CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: ai in research administration

  • AI Governance Framework for Research Offices: NIST, ISO 42001 and In-House Approaches Compared

    A research office building an AI governance framework can choose from three broad templates: a NIST-aligned risk profile (Govern, Map, Measure, Manage), an ISO/IEC 42001-informed management system (certifiable, PDCA-based), or a McKinsey-style operating model built around strategic alignment and cross-functional leadership. Most research offices need a hybrid: NIST’s risk logic, ISO’s audit trail, and an operating model that assigns clear ownership to a research-integrity or grants office.

    An AI governance framework is a structured set of policies, roles, and controls that determines how an organisation approves, monitors, and audits its use of artificial intelligence. For a university research office, that means one coherent document — not three disconnected policies bolted together after a compliance scare.

    What is an AI governance framework, and why do research offices need one now?

    An AI governance framework sets out who approves an AI tool, what risk tier it sits in, how its use is documented, and who is accountable if it goes wrong. Research offices are being asked to produce one with no established house style, because most published templates were written for enterprise IT or financial services, not for grant review panels, ethics boards, or manuscript preparation.

    The pressure has three sources. Funders including UKRI now expect disclosure of generative-AI use in grant applications and peer review. Publishers following ICMJE‘s updated recommendations and COPE‘s 2023 position statement require that AI tools never be listed as authors, since they cannot take responsibility for a work’s accuracy. And institutional research-integrity offices increasingly sit between both obligations, needing one internal policy that satisfies funder disclosure rules and publisher authorship rules simultaneously.

    What is the NIST framework for AI governance?

    The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in January 2023, is a voluntary, non-certifiable framework built around four functions: Govern (culture, policy, accountability), Map (context and risk identification), Measure (assessment and monitoring tools), and Manage (mitigation and incident response). NIST extended it with a Generative AI Profile (NIST AI 600-1) in July 2024, addressing risks specific to large language models — hallucination, confidentiality leakage, and content provenance — which is directly relevant to research offices vetting AI writing or coding assistants.

    NIST’s advantage for a research office is flexibility: the four functions map cleanly onto existing committee structures (a research-integrity committee can own “Govern”, an ethics board can own “Map”) without requiring a new certification budget.

    What does ISO/IEC 42001 add that NIST does not?

    ISO/IEC 42001:2023, published in December 2023, is the world’s first international standard for an AI management system (AIMS). Unlike NIST’s RMF, it is certifiable, structured around the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, and shares the Annex SL high-level structure used by ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 — meaning an institution that already runs an ISO 27001 information-security management system can extend the same audit infrastructure to cover AI.

    ISO 42001 requires documented objectives, an AI policy statement, competence records, and internal audits — heavier than NIST, but it produces an external certificate a funder, publisher, or partner university can verify without reading the underlying policy.

    Feature NIST AI RMF ISO/IEC 42001 McKinsey-style operating model
    Legal status Voluntary, non-certifiable Certifiable international standard Not a formal standard
    Structure Govern, Map, Measure, Manage Plan-Do-Check-Act (Annex SL) Steering committee + risk-tiered use-case pipeline
    Published January 2023 (v1.0) December 2023 Synthesised industry practice
    Best fit for a research office Fast-start policy with existing committees Cross-institution or multi-site consortium needing an auditable certificate Research office already running agile grant/portfolio management

    How does a McKinsey-style operating model differ?

    A McKinsey-style operating model is not a codified standard like NIST or ISO — it is a way of organising governance around strategic value rather than compliance alone. It typically features a cross-functional steering committee (research administration, legal, IT, and academic leadership), a risk-tiered pipeline that prioritises AI use cases by potential value and harm, and an emphasis on iterative, agile policy revision rather than a fixed annual review cycle.

    For a research office, this approach fits best where AI adoption is already fast-moving — for example, where multiple departments are independently piloting AI-assisted literature review, grant-matching, or peer-review triage tools and need one visible decision body rather than a static rulebook.

    A hybrid template research administrators can adapt

    Most research offices do not need to choose exactly one template. A workable hybrid borrows NIST’s risk logic, ISO’s documentation discipline, and an operating-model steering committee:

    • Governance body: a standing AI governance committee reporting to the research-integrity office, with named leads from ethics, grants, IT security, and library/scholarly-communications teams.
    • Risk tiers: classify each AI use case (e.g., grant-matching tool, AI writing assistant, peer-review triage) as low, moderate, or high risk, following NIST’s Map function.
    • Policy register: a single living document recording each approved tool, its risk tier, approval date, and named accountable owner — the ISO-style audit trail.
    • Disclosure rules: a mandatory statement in every grant application and manuscript describing any generative-AI assistance, aligned with ICMJE and funder disclosure requirements.
    • Review cadence: quarterly light-touch review for low-risk tools, annual full review for high-risk tools, consistent with NIST’s Manage function and ISO’s continual-improvement clause.

    Where AI tools contribute to a manuscript’s preparation without meeting authorship criteria, research offices should record that contribution distinctly from the CRediT contributor roles assigned to human authors — CASRAI originated the CRediT taxonomy in 2014, and the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, with no AI-specific role currently defined within it.

    Common questions research administrators ask

    What is the NIST framework for AI governance?

    The NIST AI Risk Management Framework is a voluntary US framework, published January 2023, built around four functions — Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage. It is not certifiable but gives organisations a structured, adaptable process for identifying and mitigating AI risk without requiring an external audit.

    What are the six pillars of AI governance?

    Most governance frameworks converge on six pillars: accountability, ethics and fairness, risk management, transparency and explainability, compliance and security, and human oversight. A research office’s framework should assign a named owner to each pillar rather than treating them as abstract principles.

    What is the AI governance framework in the UK?

    The UK follows a pro-innovation, principles-based approach set out in its 2023 AI white paper, enforced through existing sector regulators rather than a single AI Act. This contrasts with the EU AI Act, which entered into force in August 2024 with a risk-tiered, legally binding structure and phased obligations running into 2026.

    What this means for research offices

    No single template is complete on its own. NIST gives research offices a fast, low-cost starting structure; ISO/IEC 42001 gives multi-site consortia and partner universities an externally verifiable certificate; a McKinsey-style operating model gives fast-moving institutions a decision body that can keep pace with new AI tools arriving faster than annual policy cycles can absorb them.

    The practical move for most research administrators is to start with NIST’s four functions as the policy skeleton, borrow ISO’s documentation discipline for the audit trail, and add a steering committee only once AI use cases multiply beyond what one compliance officer can track. As funder disclosure rules and publisher authorship policies continue to tighten through 2026 and beyond, the institutions that move first from ad hoc guidance to a documented, ownership-assigned framework will be the ones able to demonstrate compliance without reconstructing their records after the fact.

  • Grant Closeout Report: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Research Offices

    A grant closeout report is the final compliance deliverable a research office submits to a funder once a project period ends, and it must reconcile every dollar spent, document programmatic outcomes, and account for any equipment purchased with award funds. Getting these three elements wrong — not the science, not the writing — is what turns a routine closeout into an audit finding.

    A grant closeout report is the formal record confirming a recipient has completed all administrative, financial, and programmatic obligations of an award. US federal awards fall under the Uniform Guidance; UK and EU awards fall under UKRI and Horizon Europe grant terms respectively. This guide sets out what a sponsored programs office must submit, in what order, and which recurring errors turn a closeout into a finding.

    What Is a Grant Closeout Report?

    Grant closeout is the formal process by which a funder, a recipient institution, and any subrecipients confirm that all required work and administrative actions tied to an award are complete. It sits at the end of the award lifecycle, after the period of performance ends but before the file can be archived. Under US federal rules, closeout is a regulatory obligation with a fixed deadline and enforceable consequences for missing it — not optional paperwork.

    Institutions managing UKRI, Horizon Europe, and US federal awards side by side need one internal closeout workflow that flexes to each funder’s forms while never dropping the lowest common denominator: reconciled finances, a completed technical report, and a clean equipment record.

    Financial Reconciliation: What the Final Financial Report Must Show

    The final financial report reconciles every dollar drawn down or invoiced against the approved budget and general ledger. For US federal awards this is typically Standard Form 425 (the Federal Financial Report), which must tie exactly to the institution’s accounting records — any variance between the SF-425 and the ledger is one of the most common findings cited in Single Audit management letters.

    A defensible reconciliation package includes:

    • Total expenditures by budget category, matched against the approved (and any amended) budget
    • Documentation for every direct cost: receipts, invoices, and proof of payment
    • Time-and-effort or payroll certification records supporting personnel charges
    • A clear allocation methodology for indirect costs and any cost-shared or matching funds
    • Calculation and return of any unobligated balance, with the date and method of the refund recorded

    Institutions holding multiple awards from the same funder should reconcile each separately before consolidating — cross-charging between grants to smooth a shortfall is a cost-allowability violation, not a bookkeeping shortcut.

