Guidelines for submitting grant applications
Discipline of General Practice, Central Clinical Division School of Medicine, University of Queensland
1. Introduction 1.1. The purpose of this document is to make available to researchers within the Discipline of General Practice some common information that is required when applying and submitting grant applications to funding agencies. 1.2. The website of the Office of Research and Postgraduate Studies (ORPS) is comprehensive and up to date, and, in as much as possible, we have linked to their information. The Unit may be contacted by telephone (07- 33654009) or email (FHSgrants@research.uq.edu.au). 1.3. Click here for the DEST definition of research. 2. Submissions to the ORPS 2.1. A submission checklist is available on the ORPS website. ORPS requires the original application, plus the number of copies required by the granting body plus a copy for ORPS records. An electronic copy of the application (in MS Word) is also required. 2.2. Each application requires a complete budget spreadsheet (if applicable, see Section 7) and a funding application coversheet with the signature of the Head of School/Centre. In instances where the Head is also an applicant, the relevant Executive Dean should sign the coversheet. 2.3. The ORPS internal closing date for grant applications for overseas agencies (e.g. NIH, US/UK foundations) and major schemes is three weeks prior (advertised through the ORPS website and relevant mailer). For smaller schemes internal deadlines are usually ten days prior to the external closing date. Please contact the ORPS as soon as possible to agree a suitable date for submission, if you are unable to meet the internal deadline. 2.4. If you submit directly to the grant agency, ensure to send a copy of the application to the ORPS to avoid delays in setting up a source 4 account. 2.5. Check the instructions to applicants carefully. You may also need to download specific templates/software for the grant application (e.g. NHMRC project grants use Informed Filler). 2.6. Submission requirements may vary for the large granting round and instructions will be advertised when the scheme is advertised. 2.7. For most granting agencies, you do not need an application identification number in advance. However, for NHMRC applications, it is usually necessary to apply to ORPS for an application ID (http://www.uq.edu.au/weborps/id/nhmrc/). The Grant Application Management System (GAMS) is the system used for preparing and submitting grant applications to the ARC. Access to GAMS does require a GAMS ID and password, and these are used for logging in to the system. 2.8. A copy of the grant application also needs to be made available to the designated person within the School of Medicine. 2.9. For NHMRC, the electronic copy of the grant application is named using CIA’s surname and the application ID originally provided by the ORPS. For example if the grant is prepared by Dr Black and the application ID is 123456, electronic files are named “Black_123456”. 2.10. The only people authorised to sign research grant applications and contracts on behalf of UQ are: Mr Ian Harris – Director, ORPS or Prof David Siddle – Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research). 3. Information on investigators 3.1. The Chief Investigator A (CIA) on a grant is the person who is responsible for the execution of the grant and the delivery of reports and financial statements to the granting body. CIA must be an Australian citizen or hold permanent residency in Australia and must be based in Australia for the duration of the grant. CIA will normally take the lead role in the conduct of the research project.
1
3.2.
3.3.
To be a CIA on a grant administered by UQ, there must be some contract between the University and the individual, i.e. a position or an agreement (see First named investigators). Check the granting agency’s eligibility criteria for chief investigators. Maximum number of grants: NHMRC: Individuals are limited to holding a maximum of six NHMRC Project Grants as a CI and may not submit applications which could result in this number being exceeded in any funding year. Researchers based overseas are eligible to apply as a CI, but not as the CIA in NHMRC grants. CIs on NHMRC Program Grants are permitted to hold a maximum of one Project Grant and may not apply such that this may be exceeded. Refer to the Project Grant Funding Policy for further information. An Associate Investigator (AI) is an investigator who provides intellectual input into the research and whose participation warrants inclusion of their name on publications. There are no restrictions on individuals who may be named as an AI on NHMRC Project Grant application. ARC Discovery: Specific limits on the number of projects funded in 2008 are contained in Table 1. For additional details see the ARC Discovery funding rules. Table 1 Limit type a. CI/Fellow limit
Limit description A researcher may not be involved in more than two Discovery projects on which he/she is a CI or ARC Fellow, regardless of the number of PIs involved. A researcher may not be involved in more than one Discovery projects project on which he/she is the sole CI or sole ARC Fellow, regardless of the number of PIs involved. A researcher may not be involved as a PI on more than four Discovery projects (Note: a researcher who is eligible to be a CI is not eligible to be a PI)
b. Sole CI/Fellow limit
c. PI limit
ARC Linkage: Specific limits on the number of projects funded in 2008 are contained in Table 2. For additional details see the ARC Linkage funding rules. Table 2 Limit type a. CI limit Limit description CIs may participate in up to four concurrent Linkage projects which have ARC funding for project costs and/or APDIs (these four may or may not also include APAI funding). CIs may also participate in up to four concurrent Linkage projects which have ARC funding only for APAIs. b. PI limit c. APDI limit There is no limit on the number of concurrent projects for PIs. An APDI Fellow may participate in up to five concurrent Linkage projects which have funding for project costs and/or APDIs (these five may or may not also include APAI funding).
