academic travel emissions specifically attributable to attendance at conferences, workshops, and scholarly meetings.
Travel emissions (academic)
The greenhouse gas emissions arising from academic business travel, principally air travel for conferences, fieldwork, collaboration visits, and external examining.
Carbon-aware computing
The practice of scheduling, shifting, or routing computational workloads in response to real-time grid carbon intensity, so that flexible jobs run when and where electricity emissions are lowest.
Energy proportionality (computing)
The property of computing systems whose energy consumption scales linearly with workload, so that idle or lightly utilised systems draw correspondingly little power.
Green software engineering
The discipline of designing, building, and operating software with explicit attention to its energy and carbon impact, as defined by the Green Software Foundation.
Sustainable HPC
High-performance computing operations and procurement choices that minimise energy use, carbon emissions, water use, and hardware waste while delivering scientific compute capacity.
Compute carbon footprint
The greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the electricity consumed by computational research activities, including local workstations, on-premises HPC clusters, and cloud or commercial compute services.
Research carbon footprint
The total greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in CO2-equivalent) attributable to research activity, encompassing direct laboratory energy use, computing, procurement, travel, and end-of-life of research equipment.
Lab waste audit
A structured exercise in which a laboratory measures and categorises the volume, type, and disposal route of waste generated over a defined period to identify reduction, re-use, and recycling opportunities.
Single-use plastic alternatives
Materials and product designs that substitute for traditional single-use polymer consumables in research workflows, including bio-based polymers, autoclavable glassware, reduced-plastic packaging, and refill-and-wash systems.
Reusable consumables
Laboratory items historically used once and discarded that are redesigned, repurposed, or substituted with multi-use alternatives, including washable tip-box racks, autoclavable glass tubes, refillable spray bottles, and washable lab coats.
Plastic waste (research lab)
The single-use and multi-use polymer waste generated by laboratory research activities, including pipette tips, tubes, plates, gloves, packaging, and serological pipettes, much of which is contaminated and routed to incineration rather than recycling.
-80 degC freezer management
The set of operational practices applied to ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezers to minimise energy use, extend equipment life, and preserve sample integrity, including sample inventory control, temperature setpoint optimisation, and preventive maintenance.
Cold-storage energy (research)
The electrical energy consumed by research cold-storage equipment (-20 degC freezers, -80 degC ultra-low temperature freezers, liquid nitrogen Dewars, cold rooms) used to preserve biological, chemical, and reagent samples.
ULAB sample
An Unknown Long-Abandoned Biological sample, typically held in a freezer or cold-storage facility with no current owner, provenance record, or active research use, representing a major target for sustainability clean-out programmes.
Green Lab Certification
Any formal third-party assessment that verifies a laboratory meets defined sustainability criteria, most commonly issued by LEAF or My Green Lab.
My Green Lab
A US-based non-profit organisation and certification programme that assesses laboratory sustainability across behaviour, equipment, infrastructure, and culture, issuing tiered certifications used by pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic labs worldwide.
LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework)
A standards-based assessment framework developed by University College London that scores wet and dry laboratories on energy, waste, water, procurement, and research-quality practices, awarding Bronze, Silver, or Gold accreditation.
Updated project plan
A revised version of the original project plan, reflecting approved changes to scope, work packages, milestones, deliverables, budget, or timeline, typically produced after a project pivot, change request, or extension.
Project plan
The structured document, typically created in the proposal or award-acceptance phase, describing the project's objectives, methods, work packages, tasks, milestones, deliverables, timeline, budget, team, and risks.
Project metadata
The structured descriptive data about a research project, including title, abstract, dates, funder, award number, PI, contributors, institutions, scope, keywords, outputs, and identifiers (RAiD, ORCID, ROR, DOI), used for discovery, reporting, and linkage.
Project ID (RAiD-anchored)
A persistent, machine-actionable identifier for a research project, typically issued under the Research Activity Identifier (RAiD) standard ISO 23527, used to unambiguously identify the project across systems, funders, institutions, and outputs.