    The Final Technical or Programmatic Report

    The final technical report is the narrative counterpart to the financial reconciliation. It documents what the project achieved against the objectives in the original proposal and budget justification, and — under the Bayh-Dole framework for US federal awards — discloses any inventions arising from the work.

    Funders consistently flag two problems: outcomes that no longer match the original aims without explanation, and a narrative that cannot be reconciled with the financial report — for example, claiming a deliverable was completed while its cost category shows no spend. Principal investigators should draft the final narrative from contemporaneous progress notes kept throughout the award, not reconstructed from memory in the final weeks.

    Equipment and Property Disposition

    Equipment disposition is the step research offices most often forget, since it is invisible in the accounting system once purchased. Under 2 CFR § 200.313, equipment with a current fair-market value of $5,000 or more acquired with federal funds must be retained for use on other federally sponsored projects, disposed of per agency instructions, or sold with the federal share of proceeds remitted.

    A closeout-ready equipment record lists, for every capital asset purchased on the award: description, acquisition cost, percentage of federal participation, current location, condition, and final disposition (retained, transferred, sold, or surplused). Institutions that cannot produce this list routinely have the equipment finding flagged in their next Single Audit, sometimes years after the award closed.

    Common Pitfalls That Trigger Audit Findings

    Most closeout audit findings trace back to a small, repeatable set of failures rather than deliberate misconduct. Under 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart F, any non-federal entity that expends $750,000 or more in federal awards during its fiscal year is subject to a Single Audit, and closeout weaknesses are among the most frequently cited findings in these reviews.

    Pitfall Why it triggers a finding
    Missing or non-contemporaneous documentation Expenditure cannot be verified as allowable, allocable, or reasonable at the time it was incurred
    Charges posted after the account should have closed Costs incurred outside the period of performance are unallowable regardless of purpose
    SF-425 (or funder equivalent) inconsistent with the general ledger Reviewers reconcile the financial report against source records as a first check
    No written cost-allocation methodology for shared or indirect costs Auditors cannot test allocation decisions without a documented, consistently applied method
    Equipment inventory incomplete or disposition undocumented 2 CFR § 200.313 disposition obligations are unmet and unverifiable
    Unspent balance not calculated or returned Retention of unspent federal funds without authorisation is a direct compliance breach

    How Closeout Deadlines Differ by Funder

    Research offices managing an international award portfolio cannot apply a single closeout calendar. The deadline, required forms, and audit threshold all vary by funding framework, and missing any of them carries the same consequence: fund recovery risk and a weaker footing for renewal.

    Funding framework Final report deadline Governing rule
    US federal awards 120 calendar days after the period of performance ends 2 CFR § 200.344 (OMB Uniform Guidance)
    Horizon Europe 60 days after the end of the (final) reporting period European Commission Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement
    UKRI Typically 3 months after the grant end date (longer where an independent examiner’s report is required) UKRI Research Grants Terms and Conditions

    Document retention obligations diverge too: under 2 CFR § 200.334, US federal award records must be kept a minimum of three years from the date the final expenditure report is submitted, longer if litigation, a claim, or an indirect cost rate negotiation is still open.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is the grant closeout process?

    Grant closeout is the formal process in which a funding agency, the recipient institution, and any subrecipients confirm that all required project work and administrative actions have been completed. It runs from the end of the period of performance through submission of final reports, return of unspent funds, and formal account closure in the funder’s system.

    What three things are usually included in a closeout report?

    A closeout report typically bundles three components: a final financial report reconciling budgeted against actual spend, a final technical or programmatic report describing outcomes against the original objectives, and documentation of equipment disposition or property disposal where capital assets were purchased on the award.

    How do you write a grant closeout report?

    Start from contemporaneous records kept throughout the award — progress notes, expenditure logs, and equipment purchase records — rather than reconstructing the narrative at the deadline. Reconcile the ledger first, draft the technical narrative against it so figures and outcomes agree, then assemble the equipment and retention file before submission.

    What happens if a grant closeout report is late or incomplete?

    A late or incomplete closeout can trigger an audit finding, a demand for repayment of disallowed costs, and reduced standing for future funding decisions from the same sponsor. For US federal awards subject to Single Audit under 2 CFR Part 200 Subpart F, closeout deficiencies are a recurring category of reported findings.

    What This Means for Research Offices

    Closeout is where a sponsored programs office’s record-keeping discipline over the entire award becomes visible to the funder all at once. None of the individual requirements — reconciling a ledger, writing a technical report, listing equipment — is difficult in isolation; findings happen when all three are left to the final weeks instead of maintained continuously.

    Institutions running mixed US federal, UKRI, and Horizon Europe portfolios get the most protection from a single internal closeout checklist, mapped against each framework’s deadline and audit threshold, applied from the day an award is set up rather than the day it ends. Building that discipline into standard research administration practice is what separates a routine closeout from an audit finding.

  • Grant Budget Justification: Surviving Scrutiny

    A grant budget justification is the narrative document that explains how each line-item cost in a proposal budget was calculated and why that cost is necessary to deliver the funded work. Funders reject weak justifications for three recurring reasons: unexplained cost calculations, a mismatch between the budget and the project narrative, and non-compliance with a specific funder’s format or cost-sharing rules. A budget justification that survives scrutiny is specific, arithmetically transparent, and structured to answer a reviewer’s questions before they are asked.

    A useful working definition: a budget justification is a categorical, line-by-line narrative that shows the calculation method and the programmatic rationale behind every cost category in a grant budget — personnel, travel, equipment, supplies, contractual costs, and indirect costs.

    What Is a Grant Budget Justification and Why Does It Matter?

    A budget justification (sometimes called a budget narrative) sits between the proposal narrative and the budget spreadsheet. The narrative describes what the project will do; the spreadsheet totals what it will cost; the justification explains, in words, how each figure was calculated and why it is required to carry out the activities described in the narrative.

    Reviewers use the justification as a cross-check. If a travel line reads £23,000 with no explanation, a reviewer is left to guess whether that figure is padded, under-costed, or simply unconnected to any described activity. A justification removes that guesswork by tying every number back to a specific, named project activity.

    Why Do Funders Reject Budget Justifications?

    Programme officers and peer reviewers flag budget justifications for a narrow, predictable set of faults, and most are avoidable with a structured drafting process rather than a stronger writing style.

    • Unexplained arithmetic — a total appears with no visible calculation (rate × units × time), forcing the reviewer to take the figure on faith.
    • Narrative-budget mismatch — a cost appears in the budget with no corresponding activity in the project narrative, or vice versa.
    • Wrong template or category set — the applicant uses generic categories instead of the funder’s required headings, or exceeds a stated page limit.
    • Unjustified indirect or fringe rates — a rate is applied without stating the negotiated rate agreement or the base it is applied to.
    • Ignoring cost-sharing rules — voluntary committed cost sharing is offered where the funder’s own policy discourages or disallows it, or a mandatory institutional contribution is omitted entirely.

    The National Institutes of Health (NIH) states in its grant-application guidance that personnel justification must include the name, role, and number of person-months devoted to the project for everyone charged to the award — an explicit, checkable requirement that a generic justification will not satisfy.

    How Does Budget Justification Structure Differ by Funder Type?

    The categories a justification must address, and how much narrative detail each requires, vary by funder and by national research-funding system. Applicants who reuse one template across every funder are the ones most often flagged for non-compliance.

    Funder / system Budget format Justification detail required Cost-sharing posture
    NIH (US) Modular ($25,000 increments to $250,000 direct costs/year) or detailed non-modular Full line-item narrative required above the modular threshold; modular still requires personnel justification Voluntary committed cost sharing discouraged outside statutory requirements
    NSF (US) Standard categories: senior personnel, other personnel, fringe, equipment, travel, participant support, other direct, indirect (F&A) Narrative typically capped at a set page limit per the Proposal & Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) Voluntary committed cost sharing discouraged per PAPPG
    UKRI (UK) Full Economic Costing (fEC) submitted via the Je-S system Justification of resources statement tied to fEC cost categories (directly incurred, directly allocated, indirect) UKRI funds up to 80% of fEC; the remaining ~20% is a structural institutional contribution
    Horizon Europe (EU) Unit-cost / lump-sum funding model Cost justification aligned to work packages rather than line items Reimbursement up to 100% for research and innovation actions; lower rates apply to innovation actions for for-profit entities

    The practical implication: a UK institution submitting to both UKRI and a US federal funder in the same funding round needs two structurally different justifications, not one document with re-labelled headings.

    What Is Cost Sharing and When Is It Required?

    Cost sharing is the portion of total project cost that is not requested from the funder — met instead by the applicant institution, a third party, or an in-kind contribution. It is either mandatory (required by the funding opportunity or statute) or voluntary (offered by the applicant without being required).

    US federal guidance treats voluntary committed cost sharing as a risk factor rather than a strength: both NIH and NSF discourage it outside statutory or programme-specific requirements, because a voluntary commitment becomes an auditable, binding obligation once the award is made. The UK system works differently: UKRI’s Full Economic Costing model builds in an institutional contribution — typically the gap between the funded 80% and full cost — as a structural feature of the funding model rather than an optional pledge. Applicants should state their cost-sharing position explicitly and never imply an in-kind contribution that the institution has not formally committed.