2
4. Salaries for investigators 4.1. NHMRC: The guidelines state that unless salary funding is being sought on the grant, funding for a grant is dependent on the continuing employment of each of the CIs over the period of the grant. An applicant with an appointment for the first year of the grant and not the other years is still eligible to apply for a grant. However, if the grant is successful and their employment is not continued, they would become ineligible and the institution must notify the NHMRC. Therefore, if any CI does not have an appointment for the whole period of the grant, and is not requesting salary, he/she must indicate on the form something like "to be renewed". He/she must also provide a statement from the employer (Head of School/Director) that a position will be available if the application is successful. Researchers based overseas are not eligible to draw a salary from a Project Grant. Chief Investigators may apply for two separate NHMRC Project grants and request salary on both, totalling more than 100%. In the event that both applications are successful, the CI would relinquish one grant (if sole CI) or be removed from one grant, and submit a Variation Request to replace his/her role with another CI. Obviously it would have to be shown that the replacement CI was of at least equal standing and could complete the work. AIs are ineligible to draw a salary from a NHMRC Project Grant. 4.2. ARC: The Commonwealth will not provide support, in whole or in part, to meet the salaries of CIs or PIs under Linkage and Discovery Projects. ARC will, however, support costs associated with a Linkage Industry Fellow, and will provide salary in the case of an ARC Fellowship (Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship, Australian Research Fellowship, Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship and Australian Professorial Fellowship). A researcher nominated on a proposal as a CI must meet at least one of the following criteria as at 1 January for Round 1, or as at 1 July for Round 2 and for the full term of her/his participation in the project: be an employee of, and derive at least 50 per cent of her/his earnings from, an eligible organisation or be a holder of an adjunct appointment or equivalent at an eligible organisation who does not have a substantive position or paid appointment elsewhere.
5. Additional salary information 5.1. Personnel required to support the project may or may not be named. When costing research proposals applicants will need to include salary on-costs for any salaries requested within the budget. It is recommended that salary on-costs of 26.5% are used (15.428% for casual staff). ARC uses HEW levels (see 5.2) and NHMRC uses PSP packages (see 5.3). While non-NHMRC grant agencies tend to pay the actual cost of employment, a shortfall often needs to be met with regard to NHMRC grants. You need to talk with the Head of Discipline about how the shortfall can be accommodated. 5.2. ARC: Only costs which directly support a research project are supported. While UQ policy recommends salary on-costs of 26.5%, the ARC requires a 28% loading to be included in applications. In establishing salaries in ARC applications, use HEW levels plus 28% on-costs (see UQ salary scales for ARC). 5.3. NHMRC: Personnel Support Packages (PSP) are used to cover salaries plus oncosts. The PSP level is awarded based on requirements of the position, rather than the person’s qualifications and experience. The NHMRC PSP levels do not fully cover the costs of employment of staff at UQ and the shortfall must be met through other means. It may be useful to access the University’s Salary scales in preparing this section of the budget to ensure that you can cover the gap between the NHMRC salaries and the UQ salary scale.
3
5.4.
On-costs include payroll tax, workers’ compensation, leave loading, long-service leave, non-contributory and contributory superannuation. However, items such as extended leave and severance pay are excluded. This can be a real problem if the person named has been in continuous employment over several grants and then there are no follow-on grants. The last grant has to pay severance and so forth. While you can’t include these payments in the grant, it is wise to try and inflate other costs somewhat to cover this eventuality if possible. If the person is not drawing a salary from the grant, then this does not present a problem.
6. Goods and Services Tax on grants 6.1. The implications of GST for researchers vary across funding types. Though ultimately all grants are GST-liable, not all grant applications require adjustments to be made as part of the budget in the application. Gifts and donations are GST exempt. An example is provided below.