Output legacy planning
The explicit planning, typically conducted late in execution and at closeout, for the long-term stewardship, accessibility, and re-use of project outputs (data, software, publications, prototypes, networks) beyond the project's funded lifetime.
Post-project sustainability
The planning and provision for ongoing maintenance, hosting, support, or further development of project outputs (software, datasets, networks, services, communities) after the funded project has formally ended.
Lessons learned
A structured retrospective summary of what worked well, what did not, and what the project team would do differently, captured at major lifecycle milestones (especially closeout) to inform future projects.
Project closure documentation
The set of documents produced at project closeout to record final outcomes, lessons learned, deliverables submitted, data archived, equipment disposition, and outstanding obligations, providing an auditable trail for future reference.
Offboarding (project)
The structured process of transitioning a team member out of a project, including knowledge transfer, data and code hand-off, access revocation, exit interview, and documentation of outstanding items.
Onboarding (project)
The structured process of integrating a new team member, partner, or contributor into a project, including orientation to scope, methods, tools, data, governance, and team norms.
Hand-off (between phases)
The structured transfer of project responsibility, knowledge, and artefacts from one lifecycle phase to the next, or between project teams or roles, to ensure continuity and minimise loss of context.
Project hold
A temporary pause of project activity initiated by the project team, the institution, or a regulatory body, for example pending an ethics re-approval, equipment repair, IRB decision, or while a key team member is on leave.
Continuation decision
The sponsor's formal determination, typically at the end of a reporting period, of whether to continue funding the next budget period of a multi-year grant, based on satisfactory progress and continued funding availability.
Suspension (grant)
The temporary halting of a grant's activities, typically initiated by the sponsor in response to a concern (compliance, ethical, or financial), during which new obligations cannot be incurred against the award and previously incurred costs may be at risk.
Termination (grant)
The formal ending of a grant award before its scheduled end date, initiated by the sponsor or recipient, due to non-performance, mutual agreement, loss of funding, or other defined cause.
No-cost extension (lifecycle context)
A formal extension of the project's period of performance beyond the original end date, with no additional sponsor funds, used to complete the funded scope when execution has been delayed or remaining funds support continued work.
Change request (project)
A formal request submitted to a sponsor to amend an aspect of an awarded project, such as scope, budget allocation, personnel, equipment, or timeline, typically requiring sponsor review and approval before the change takes effect.
Project pivot
A substantive change in the direction, methods, scope, or objectives of a research project, motivated by new findings, external developments, technical obstacles, or strategic re-evaluation, typically requiring formal sponsor approval.
End-of-project review
A formal review held at or near the end of the project's period of performance, assessing overall achievement of objectives, deliverables produced, impact, and lessons learned.
Mid-term review
A formal review conducted at approximately the midpoint of a research project, evaluating progress against aims, resource utilisation, and the realism and feasibility of the plan for the remaining project duration.
Interim project review
A scheduled formal review of project progress conducted at a defined intermediate point in the project lifecycle, typically combining sponsor, consortium, and (sometimes) independent expert evaluation.
Annual report (grant)
A scheduled interim report submitted to the sponsor once per project year, summarising progress, deliverables, expenditure, personnel, and any deviations, supporting continuation decisions for multi-year awards.
Archive phase
The post-closeout lifecycle phase during which project records, datasets, code, and documentation are deposited in appropriate repositories for long-term preservation, access, and possible re-use.
Reporting phase
The lifecycle phase or sub-phase during which scheduled progress and financial reports are prepared and submitted to the sponsor, typically overlapping with later execution and closeout.
Execution phase
The main project lifecycle phase during which the planned research activities are carried out, deliverables produced, milestones achieved, and the bulk of grant expenditure occurs.
Award phase
The lifecycle phase between sponsor decision to fund and start of the period of performance, covering notification, negotiation of terms, contracting, ethics and other compliance approvals, and project mobilisation.
Proposal phase
The lifecycle phase covering preparation, drafting, internal review, institutional approval, and submission of a research proposal to a funder, ending with proposal submission.