    How Do You Write a Budget Justification, Line by Line?

    A defensible justification is drafted alongside the budget spreadsheet, not after it, and follows the same category order as the budget.

    1. Read the solicitation first and identify the funder’s required categories, page limit, and template before drafting a single line.
    2. Work through the budget category by category, writing the calculation (rate × quantity × duration) before writing the rationale.
    3. Reference the specific project-narrative activity that each cost supports, ideally by the same numbering or component label used in the narrative.
    4. State the source of every rate — a vendor quote, an institutional salary scale, a negotiated indirect-cost-rate agreement, or a government per-diem table.
    5. Have a colleague unfamiliar with the project read the draft and flag any figure they cannot immediately follow back to an activity.

    This category-by-category alignment between narrative, budget, and justification is standard practice recommended by research-administration bodies including NCURA and EARMA, and is the single most cited reason reviewers give for confidence in a proposal’s financial planning.

    Answer-First Q&A

    What does budget justification mean?

    A budget justification is a categorical narrative that explains the proposed costs in a grant budget. It documents how each cost was estimated — including any escalation or inflation factors — and lists the specific items that make up the total for each category, so a reviewer can verify the figures independently.

    Can you provide an example of a grant budget line?

    A typical travel line justification states the purpose (for example, presenting results at a named conference), the per-trip cost breakdown (airfare, lodging, per diem), the number of trips and travellers, and the total across the project period — with the arithmetic shown, not just the final figure.

    Can AI tools be used to draft a grant budget justification?

    AI drafting tools can produce a structural first draft, but every cost figure, rate source, and funder-specific compliance detail must be verified by the applicant against the actual solicitation. Funders scrutinise cost accuracy and narrative alignment, not prose quality, so an AI-generated draft with unverified numbers fails review as readily as a poorly written one.

    Implications for Research Administrators

    Institutions that standardise a category-by-category drafting workflow — rather than a single reusable template — see fewer budget-related queries and resubmission requests from programme officers. As funders including UKRI and the European Commission continue to move toward unit-cost and lump-sum models, the justification’s role is shifting from arithmetic verification toward demonstrating that proposed work packages and their costs are coherently scoped. Research offices that train investigators to draft the justification alongside the narrative, rather than after it, consistently produce more defensible — and more fundable — proposals.

  • No-Cost Extension Grant: Funder Rules Guide

    A no-cost extension grant modification lets a research team keep working past the original award end date without any additional funding from the sponsor — it changes the calendar, not the budget. A no-cost extension (NCE) is a formal amendment to a grant’s period of performance that leaves the total award amount unchanged. This guide sets out what counts as valid justification, how the major funder routes differ, and what a research office needs to document before submitting a request.

    What is a no-cost extension grant?

    A no-cost extension is an extension of a grant’s project period, budget period, or both, granted without any increase to the sponsor’s financial contribution. It exists because research timelines rarely match the calendar exactly: equipment fails, staff leave, ethics approvals slip, or a dataset takes longer to collect than planned. Rather than losing the remaining scope of work, the awardee institution requests more time to finish it.

    Crucially, an NCE is not a mechanism for spending down leftover funds more slowly. Sponsors, including UKRI and the US federal agencies operating under the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200.309), require a programmatic reason — a scientific or operational cause for the delay — not simply the presence of unspent money. Unspent funds alone are a common but invalid justification, and reviewers are trained to reject requests that rely on it.

    Most systems distinguish two extension types: a grantee-authorised extension, which the institution can approve internally and simply notify the sponsor of, and a sponsor-approved extension, which requires the funder’s programme officer to review and sign off before the new end date takes effect. Which route applies depends entirely on the funder and on whether the award has already used its one-time automatic allowance.

    How do funder approval routes differ?

    No two funders handle no-cost extensions identically. Duration caps, the number of extensions permitted, and who holds approval authority all vary by sponsor, and a research office managing a mixed portfolio needs to track each one separately rather than applying a single house rule.

    Funder Typical maximum duration Approval authority Source
    UKRI Up to 6 months over the grant’s lifetime for non-people-related reasons (longer for parental leave, via a separate Je-S Grant Maintenance request) UKRI review; exceptions require case-by-case approval UKRI, “Requesting a change to your project” (updated 7 May 2026)
    Wellcome Up to 12 months Wellcome, subject to sufficient unspent funds Wellcome, “Grant end dates” funding guidance
    NIH Up to 12 months (first request) Grantee-institution self-authorised for the first extension; NIH approval required thereafter NIH Grants Policy Statement; Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200.309
    NSF Up to 12 months (first request) Grantee-institution notifies via Research.gov; NSF approval required for a second request Uniform Guidance 2 CFR 200.309
    Cancer Research UK Set by case; resets the grant end date only Cancer Research UK review before the original end date Cancer Research UK, “Grant extensions and suspensions”
    Irish Research Council Set by case IRC review via a standard NCE request form, submitted in advance with justification Irish Research Council, NCE request form
    Horizon Europe Handled as a formal grant agreement amendment Submitted through the EU Funding & Tenders Portal before the original end date Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement

    The pattern that matters for a research office is the split between delegated authority and sponsor-approved extensions. NIH and NSF delegate the first 12-month extension to the institution itself, which is why compliance still matters even when no sponsor sign-off is required — an internally approved extension that lacks proper justification on file can still be flagged at audit. UKRI, by contrast, caps non-people-related extensions at six months over the grant’s entire lifetime, which makes early planning essential on multi-year awards nearing that ceiling.

    How should research offices document and justify the request?

    A no-cost extension request stands or falls on its documentation. Reviewers — whether an internal sponsored-programmes office or an external programme officer — need a clear, scientifically grounded account of why the work is behind schedule and a credible plan to finish it within the new timeframe.

    A complete no-cost extension request package typically includes:

    • A dated request letter or form, on institutional letterhead, stating the current end date and the proposed new end date
    • A narrative justification tied to the original aims — for example, delayed recruitment, equipment failure, supply-chain delay, or loss of key personnel
    • A progress report summarising work completed and work remaining
    • A grant budget justification showing remaining unspent funds and how they will be used during the extension period
    • Confirmation that ethics, IRB, IACUC or equivalent approvals remain valid for the extended period
    • Departmental or sponsored-programmes-office sign-off before submission to the sponsor

    The request letter and the budget justification should read as two halves of one argument: the letter explains why more time is needed; the budget justification proves the remaining funds are sufficient and appropriately allocated to finish the work. Reviewers who receive a duration request without a matching budget rationale routinely send it back for revision, which costs the research office weeks it may not have close to the original end date.

    Timing discipline matters as much as content. Most funders set a submission window — commonly 10 to 90 days before the current end date — and a late request can be rejected outright regardless of justification quality. Building the no-cost extension conversation into the grant closeout report cycle, six months ahead of the projected end date, gives the office enough runway to gather sign-offs, confirm compliance approvals, and route the request through internal review before the deadline closes.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is a no-cost extension on a grant?

    A no-cost extension is a formal amendment that extends a grant’s project period, budget period, or both, without any additional funds from the sponsor. It allows a principal investigator to finish the original scope of work when the current end date is approaching but the research is not yet complete.

    How long can a no-cost extension be?

    The permitted length varies by funder. NIH and NSF typically allow a grantee-authorised first extension of up to 12 months; Wellcome considers requests up to 12 months; UKRI caps non-people-related extensions at six months over the grant’s entire lifetime.

    What is a blanket no-cost extension?

    A blanket no-cost extension is a single authorisation that applies an identical extension period across multiple awards at once, typically issued by a funder or institution in response to a system-wide disruption. It replaces the need for a separate justification letter on each individual grant affected by the same event.

    How does a no-cost extension work?

    The principal investigator identifies that work will not finish by the current end date, and the research office prepares a justification, progress report and budget statement. Depending on the funder, the institution either self-authorises the extension internally or submits the package for sponsor approval before the award is formally amended.

    What this means for research administration offices

    No-cost extensions sit at the intersection of compliance, forecasting and research administration. An office that treats them as routine paperwork risks two failure modes: internally approved extensions with weak documentation that surface at audit, and sponsor-approved requests submitted too close to the deadline to be processed in time. Neither outcome serves the institution or the funded research.

    The more resilient approach treats the no-cost extension policy of each major sponsor as a standing reference — alongside its grant closeout report requirements and the shared terminology in the CASRAI Dictionary — rather than something looked up fresh for every request. As portfolios diversify across UKRI, US federal agencies, charitable funders and Horizon Europe, the variance in caps and approval authority documented above is exactly the kind of detail that belongs in a research office’s internal policy library, reviewed whenever a funder updates its terms and conditions.

    For institutions building or refining that internal reference, mapping each active funder’s no-cost extension terms against submission deadlines — not against the calendar year — keeps the office ahead of the six-to-twelve-month windows most sponsors actually use.