Example 1: To GST or Not To GST University of Queensland is registered for GST and is awarded a grant of $5,500 from a local industry partner, MineSearch, to develop equipment to assist in the analysis of ore samples. As the funding has certain obligations attached to it, the University must pay GST. There are two ways that the University will remit GST: (a) If the original application did not include GST, the university will automatically remit 1/11 th ($500 in this case) of grant funds to the ATO; or (b) if the original application did include GST of 10% ($550 in this case) and a grand total of $6050 rather than $5500. This means that $550 GST liability has already been provided and the project funds of $5,500 remain intact. *Please note that in example (a) & (b) the grantor is able to claim the GST as a refund of an input tax credit. 7. Budget 7.1. UQ has a policy for recovering from clients the direct and indirect costs associated with undertaking externally commissioned research and consultancy projects. 7.2. The indirect cost recovery component on all research projects is calculated as 60% of total employment costs plus 10% of all other costs. For guidelines to assist researchers in full cost recovery for research refer to the Policy on Recovery of Infrastructure and Services Costs in Research Budgets. See also the budget proforma to assist in these calculations. This budget proforma is useful only for grants that require the applicant to build in indirect cost recovery (see 7.3 for details on exemptions). A printed copy of the pro forma budget must be attached to the research agreement or contract when submitted to ORPS for negotiation or signature. If you require advice on budgeting please contact the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Manager of Innovation and Commercial development. 7.3. Exemptions from indirect cost recovery: Projects funded under Category 1 of the Australian Competitive Grants Scheme (e.g. NHMRC and ARC) will not generally be subject to any indirect cost recovery except where the granting body rules allow for such recovery, in which case the project should recover the maximum amount available under the rules. Projects funded by charities or foundations that are registered as charities in their legal jurisdictions will also not generally be subject to any indirect cost recovery except where the granting body rules allow for such recovery, in which case the project should recover the maximum amount available under the rules.
4
7.4.
7.5.
7.6. 7.7.
7.8.
For NHMRC and ARC project applications do not build annual salary increments into the amounts requested in the budget as these are automatically indexed at the time of payment for each year of the project. For applications to other funding bodies do build in annual salary increments into the amounts. All grant applications: Provide specific quotes of costs as much as possible (not estimates of costs). For example, put in the current cost of an airfare, not what you estimate the fare to cost. All grant applications: The rates for subsistence and travel allowance in grant applications are based on those currently contained in UQ’s policy. Base the cost of equipment and installation on the latest prices (excl GST) obtained from the supplier at the time of submission and do not estimate cost. Rules vary across funding schemes regarding how equipment is treated in the budget. ARC Linkage Projects: It is recommended that where you are seeking funding from Commonwealth for large or costly items of equipment, you may apply for this item through the Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme. NHMRC Project: Only items of equipment that cost more than $10,000 are contained in the separate equipment section (otherwise details go into the direct costs section of the budget). Written quotes are required here (kept with the hard copy of the application held by ORPS). Equipment cannot exceed $80,000 in NHMRC project applications. NHMRC will not pay for normal computing requirements as they reason that the infrastructure grants the University receives from the Commonwealth will cover this. They will cover special computing requirements like laptops but it has to be justified, e.g. the research data is collected in practices and the RA is mobile much of the time. For payment to GPs for their contribution to projects you can check with the local Division of General Practice to determine the out-of-hours hourly rate. This is the amount you should seek in the grant. Some granting agencies are opposed to paying GPs for their time. You have to state in the justification that this is an industry standard and necessary given that GPs rely on fee-for-service income as opposed to salary.
8. Codes Applications for grants require a number of codes to allow classification of the research. 8.1 Research Fields, Courses and Disciplines Classification (RFCD) Codes allow both research and development activity and other activity within the higher education sector to be categorised according to the field of research undertaken. The RFCD code is used by the granting body to determine which type of panel will assess the grant and by the university to determine what type of research is occurring. Therefore it is extremely important that we use the RFCD code that highlights that this is primary care research. 8.2 Socio-Economic Objective Classification (SEO) Codes allow research and development data to be classified according to the researcher's perceived purpose. 9. Ethics 9.1 UQ operates a peak ethical review committee, the Human Experimentation Ethics Review Committee (HEERC), and two ethics sub-committees, the Behavioural & Social Sciences Ethical Review Committee (BSSERC), and the Medical Research Ethics Committee (MREC). HEERC is principally a committee of broad policy development and of appeal, while its two sub-committees consider research protocol applications at first instance in addition to policy development specific to the usual types of research protocols considered by them. These 3 institutional ethics committees are duly constituted under the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC) which is a committee of the NHMRC. 9.2 The UQ Medical Research Ethics Committee now accepts applications on the National Ethics Application Form (NEAF). This assists those who need to apply for ethics approval from multiple sites. Queensland Health also accepts the NEAF. 9.3 Click here for UQ guidelines, ethics forms and downloads.