Idea phase
The earliest phase of the research project lifecycle, in which a researcher identifies a question, surveys the literature, drafts a research concept, and explores potential funders and collaborators before committing to proposal preparation.
Project lifecycle
The complete sequence of phases through which a research project progresses from initial idea through proposal, award, execution, reporting, closeout, and post-project legacy.
Subtask
An internal subdivision of a project task, used for detailed planning, effort tracking, and execution management, typically not formally reported to the sponsor but tracked within the consortium or research group.
Task (Horizon Europe)
A subdivision of a Horizon Europe work package, representing a specific activity with defined objectives, contributing partners, person-month allocation, and link to particular deliverables or milestones.
Work package (Horizon Europe)
A defined sub-component of a Horizon Europe project that groups related tasks, deliverables, and milestones under a single work-package leader, with its own budget allocation and timeline.
Project deliverable
A tangible, verifiable output produced by a project, such as a report, dataset, software release, prototype, or publication, formally documented in the project plan with a due date and responsible work package or partner.
Project milestone
A significant intermediate point in a project, marking achievement of a key activity, completion of a deliverable, or successful transition between phases, used to monitor progress against the project plan.
Project phase
A defined segment of a research project's lifecycle, characterised by a specific objective, set of activities, deliverables, and decision gates, used to structure planning, execution, and reporting.
Financial report (grant)
A structured statement of grant expenditure submitted to the sponsor at defined reporting periods, presenting actual costs against the approved budget by category and supporting reimbursement or continuation decisions.
Final report
The concluding report submitted to the sponsor at or shortly after the end of the period of performance, summarising the entire project's achievements, deliverables, publications, financial summary, and outcomes.
Interim report
A progress and/or financial report submitted to the sponsor during a multi-period grant, covering activities up to a defined intermediate point and supporting continuation decisions.
Reporting period (grant)
A defined time window within a multi-period grant for which the recipient must submit progress and/or financial reports to the sponsor, often aligned with budget years or work-package completion dates.
Lump-sum grant (Horizon Europe)
A Horizon Europe funding model in which a fixed lump-sum amount is paid for completion of each work package, replacing detailed cost-actuals reporting with focus on technical deliverables and successful work-package completion.
Milestone payment
A funding disbursement triggered by the achievement of a defined project milestone, used in fixed-price or hybrid funding mechanisms to align sponsor payment with verifiable progress.
Fixed-price grant
A grant or contract in which the sponsor pays a pre-agreed fixed amount on satisfactory completion of the work or defined milestones, without reimbursement of actual costs, transferring cost-overrun risk to the recipient.
Cost reimbursement
A funding mechanism in which the sponsor reimburses the recipient for actual allowable costs incurred during the performance of the award, typically up to a stated funding ceiling, with periodic invoicing and supporting documentation required.
Pass-through entity
A non-federal entity that receives a federal award from a federal awarding agency and then provides a subaward to a subrecipient to carry out part of the federal programme.
Prime award
The grant or contract directly between the funder and the lead recipient organisation, which holds primary responsibility for the project's scope, deliverables, and compliance, and may issue subawards to other entities.
Subrecipient monitoring
The activities undertaken by the prime award recipient (pass-through entity) to ensure that subrecipients comply with the terms of their subawards, including financial, programmatic, and audit oversight.
Subaward
A formal award by the prime recipient of a grant to another organisation to perform a defined portion of the substantive scope of work, governed by terms flowing down from the prime award.
Sponsored research agreement
A contractual agreement between a research-performing organisation and a sponsor (industry, foundation, or government), defining the scope of work, deliverables, IP terms, publication rights, payment terms, and reporting obligations for a research project.
Crowdfunded research
Research projects funded by aggregated small contributions from many individuals, typically solicited through online platforms (Experiment, Kickstarter, GoFundMe, institutional giving sites) rather than from traditional grant-making bodies.