  • New Investigator Award: 5 UKRI Councils Compared

    The New Investigator Award is not one scheme but a family of council-specific early-career funding routes run under UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), each with its own eligibility window, funding cap and host-organisation requirements. As of July 2026, MRC, BBSRC and EPSRC each run an active New Investigator Award; ESRC runs an equivalent New Investigator Grant; NERC discontinued its own New Investigator Grant in 2022 and now channels equivalent support through the NERC Independent Research Fellowship. Research offices advising first-time applicants need the differences, not the shared branding.

    A New Investigator Award is a UKRI research-council grant designed to fund a researcher’s first independently led project as they transition from a supporting role — postdoctoral researcher, co-investigator or fellow — into research leadership, before they are eligible for standard responsive-mode or fellowship-level funding.

    What is the UKRI New Investigator Award?

    The New Investigator Award (NIA) label covers a set of parallel schemes run independently by MRC, BBSRC and EPSRC, plus a differently named but functionally equivalent ESRC New Investigator Grant. Each council sets its own eligibility rules, application limits and funding ceiling, so “the New Investigator Award” is a category, not a single application form.

    All four active schemes share one design principle: eligibility is assessed on funding and leadership history, not years since PhD or job title. UKRI states this explicitly for EPSRC: the council does “not consider years post-PhD or job title to be a marker of career progression” and instead reviews an applicant’s overall funding portfolio and degree of prior research leadership.

    How do eligibility rules differ across MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC?

    Eligibility hinges on what counts as disqualifying prior funding, and each council draws that line differently. The table below sets out the core disqualifying thresholds as published by UKRI.

    Council Scheme name Core disqualifying condition Application limit
    MRC New Investigator Award Already achieved research independence, or previously held a substantial grant (broadly, 3+ years with salary support for another team member) Not restricted to a single lifetime attempt
    BBSRC New Investigator Award (applicant-led mode) Current or prior receipt of project-lead funding that included research-associate (postdoctoral) staff support costs One New Investigator application at a time; must await a decision before resubmitting
    EPSRC New Investigator Award (NIA) Led a project with more than 6 months’ PDRA time, capital equipment over £20,000, or a single research activity over £100,000 full economic cost (FEC) Generally one application, unless a resubmission is explicitly invited
    ESRC New Investigator Grant Held a professorship, or acted as principal investigator on an ESRC/UKRI grant (an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship is not disqualifying) First major research-leadership application to ESRC

    EPSRC’s rules are the most granular of the four. An applicant is likely ineligible if they have previously led a project involving more than six months of postdoctoral research assistant (PDRA) time, capital equipment exceeding £20,000, or a single research activity valued above £100,000 FEC — but EPSRC assesses borderline cases individually via its research careers team rather than applying the thresholds mechanically.

    Two further distinctions research offices should flag to applicants:

    • Co-investigator history: BBSRC and EPSRC both allow prior co-investigator (project co-lead) experience, provided it did not involve a “significant” leadership role — EPSRC defines this using the same £100,000/6-month/£20,000 thresholds used for project leads.
    • Fellowship interaction: current holders of early-career-level fellowships (EPSRC Early Career Fellowship, UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship, Royal Society URF and equivalents) are generally not eligible for an EPSRC NIA if the fellowship includes more than six months of PDRA time; this does not automatically apply under MRC or ESRC rules, where scheme-specific “transition to independence” criteria are used instead.

    What are the award values and host-organisation requirements?

    Award ceilings vary substantially by discipline and by how each council structures salary versus project costs, which materially changes the case a research office needs to build for institutional co-funding or start-up support.

    • BBSRC: full economic cost of up to £2 million, funded for up to five years, with BBSRC contributing 80% of FEC (the standard UKRI co-funding rate).
    • ESRC: New Investigator Grants typically run from £100,000 to £350,000 in total value, held for up to five years.
    • MRC: new investigators apply for salary costs covering up to 50% of their contracted working time, justified against the balance of clinical, administrative and faculty duties that make up the rest of their post — the grant is explicitly designed to sit alongside other commitments, unlike a 100%-time fellowship such as a Future Leaders Fellowship.
    • EPSRC: value is scheme- and panel-dependent; applicants must meet standard EPSRC eligibility for holding research grants, and fixed-term contract holders are eligible provided their contract extends beyond the project’s end date.

    UKRI’s published EPSRC guidance places explicit responsibility on the host research organisation to advise applicants on eligibility before submission: “We expect research offices to advise applicants on eligibility. If multiple ineligible applications are received from a single institution, EPSRC may seek to engage with the university before additional applications can be made.” That is a direct institutional-risk signal research offices should build into their internal sign-off process, not just a courtesy note to applicants.

    Why NERC no longer runs a New Investigator Award

    Any funder-by-funder comparison that lists NERC alongside MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC as a live “New Investigator Award” scheme is working from outdated information. According to Research Professional News, NERC replaced its combined Standard and New Investigator Grants scheme in 2022 with two reworked responsive-mode schemes designed to encourage more ambitious, higher-risk bids — collapsing the separate early-career route into the main grant pipeline.

    In its place, NERC’s principal early-career independence route as of 2026 is the NERC Independent Research Fellowship (IRF), a five-year personal fellowship (not a project grant) for researchers establishing an independent programme within NERC’s environmental-science remit; the 2026 round closed on 16 June 2026. Research offices should not advise NERC-remit applicants to look for a “New Investigator Award” — the correct signpost is the IRF or a standard responsive-mode application, both of which carry different assessment criteria and salary-cost rules than the MRC/BBSRC/EPSRC/ESRC schemes above.

    Common questions about New Investigator Awards

    What is the New Investigator Award scheme?

    It is a category of UKRI research-council grants that fund a researcher’s first independently led project, bridging the gap between a supporting research role and full research leadership. Eligibility is assessed by prior funding and leadership history rather than time since PhD, and rules are set independently by each council.

    What is the EPSRC New Investigator Award success rate?

    EPSRC does not publish a single fixed success-rate figure for the NIA scheme on an ongoing basis; rates vary by panel round and are reported periodically in UKRI’s council-level funding data. Research offices advising applicants should request the current round’s outcome data directly from EPSRC’s research careers team rather than relying on older cached figures.

    Does NERC still run a New Investigator Award?

    No. NERC discontinued its combined Standard and New Investigator Grants scheme in 2022. Early-career researchers seeking NERC funding for independent research should apply to the NERC Independent Research Fellowship or a standard responsive-mode grant instead, both of which use different eligibility and salary rules.

    Who is eligible for a New Investigator Award?

    Broadly, applicants who hold an academic lectureship or equivalent position and have not previously led a research group or held a substantial grant as principal investigator. Exact thresholds — prior PDRA time, capital equipment value, grant size, professorship status — differ by council, so eligibility must be checked scheme by scheme.

    What this means for research offices

    Because eligibility hinges on funding-history detail rather than a simple career-stage cut-off, research offices carry real institutional risk if they give generic advice. EPSRC’s guidance ties repeated ineligible submissions from one institution to direct engagement from the council — a reputational and administrative cost, not just a rejected application.

    Three practical steps follow directly from the comparison above:

    • Maintain a per-council eligibility checklist rather than a single institutional “new investigator” policy, since MRC, BBSRC, EPSRC and ESRC each apply different disqualifying thresholds.
    • Flag EPSRC’s scheme transition early: current EPSRC NIA guidance states a replacement opportunity is due in August 2026, so any applicant planning a submission after that date needs updated guidance, not the current NIA eligibility page.
    • Redirect NERC-remit early-career applicants to the Independent Research Fellowship or standard grant routes, and update any internal guidance documents that still reference a NERC “New Investigator Award”.

    Outlook for New Investigator funding in 2026

    UKRI’s council-by-council approach to early-career funding is not converging toward a single unified scheme. EPSRC’s confirmed August 2026 replacement of its current NIA opportunity, alongside NERC’s 2022 shift away from a dedicated new-investigator route, shows the opposite trend: continued scheme-specific evolution driven by each council’s own panel and budget cycles. For research administrators, the practical implication is that “New Investigator Award” guidance cannot be written once and left static — it needs a per-council review at least annually, anchored to each council’s own eligibility and how-to-apply pages rather than a generic UKRI-wide summary.

    For broader context on how research offices structure institutional support for early-career funding applications, see CASRAI’s research administration resources.

  • Central IRB vs Local IRB: A US Research Guide

    Central IRB review uses one independent institutional review board to approve a multi-site protocol for every participating site, while local IRB review requires each institution to conduct its own separate approval. Under the NIH single-IRB (sIRB) policy and the revised Common Rule, most US federally funded multi-site human subjects research must now use a single IRB of record rather than parallel local reviews, with reliance agreements defining how participating sites delegate oversight.

    An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a federally mandated committee, operating under 45 CFR 46 and 21 CFR 56, that reviews research involving human subjects to protect participants’ rights and welfare. The central-versus-local choice is not cosmetic: it changes who signs off on the protocol, how long approval takes, and what your research administration office must manage.

    Contents

    What is the difference between a central IRB and a local IRB?

    A local IRB is a review board affiliated with a single institution — a university, hospital, or academic medical centre — that reviews research conducted at that institution alone. A central IRB (sometimes called a commercial or independent IRB) is an external board that provides review services to multiple institutions participating in the same multi-site protocol, issuing one approval that all relying sites can adopt.

    Local IRBs bring institution-specific knowledge: familiarity with the local patient population, policy, and community standards. Central IRBs bring standardisation: one protocol interpretation, one informed-consent template, one review timeline across every site. Both apply the same federal review criteria and carry equal regulatory authority — the difference is organisational scope, not rigour:

    • Local IRB — institution-specific; retains ancillary reviews (biosafety, conflict of interest, contract language)
    • Central IRB — multi-institutional; reviews on behalf of all participating sites under one protocol

    When does NIH require a single IRB for multi-site research?

    The NIH single-IRB (sIRB) policy applies to NIH-funded, non-exempt, multi-site human subjects research at more than one domestic site, and took effect for grant applications submitted on or after 25 January 2018. One IRB of record — a central IRB or a designated local IRB at one participating site — must review the protocol for every US site.

    The revised Common Rule (the “2018 Requirements” to 45 CFR 46) extended a parallel single-IRB requirement to most federally funded cooperative multi-site research, with compliance required from 20 January 2020. Exceptions are narrow: NIH requires a compelling justification, such as conflicting state law, and explicitly states that cost alone is not an acceptable reason for an exception.

    A related but distinct point: the FDA does not mandate single IRB review under its own regulations at 21 CFR 56. FDA guidance encourages centralised review for efficiency in FDA-regulated multicentre trials, but the binding requirement comes from NIH grant policy and the Common Rule, not FDA rulemaking — a distinction administrators often need to clarify for investigators.

    How do IRB reliance agreements work?

    An IRB reliance agreement is a formal document — typically an IRB Authorization Agreement (IAA) — in which a participating site defers its own ethical review to the designated IRB of record. The relying site keeps responsibility for local context review: conflicts of interest, HIPAA compliance, and institutional biosafety, outside the sIRB’s regulatory scope.

    SMART IRB, a national reliance platform used by hundreds of US institutions, standardises this process with a single master agreement signed once, then invoked per-study rather than renegotiated for every protocol. This is the single biggest driver of variance in real-world turnaround time: pre-signed institutions can activate a relying-site study in days, while a one-off IAA negotiation can add weeks regardless of how fast the central IRB itself reviews the protocol.

    Central vs local IRB: practical trade-offs for research administrators

    For research administrators, the practical difference rarely comes down to review quality — both apply identical federal criteria — and comes down instead to coordination overhead. A peer-reviewed analysis published via PubMed found central IRB review shortened submission-to-approval time versus local review, though total time to study activation still depended on how quickly each site’s reliance agreement was completed.

    Factor Local IRB Central IRB
    Review consistency across sites Variable — each site interprets independently Standardised — one interpretation for all sites
    Typical approval-stage speed Slower for multi-site studies; duplicated review effort Faster approval stage; single review cycle
    Local context knowledge Strong — direct institutional familiarity Delegated back to relying site via local context review
    Cost structure Often bundled into institutional overhead Often a separate per-study or per-site fee
    Best suited to Single-site studies; institution-specific research Federally funded multi-site trials subject to sIRB mandate

    Institutions that under-resource the reliance-agreement function — treating it as an afterthought rather than a parallel workstream — are the most common source of activation delay under the sIRB model, even when the central IRB itself performs efficiently.

    IRB vs REB vs REC: terminology across the US, Canada, and the UK

    Research administrators working across borders must distinguish three related but jurisdictionally distinct terms. In the United States, the governing term is IRB (Institutional Review Board), defined under 45 CFR 46 and 21 CFR 56. In Canada, the equivalent is a REB (Research Ethics Board), operating under the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS 2) issued jointly by CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC. In the United Kingdom, the equivalent is a REC (Research Ethics Committee), coordinated through the Health Research Authority (HRA) for NHS-related research.

    The three terms are functionally analogous — each reviews human subjects research for ethical acceptability — but they sit inside different statutory frameworks and are not interchangeable for compliance purposes. A protocol approved by a US central IRB does not satisfy a UK REC’s approval requirement, and vice versa; multinational studies typically need separate approvals under each jurisdiction’s framework, connected where possible through mutual recognition arrangements rather than a single cross-border reliance agreement.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is the difference between central IRB and local IRB?

    A central IRB reviews a protocol once on behalf of every site in a multi-site study, while a local IRB reviews only research conducted at its own institution. Both apply identical federal review standards; the difference is organisational reach, not the rigour of the ethical review itself.

    What are the three types of IRB review?

    US regulations define three review paths: exempt (minimal-risk categories defined by regulation), expedited (minimal-risk research reviewed by one or more designated reviewers rather than the full board), and full board review for studies presenting greater than minimal risk. The path is determined by risk level, not by whether the IRB is central or local.

    What is the difference between IRB of record and central IRB?

    The IRB of record is whichever board holds review authority for a given study — a central/commercial IRB, or a participating institution’s own local IRB acting in that role. “Central IRB” describes an operating model; “IRB of record” describes a regulatory designation a central IRB usually, but not always, fills.

    What is the difference between local IRB and external IRB?

    An external IRB is any IRB outside a site’s own institution designated to hold review authority under a reliance agreement — frequently a central IRB, but sometimes another institution’s local IRB. The relying site’s own human research protection office typically still reviews matters such as conflicts of interest and HIPAA compliance.

    Implications for research administrators

    As the sIRB mandate matures, the burden on research administration offices has shifted from running IRB review itself toward managing reliance infrastructure: pre-negotiating master agreements, tracking which sites have signed onto platforms such as SMART IRB, and running local context review in parallel with central IRB approval rather than after it.

    Institutions that treat reliance-agreement readiness as a standing capability, not a one-off task, activate multi-site protocols faster than those negotiating terms study by study. The single-IRB requirement is not going away; institutions that adapt their reliance workflow now will realise the turnaround-time benefit the policy was designed to deliver.

    For definitions of related human-subjects and research-administration terminology, see the CASRAI Dictionary. For broader context on research administration standards and workflow interoperability, see CASRAI’s research administration content hub.

  • ERC Starting Grant Deadline: 4 Schemes Compared

    The ERC Starting Grant deadline for the 2027 competition is expected in mid-October 2026, following a call opening around July 2026 on the EU Funding & Tenders Portal. Research offices supporting Horizon Europe applicants also need the Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy Grant cycles in view, since each scheme runs on its own annual timetable and eligibility window.

    The European Research Council (ERC) is the European Union’s funding body for investigator-driven “frontier research,” awarding grants through four schemes — Starting, Consolidator, Advanced and Synergy — distinguished primarily by a principal investigator’s years of experience since their PhD, rather than by subject area or nationality.

    What are the four ERC grant schemes?

    The ERC funds individual researchers or small collaborative teams to pursue high-risk, high-gain research defined entirely by the investigator, not by a funder-set thematic priority. The four schemes sit along a career-stage continuum, with funding ceilings rising accordingly.

    Scheme Career stage Maximum funding Duration
    Starting Grant (StG) Early-career, building an independent team Up to €1.5 million Up to 5 years
    Consolidator Grant (CoG) Consolidating an independent research programme Up to €2 million Up to 5 years
    Advanced Grant (AdG) Established leaders with a proven track record Up to €2.5 million Up to 5 years
    Synergy Grant (SyG) 2–4 principal investigators, joint proposal Up to €10 million Up to 6 years

    All four schemes can request additional funding for major equipment, large infrastructure access or field-specific needs. Grants are hosted by an eligible legal entity — typically a university, research institute or company — established in an EU member state or an associated country, which is why the host institution’s grants office is central to every application.

    Who is eligible for each ERC grant?

    Eligibility for Starting and Consolidator Grants is defined by the number of years elapsed since the PhD was defended. Advanced and Synergy Grants instead assess track record and, for Synergy, the complementarity of the investigator team.

    Starting Grant eligibility

    Applicants must demonstrate research independence — commonly a significant publication without their doctoral supervisor as co-author. Under the ERC’s April 2026 announcement on the 2027 competitions, the Starting Grant window has widened so a PhD defended no more than 10 years before 1 January 2027 qualifies, replacing the narrower 2–7 year band used previously. Documented career breaks — parental leave, illness, clinical training — extend this window further.

    Consolidator Grant eligibility

    The Consolidator Grant sits between Starting and Advanced. For the 2027 call, the ERC has set the window at a PhD defended between 5 and 15 years before 1 January 2027, up from the previous 7–12 year band. The ERC’s one-grant rule applies across both early-career schemes: a principal investigator may hold only one Starting Grant and one Consolidator Grant across their career, so grants offices should verify prior ERC awards before nominating a candidate.