Endowment income
The investment returns generated by an institution's or foundation's permanent endowment fund, used (typically at a defined spending rate, e.g., 4 to 5 percent of a multi-year smoothed average) to support operations, scholarships, or named research programmes.
Foundation grant
A grant awarded by a private, charitable, or family foundation rather than a government agency or industry sponsor, typically funded from endowment income and governed by the foundation's mission and giving guidelines.
Indirect cost recovery
The income an institution receives from sponsors as reimbursement for indirect (overhead) costs incurred in support of sponsored projects, calculated by applying the negotiated or sponsor-imposed indirect cost rate to the relevant direct-cost base.
Single Audit (US)
A US federal annual organisation-wide audit required of non-federal entities expending more than a defined threshold of federal funds, conducted under 2 CFR 200 Subpart F (formerly OMB Circular A-133).
Audit (grant)
A formal examination of an institution's or project's financial records, internal controls, and compliance with sponsor terms, conducted by external or internal auditors to provide independent assurance of proper stewardship of grant funds.
Closeout phase
The grant lifecycle phase following the end of the period of performance, during which final technical, financial, equipment, and property reports are submitted, residual obligations are liquidated, and the award is formally closed.
Post-award phase
The grant lifecycle phase covering all activities between the start of the period of performance and the end of the closeout reporting period, including expenditure, reporting, monitoring, modifications, and subaward management.
Pre-award phase
The grant lifecycle phase covering activities from identification of a funding opportunity through proposal preparation, submission, and award negotiation, prior to the start of the period of performance.
Encumbrance
A reservation or commitment of grant funds against a future expenditure (such as a purchase order, a multi-year salary commitment, or a subaward), recorded in the institution's financial system to prevent over-commitment.
Burn rate (grant)
The rate at which a grant's funds are being expended over time, typically expressed as currency-per-month or as a percentage of the budget consumed per period, used to forecast end-of-period spend and identify under- or over-spend trajectories.
Underspend
The condition in which a grant budget period ends with unspent funds, indicating actual expenditure was lower than planned and requiring action (carry-forward, reduction of next-year award, or return to sponsor).
Carry-forward
The authorised transfer of unobligated grant funds from one budget period to the next within a multi-year grant, allowing the recipient to use those funds in a subsequent period rather than losing them.
No-cost extension (NCE)
An approved extension of the period of performance of a grant beyond the original end date, without additional sponsor funds, to enable completion of the funded scope.
Continuation award
The release of subsequent-year segments of a multi-year grant, contingent on satisfactory progress and the availability of funds, but not requiring a new competitive application.
Renewable award
A funding award that, on completion, may be extended or re-funded for additional periods through a renewal process, which is typically partly competitive (against other proposals) and partly based on performance of the prior award.
Discretionary funding
Funds that an institution, dean, or unit head may allocate at their own judgement, without a formal competitive call, typically used for strategic investments, recruitment startups, bridge support, or unforeseen needs.
Non-competitive grant
A funding award made without a comparative peer-reviewed competition, either through direct invitation, formula allocation, or as a routine continuation of an existing multi-year award.
Competitive grant
A funding award made following a peer-reviewed, merit-based competition against other proposals, in which only a subset of applicants are funded.
Catalyst grant
A targeted, often small-to-medium-value funding mechanism designed to catalyse strategic activity in a specific area, such as building a new research network, piloting a methodology, or de-risking a translational step.
Pump-priming funding
Small grants intended to initiate new collaborative or interdisciplinary research activity that is not yet ready for full external funding competition, typically with an explicit expectation of follow-on external grant capture.
Seed funding
Small-value, short-duration funding awarded to develop a novel research idea to the point where it can compete for larger external grants, typically provided by institutions, learned societies, or pilot-grant programmes.
Bridge funding
Short-term funding provided to maintain a research programme between an expiring grant and an anticipated new award, typically from institutional sources rather than external sponsors.
Match funding
A funding model in which one party's contribution is conditional on a matching contribution from another party, typically expressed as a ratio (e.g., 1:1, 2:1) of sponsor funds to recipient or third-party funds.