    Advanced Grant eligibility

    There is no PhD-year window for the Advanced Grant. Applicants must instead show a track record of significant research achievements over the preceding decade, making this the natural route for senior academics whose profile no longer fits a fixed post-PhD calculation.

    Synergy Grant eligibility

    Synergy Grants require two to four principal investigators whose complementary expertise is genuinely necessary to address a question no single PI could tackle alone. There is no career-stage restriction, but each PI’s track record must match their own career stage, and the proposal must show a clear synergistic — not merely additive — effect.

    When are the ERC grant deadlines?

    Each scheme runs on its own annual cycle, and the call identifier (for example, ERC-2027-StG) refers to the year the budget is allocated, which is not always the calendar year of the submission deadline. Confirmed and currently expected dates for the 2026–2027 cycle are set out below; research offices should treat “expected” dates as planning markers until the ERC publishes the formal Horizon Europe work programme.

    Call Status Call opens Submission deadline
    ERC-2026-StG Closed 9 July 2025 14 October 2025
    ERC-2026-AdG Open cycle, deadline approaching c. May 2026 c. 27 August 2026
    ERC-2027-StG Expected c. July 2026 Mid-October 2026
    ERC-2027-CoG Expected c. September 2026 c. January 2027
    ERC-2027-SyG Expected, dates to be confirmed To be confirmed To be confirmed

    Deadlines cannot be extended once a call closes, and late submissions are not accepted under any circumstances — a rule the ERC states explicitly on its own call pages. Institutions should build in an internal deadline several working days ahead of the ERC’s own cut-off to allow for legal-entity validation, budget sign-off and final proposal checks by the host institution.

    How does ERC panel evaluation work?

    All ERC schemes use a peer-review evaluation process organised around 25 discipline panels grouped into three broad domains: Physical Sciences and Engineering (PE), Life Sciences (LS), and Social Sciences and Humanities (SH). Proposals are assigned to the panel that best matches their primary research field, with additional referees consulted for cross-panel or interdisciplinary work.

    Starting, Consolidator and Advanced Grants are evaluated in two steps: Step 1 is a remote assessment of the extended synopsis and CV by panel members; applicants who pass Step 1 proceed to Step 2, an interview before the panel, which in most fields now takes place in person or via video conference. Synergy Grant proposals follow a comparable two-step model but are reviewed by panels convened specifically for multi-PI, often cross-disciplinary projects, reflecting the scheme’s collaborative design.

    • Step 1 — remote assessment against excellence criteria only, resulting in a shortlist invited to interview.
    • Step 2 — panel interview, typically 20–30 minutes, focused on the applicant’s ability to deliver the proposed research.
    • Final ranking lists are published by the ERC, with reserve lists sometimes drawn on if budget allows.

    Frequently asked questions

    Who is eligible for the ERC Starting Grant?

    Eligibility depends on years since PhD defence, not age or nationality. For the 2027 call, applicants qualify if their PhD was defended no more than 10 years before 1 January 2027, and they must show evidence of research independence from their doctoral supervisor.

    What is the success rate of an ERC Starting Grant?

    The 2025 Starting Grant call attracted 3,928 proposals, a 13% increase on the previous year, according to UKRO’s published results. Just over 12% of proposals were funded, making Starting Grants among the most competitive early-career awards in Europe.

    Who is eligible for the ERC Consolidator Grant?

    Consolidator Grant applicants must have defended their PhD between 5 and 15 years before 1 January 2027 under the updated 2027 call rules. A principal investigator may hold only one Starting Grant and one Consolidator Grant in total across their career.

    Can UK-based researchers apply for ERC grants?

    Yes. Following the UK’s association to Horizon Europe, effective 1 January 2024, UK-based researchers and eligible host institutions can apply for and hold ERC grants on the same terms as institutions in EU member states and other associated countries.

    What this means for research offices

    For institutional grants offices, the planning unit is not “the ERC deadline” but four separate deadlines, each with its own lead time. Starting and Consolidator applicants need early PhD-date verification given the widened 2027 windows, since borderline cases require a documented calculation against the 1 January 2027 reference date. Advanced candidates need track-record evidence gathered well before the August window, and Synergy proposals need co-investigator agreements in place earlier still, given multi-institution budget complexity.

    The one-grant rule makes prior-award tracking a compliance task, not a courtesy — institutions nominating a returning applicant should confirm eligibility before committing proposal-development resources. Offices should monitor the ERC’s Horizon Europe work programme publication each spring, since exact dates, panel structures and resubmission rules are confirmed there, not on third-party calendars.

    The widened post-PhD windows for the 2027 Starting and Consolidator calls signal an ERC response to career-path diversity, including breaks and non-linear routes into research leadership; eligibility guidance should keep evolving as the Horizon Europe successor programme is negotiated. Institutions that treat research administration as a year-round function, rather than a pre-deadline scramble, consistently see stronger application quality across all four schemes.

  • Grant Management Software Standards Checklist

    Grant management software is interoperable when it captures, validates and exchanges award data using open, funder-recognised identifiers — ORCID for researchers, ROR for institutions, RAiD or CERIF for projects, and documented APIs for reporting — rather than free-text fields that force research offices to re-key the same data for every funder, audit and assessment return.

    Grant management software is a system of record that tracks a funding award from application through award, spend and reporting. Interoperability is the degree to which that system exchanges data with funders, institutional systems and persistent-identifier registries without manual re-entry, and it is the single factor most feature-comparison guides leave out.

    Most buying guides for grant management software rank platforms on interface polish, AI features or price. Those factors matter, but say nothing about whether the system will still talk to your funders’ systems in five years. This checklist is built for research offices — not grant-making foundations — and focuses on the data-standards fit that determines whether a platform becomes an asset or a silo.

    What Does Interoperability Mean for Grant Management Software?

    Interoperability means a system can send and receive structured data with external registries and funder platforms without a human transcribing it in between. For a research office, that means the same researcher, institution and project records flow cleanly from application to award to reporting, and out again to funders, without free-text fields breaking the chain.

    A platform that stores “Professor J Smith, University of Somewhere” as plain text is not interoperable — it is a well-designed silo. The test is not whether data can be exported as a spreadsheet, but whether it exports as a machine-readable identifier another system can resolve.

    Which Persistent Identifiers Should Research Offices Require?

    Four identifier types now cover most of what a research office needs to track across a grant’s lifecycle: the researcher, the institution, the funder and the project itself. Procurement should treat native support for each as a baseline requirement, not an optional integration.

    Standard What It Identifies Steward / Maintainer Status in Grant Software
    ORCID iD Individual researchers ORCID, a non-profit registry Widely supported; increasingly required by funders as a login credential
    ROR ID Research organisations and institutions Research Organization Registry (ROR), community-governed Replacing Crossref’s Open Funder Registry for identifying funders as well as institutions
    RAiD A whole research project or activity — people, organisations, outputs and grants linked together Standardised as ISO 23527:2022; registry operated via raid.org Early-stage in commercial grant management software; ask vendors for their roadmap
    CERIF A data model for describing research information and entity relationships, not a single identifier euroCRIS Common in European Current Research Information Systems (CRIS); rare in commercial grant platforms
    Crossref Grant ID (DOI) An individual funding award Crossref Growing adoption; creates a citable, resolvable record of the award itself
    DataCite FundingReference Metadata linking a research output to its funder and award DataCite Used on the output side (data repositories), not usually inside grant software

    The DataCite Metadata Schema already includes a FundingReference block with funderIdentifier, awardNumber and awardURI fields. A system that cannot populate these on export pushes the interoperability problem downstream, onto whichever repository must later describe the funded output.

    RAiD or CERIF? Matching the Project-Identifier Model to Funder Reporting

    RAiD and CERIF solve related but distinct problems, and research offices frequently confuse the two during procurement. RAiD is a persistent identifier for a single project, standardised internationally as ISO 23527:2022 and developed through Research Data Alliance working-group input. It links a project to every person, organisation, grant and output associated with it, and is designed to survive staff turnover and system migrations.

    CERIF is a data model, not an identifier. Maintained by euroCRIS, it defines how entities such as projects, people, organisations and publications relate to one another inside a Current Research Information System (CRIS). Institutions running a CRIS — common across continental Europe — need grant software that can import and export CERIF-compatible XML, or the CRIS becomes another silo requiring manual reconciliation.

    A genuine gap sits between the two: Horizon Europe and CORDIS still identify participating organisations by Participant Identification Code (PIC) rather than ROR, so any system serving EU-funded UK research needs to bridge PIC, ROR and, where relevant, RAiD — a mapping problem generic “best grant software” listicles rarely mention.

    What Funder API and Reporting Capabilities Matter Most?

    A research office should require documented, machine-readable APIs — REST or GraphQL, not CSV export as the only integration path. UKRI’s Funding Service, which has been replacing the Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system on a council-by-council basis, expects structured applicant and organisation data rather than free text, and a system that cannot map onto that structure generates rework at every submission cycle.

    Reporting on multi-investigator awards raises a related requirement: attributing individual contributions consistently across co-investigators. CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014; the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022. A system that can record CRediT contributor roles against named investigators makes multi-PI reporting less manual, because role data travels with the award record.

    The Vendor Due-Diligence Checklist

    Ask each vendor to demonstrate the following against a live application:

    • Does the system natively validate ORCID iDs at entry, rather than storing researcher names as free text?
    • Can it resolve funder and institution records by ROR ID instead of a manually maintained funder name list?
    • Does it support, or have a dated roadmap for, RAiD assignment on multi-partner or multi-funder projects?
    • Can it export project data as CERIF-compatible XML for institutions running a CRIS?
    • Can it mint or ingest a Crossref Grant DOI, or otherwise create a citable, resolvable award record?
    • Does the API expose structured data (REST/GraphQL) rather than CSV as the sole extraction method?
    • Can it record CRediT contributor roles for multi-investigator award reporting?
    • Can it reconcile Horizon Europe’s PIC codes with ROR IDs without manual re-keying?

    A vendor that cannot answer most of these live is asking your research funding governance processes to absorb the integration cost later, usually at an audit or a funder data request.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What does grant management software do?

    Grant management software automates the grant lifecycle — application intake, review, award, budget tracking, compliance and reporting — replacing spreadsheets and email chains. For research offices, its real value depends on whether it also exchanges identifiers and structured data with funders and institutional systems, not just on how well it manages internal workflow.

    How much does grant management software cost?

    Costs vary by deployment model: entry-level tools start in the low thousands of pounds per year, mid-market platforms run from several hundred to a few thousand pounds per month, and enterprise or CRM-based systems can exceed £40,000–£60,000 annually once licensing and implementation are included. Interoperability failures add hidden cost later through manual re-keying.

    What is the best grant management software?

    There is no single best platform — the right choice depends on whether your research office needs funder-API and persistent-identifier interoperability more than interface polish or price. A system that scores well on usability but stores funder and researcher data as free text will still generate manual rework at every reporting cycle, regardless of its ranking on comparison sites.

    Implications: Avoiding Siloed Systems

    Choosing on features alone treats standards fit as an afterthought IT can “sort out later.” Retrofitting identifier support onto a live grants database is disruptive and expensive, because historical records were never captured with resolvable IDs to begin with.

    Research offices that build data-standards fit into procurement scoring — alongside cost and usability — avoid inheriting a second migration project a few years after go-live. This is a data-governance decision as much as a software one, and belongs with whoever is accountable for research administration standards compliance, not procurement alone.

    A Standards-First Procurement Decision

    Interface quality is visible on day one; interoperability debt surfaces only at the first funder audit or multi-institution collaboration. Research offices should require vendors to demonstrate ORCID validation, ROR resolution, a RAiD or CERIF roadmap, and structured API export before any feature demo begins. Standards fit, not screen design, determines whether the system bought this year still serves you in five.

  • OECD’s Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science: A 2026 Guide for Research Offices

    The OECD’s 2026 report, “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science,” concludes that research assessment relying on narrow publication metrics and commercial rankings distorts research culture, and it recommends that institutions cut low-value evaluation, adopt open data infrastructures, and use AI in assessment only with caution. For research offices, the report’s six policymaker recommendations translate into concrete changes to how institutional evaluation criteria, data sourcing, and staff training are run.

    Research assessment is the systematic process of monitoring, evaluating and reviewing research inputs, processes, outputs and impacts, carried out by governments, funders, universities and publishers. The OECD reforming research assessment for better science policy brief — OECD Policy Briefs No. 56, published 29 April 2026 — sets out why that process is misaligned with how science now works, and what research-performing organisations should do about it.

    What is the OECD’s 2026 report on reforming research assessment?

    “Reforming Research Assessment for Better Science” is an OECD Policy Brief (No. 56) published on 29 April 2026 that reviews why current research-assessment practices are misaligned with the evolving nature of science, and sets out six actions for policymakers and institutions. It is accompanied by a longer evidence base, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Paper No. 2026/7, “New Expectations and Demands from Science: Rethinking Research Assessment Frameworks,” which maps the actors, tensions and drivers behind the reform movement.

    Both documents are credited to the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation, with Frédéric Sgard listed as the named contact. The brief carries the persistent identifier DOI 10.1787/f6202159-en; the working paper carries DOI 10.1787/0c685800-en. Neither document proposes a single replacement metric — instead, both argue for a system-level shift in how, and how often, assessment is conducted.

    Why does the OECD say metrics-based assessment needs reform?

    The OECD argues that heavy reliance on publication counts, citation rates and journal impact factors has produced perverse incentives, including a “publish or perish” culture that rewards quantity over quality. The brief cites peer-reviewed evidence — including Fanelli (2010) on publication bias and Öztürk and Taşkın (2024) on how metric-based evaluation fuels questionable publishing — to support this conclusion.

    Three specific harms are named:

    • High-risk, high-reward research is systematically undervalued because standard indicators cannot capture long-horizon payoff.
    • Transdisciplinary and societally engaged research is poorly captured by discipline-bound, publication-and-citation frameworks.
    • Assessment volume has grown faster than institutional capacity to absorb it, creating what the OECD calls research-assessment fatigue among researchers and administrators alike, a burden previously quantified in Technopolis Group’s 2015 REF Accountability Review.

    The report is equally direct about rankings. National and global university league tables, it states, “should not be used in RA” because they rely on non-transparent proprietary methods, are biased toward STEM subjects and English-language output, and — per the UN University’s Independent Expert Group 2023 Statement on Global University Rankings — can accentuate global, regional and national inequalities.

    What alternative evaluation tools and infrastructures does the OECD recommend?

    The OECD does not prescribe one alternative framework; instead, it maps nine existing international initiatives that research offices can draw on, and it names open, non-proprietary databases such as OpenAlex and Redalyc as viable substitutes for closed commercial data sources. The report’s own comparison table — reproduced and dated below — is the clearest single reference point for institutions deciding which framework to adopt or reference in policy documents.

    Initiative Year Core contribution
    DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment) 2012 Discourages journal-based metrics as a proxy for quality; spawned the TARA practical-tools project in 2021
    Leiden Manifesto 2015 Principles and best practice for using quantitative indicators responsibly
    INORMS Research Evaluation Group 2018 SCOPE Framework for Research Evaluation and the “More than Our Rank” initiative
    FOLEC-CLACSO 2019 Regionally specific research-assessment guidelines for Latin America
    Hong Kong Principles 2019 Minimising perverse incentives; rewarding trustworthy research practice
    Science Europe Position Statement 2020 Recommendations on research assessment processes for funders
    CoARA (Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment) 2022 Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, with global signatories
    Barcelona Declaration 2024 Advocates open research information infrastructure
    Global Research Council RRA Working Group 2024 An 11-dimension framework for responsible research assessment

    The OECD’s own recommendation is not to pick a winner among these, but to “promote sustained dialogue” between them and to have governments recognise alignment with these emerging international principles as a criterion within cyclical institutional assessment exercises.

    What should research offices do differently?

    The report’s six policymaker actions each carry a direct operational counterpart for institutional research offices, from auditing evaluation volume to renegotiating data contracts. Research administrators reading the brief should map each national-level recommendation onto an institutional equivalent:

    • Reduce assessment volume: audit which internal reviews, reports and dashboards serve a “clearly defined objective” — and retire those that do not.
    • Diversify data sources: reduce dependency on single proprietary bibliometric platforms by testing open alternatives such as OpenAlex alongside existing subscriptions.
    • Remove rankings from internal criteria: strip commercial league-table position from promotion, tenure and internal funding-allocation rubrics.
    • Govern AI use cautiously: where AI tools are piloted in peer-review triage or portfolio analysis, require transparent, explainable models and documented human oversight rather than opaque large language models.
    • Invest in staff capacity: the brief is explicit that “guidance, training and capacity building will be key” — senior administrators, librarians and peer reviewers all need structured onboarding to new evaluation frameworks, not just a policy memo.
    • Adopt proportionate methods: match the evaluation method (summative for decisions, formative for development, or a blend) to the actual purpose of each assessment exercise.

    Institutions already engaged with CASRAI’s research administration resources will recognise these as extensions of existing responsible-metrics and open-science commitments rather than a wholesale change of direction.

    Answer-first Q&A

    What is responsible research assessment?

    Responsible research assessment refers to evaluation approaches that incentivise, reflect and reward the plural characteristics of high-quality research rather than relying on narrow proxy metrics such as journal impact factor. It combines qualitative judgement with proportionate, context-appropriate quantitative indicators, following principles set out by DORA, the Leiden Manifesto and CoARA’s 2022 Agreement.

    Why does the OECD discourage the use of rankings in research assessment?

    The OECD states that national and global rankings are marketing tools built on non-transparent proprietary data and methods that are not adapted to different institutions’ profiles or purposes. Because they are biased toward STEM subjects and English-language scholarship, their use in funding or hiring decisions can exacerbate global, regional and national inequalities rather than reflect genuine research quality.

    What role should AI play in research assessment, according to the OECD?

    The OECD says AI’s role in research assessment “needs to be carefully examined” rather than adopted by default. It favours transparent, deterministic models over opaque large language models, requires ex-ante risk assessment and human oversight, and warns that AI licensing costs can quietly increase institutions’ dependency on commercial technology providers.

    How can research offices reduce the burden of research assessment?

    Research offices can reduce burden by evaluating “only what and when necessary,” in the OECD’s words — applying assessment solely where a clearly defined objective exists and a less resource-intensive process would not suffice. Matching evaluation type (summative versus formative) to actual purpose, rather than defaulting to full review, is the report’s core proportionality test.

    What happens next for research assessment reform?

    The OECD frames reform as an iterative, long-term structural transition rather than a one-off policy change, pointing to national experiments already under way as evidence. It cites Rushforth’s 2024 analysis of the Netherlands’ “Recognition and Rewards” programme and China’s institutional hybrid responses (Liang, Zhao and Li, 2024) as examples of top-down signals interacting with bottom-up institutional experimentation.

    Concrete pilots are already generating data: Luxembourg’s National Research Fund reports three years of narrative-CV use as of 2026, and UK researchers have begun assessing generative AI’s potential role ahead of the REF 2029 exercise. For research offices, the practical takeaway is that no single framework will be mandated — institutions that start testing proportionate, criteria-linked alternatives now will be better positioned as national funders and assessment bodies converge around the OECD’s six recommendations.

  • UKRI New Investigator Award: First-Time PI Guide

    The UKRI New Investigator Award (NIA) is a grant route run separately by several UKRI councils that funds academics in a lectureship or equivalent post who have not yet led a significant research grant. It bridges the gap between a postdoctoral fellowship and a first major PI-led award, typically funding projects of one to five years depending on the council.

    The New Investigator Award is UKRI’s mechanism for funding a researcher’s first period as principal investigator, rather than as a co-investigator or postdoctoral researcher on someone else’s grant. It is not a single scheme: EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, ESRC and NERC each run their own version, with council-specific eligibility thresholds and funding ceilings.

    What is the UKRI New Investigator Award?

    The UKRI New Investigator Award addresses a specific gap in the funding landscape: researchers who already hold an academic lectureship or equivalent position but have never been the principal investigator on a substantial grant. Rather than a single UKRI-wide scheme, it is a family of council-run awards that share a common purpose — funding a researcher’s transition to independence — while differing in scope, duration and funding ceiling.

    Under EPSRC’s guidance, last updated 7 May 2026, the award provides “foundational funds to initiate a research group,” coupled with host-institution support. EPSRC is explicit that the award “is not intended to be an alternative to a fellowship, standard mode grant or other similar funding mechanism” — a distinct pipeline stage, not a substitute for one.

    Projects funded under EPSRC’s NIA are expected to be self-contained, with a single clearly defined research vision, typically delivered over one to three years. Complex, multi-objective proposals are explicitly discouraged for this route.

    Who is eligible to apply?

    Eligibility criteria vary by council but follow a consistent logic: applicants must hold an appropriate academic post and must not have already established themselves as an independent research leader. The following conditions recur across councils:

    • Holding an academic lectureship or an equivalent research-active post at an eligible UK research organisation.
    • Not having previously been principal investigator on a grant that meets the council’s definition of “significant.”
    • Demonstrating, with host-institution support, readiness to transition into independent research leadership.
    • Proposing a single, well-defined project rather than a multi-strand research programme.

    EPSRC gives the most precise definition of a disqualifying “significant grant”: one that includes more than six months of postdoctoral research assistant (PDRA) time, capital equipment exceeding £20,000, or a total value exceeding £100,000 in full economic cost. Multiple shorter periods of PDRA supervision are assessed holistically against the skills the applicant has already developed, rather than triggering automatic exclusion. The EPSRC scheme can only be applied to once, whether or not the previous attempt succeeded, except where a resubmission is explicitly invited following peer review.

    BBSRC applies a comparable test for its New Investigator Award, aimed at newly appointed lecturers and equivalent researchers who have not previously held a competitively awarded grant with staff support costs. MRC frames eligibility through its applicant skills and experience table, requiring evidence that a candidate has reached the “transition to independence” stage. ESRC’s responsive-mode new investigator grants are designed, in the council’s own words, “to allow early career researchers to gain experience of research leadership and management” ahead of larger open-mode awards. NERC runs a parallel New Investigator Award for its own disciplinary community.

    How does the NIA compare with postdoctoral fellowships and other routes?

    The New Investigator Award sits at a specific point in the UKRI career pipeline — after a postdoctoral fellowship, not instead of one. A UKRI postdoctoral fellowship typically funds a researcher’s salary and research costs before they hold a permanent academic post, building the track record needed for a lectureship. The NIA assumes that post is already held, and funds the first PI-led project rather than the researcher’s personal career development.

    Feature New Investigator Award Postdoctoral / independent fellowship
    Career stage Already in a lectureship or equivalent post Typically pre-lectureship, building an independent track record
    Funding purpose First PI-led project to establish a research group Personal salary plus research costs to develop independence
    PI status Applicant holds PI status from the outset Fellowship itself is often the route to first PI status
    Application limit (EPSRC) One NIA application only, barring invited resubmission Varies by fellowship scheme
    Typical next step Standard-mode or open grant competition New Investigator Award or equivalent early-PI scheme

    This positioning matters for research offices: recommending an NIA before a qualifying post is held, or after a “significant grant” threshold has already been crossed, wastes a single-use application opportunity under schemes such as EPSRC’s.

    What funding and duration apply by council?

    Funding ceilings and durations differ meaningfully across councils, and applicants should treat each as a distinct scheme rather than a single UKRI product.

    Council Award name Funding ceiling Typical duration Key eligibility marker
    EPSRC New Investigator Award (NIA) Not fixed; PI time typically 10–20% FTE (up to 35% in some fields) 1–3 years No prior grant exceeding £100,000 FEC, £20,000 equipment, or 6 months PDRA time
    BBSRC New Investigator Award (applicant-led mode) Up to £2 million full economic cost Up to 5 years Newly appointed lecturer/equivalent, no prior staffed grant
    MRC New Investigator Research Grant Assessed per proposal Assessed per proposal “Transition to independence” stage on the MRC applicant skills and experience table
    ESRC Responsive-mode new investigator grants Assessed per proposal Assessed per proposal Early-career researcher building research leadership experience
    NERC New Investigator Award Assessed per proposal Assessed per proposal Early-career, transition-to-independence eligibility test

    Where a council does not publish a fixed ceiling, applicants and research offices should consult the live opportunity listing on the UKRI Funding Service, since figures are set per funding round rather than as a permanent policy.

    Frequently asked questions

    What is the new investigator award?

    The New Investigator Award is a UKRI grant that funds a researcher’s first period as principal investigator. Offered through EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, ESRC and NERC in council-specific forms, it provides foundational funding — typically one to five years depending on the council — to help a lecturer or equivalent establish an independent research group before competing in open-mode funding.

    Who is eligible for new investigator in UKRI?

    Eligibility generally requires an academic lectureship or equivalent post, documented host-institution support, and no prior role as principal investigator on a significant grant. EPSRC defines that threshold as £100,000 full economic cost, £20,000 in capital equipment, or six months of postdoctoral research assistant time; other councils apply comparable transition-to-independence tests.

    What is a new investigator?

    A new investigator is a researcher who has not yet led a substantial, competitively awarded research grant as principal investigator. UKRI uses the term in this sense, as does the US National Institutes of Health, which defines a New Investigator as an applicant who “has not yet competed successfully for a substantial, competing NIH research grant” — a comparable transition-to-independence concept applied internationally.

    What this means for research offices and applicants

    Because most councils allow only one attempt, or treat the NIA as a single-use route for a given career stage, institutional research administration teams have a direct role in protecting that opportunity. Advisers should check a candidate’s grant history against each council’s “significant grant” definition before recommending an NIA application, since crossing a threshold — even through PDRA time accumulated across several smaller projects — can affect eligibility.

    Research offices are also well placed to sequence funding routes correctly: steering a researcher toward a postdoctoral fellowship first, and toward the NIA once a qualifying post is secured, rather than treating the two as interchangeable options at the same career stage.

    Outlook for first-time grant holders

    UKRI’s New Investigator Award schemes remain council-specific rather than converging into a single unified product, so applicants should read each council’s current opportunity listing rather than relying on a generic description. Thresholds such as EPSRC’s £100,000 significant-grant definition and BBSRC’s five-year, £2 million ceiling should be re-verified against the live UKRI Funding Service page before an application is drafted, since figures are set per round rather than fixed indefinitely.

    For research administrators, the enduring task is the same regardless of council: match the researcher’s actual career stage and grant history to the scheme’s eligibility test, and treat the New Investigator Award as one deliberate step in a longer funding pathway rather than a generic “early-career” label.