5
10. Statistics 10.1 Health data: There are a number of resources available on the net in relation to key health statistics. Click here to access Australian statistical sources relating to government health expenditure, Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, hospitals, medical workforce and private health insurance. 10.2 Statistical services: The Queensland Clinical Trials Centre (QCTC) represents one possible option for acquiring expert statistical advice on research projects. The QCTC (qctc@sph.uq.edu.au) provides advice on clinical trials undertaken in Queensland by independent investigators. Such consultation includes protocol design, sample size determination, randomisation, data management, analysis and interpretation of findings. 11. Research links and resources for DGP 11.1 Spin SPIN (Sponsored Programs Information Network) is a computer database with detailed and up-to-the minute information about thousands of government and private funding opportunities in Australia and overseas. Genius is a facility that allows individual researchers to enter their research interests, categorised by the keywords within SPIN, developing a personal profile of research interests. SMARTS (SPIN Matching And Researcher Transmittal System) is an automatic matching service using the information contained within the GENIUS profile against the SPIN database. Whenever a funding scheme is updated on the SPIN system, the keywords associated with that scheme are cross-checked against the researcher profiles in SMARTS. If there is a match, then the researcher is automatically sent a targeted e-mail notifying them of the opportunity. To create a profile and to receive funding alerts specific to your areas of interest, you must register your details online. This process takes approximately 15 minutes and can be updated electronically. Step by step instructions can be found on the Faculty of Health Sciences Staff Intranet. Access the Intranet via the Faculty Homepage. Click on the Staff Intranet link, then log on using your UQ username and password. Click "yes", then look for the "Setting up a SMARTS profile" link under the heading "Other useful links/resources". 11.2 GrantSearch Australia GrantSearch is Australia's longest established and most comprehensive funding database, detailing over 18,000 different opportunities for organisations and individuals. 11.3 ResearchResearch.com ResearchResearch.com is a publisher of news and information for the international research community. 11.4 Online funding opportunities The ORPS facilitates access to information regarding up-to-date online funding opportunities. Funding can be searched by faculty and sorted by deadline. Most of those opportunities open to the DGP are accessible by selecting health. In addition to the major online opportunities, there are opportunities through agencies such as the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund and non-online opportunities such as the Golden Casket Foundation. 11.5 NHMRC The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) website provides information on numerous types of funding and the funding calendar. Links to the various NHMRC schemes are available through the ORPS. You also require an application ID through the ORPS for submitting applications to the NHMRC. 11.6 UQ Internal Schemes ORPS provides information and instructions to applicants on the various internal schemes offered by the University of Queensland.
6
11.7 RACGP The Royal Australian College of General Practice (RACGP) offers a number of research grant opportunities including scholarships, fellowships and awards. Here is a list of RACGP opportunities: Cardiovascular Research Grants in General Practice (CVRG) (up to $25k) Chris Silagy Research Scholarship – focusing on an aspect of evidencebased primary health care ($20k) RACGP/CONROD Research Fellowships – focusing on road accident trauma and general practice (up to $20k) Family Medical Care Education and Research Grant (FMCER) (up to $10k) Vicki Kotsirilos Integrative Medicine Grant (up to $5,000) RACGP/APHCRI Indigenous Health Award (up to $2,500) PWH Grieve Memorial Award ($2,500) Rex Walpole Travelling Fellowship ($2,500) 11.8 ARC ORPS provides information and instructions to applicants for the various schemes of the Australian Research Council (ARC). A GAMS ID and password are required through the ORPS to create and submit an application to the ARC. 11.9 ANZ A number of grant opportunities are available through ANZ Trustees. Details on the areas of interest and trusts/programs are available here. 12. Further information To receive up to date information on upcoming grant opportunities/closing dates/research bulletin, sign up with the ORPS mailing list. ORPS presents grant information according to broad research funding categories including online funding opportunities, internal UQ funding schemes, external Australian funding, and external international funding. ORPS provides information on ARC and NHMRC grants. All applications should be completed according to the specific and contemporaneous instructions provided by the funding body and made available through the ORPS for the particular scheme. Submission checklist: - Be aware of the internal closing date - Make sure you have provided an original and the correct number of copies for the grantor. Remember, the Office of Research and Postgraduate Studies requires 1 extra copy - A Research FAC coversheet must be completed for all applications submitted through the Office of Research and Postgraduate Studies - Have you used the correct salary scales? - Have you included an overheads component in your budget? - Have you obtained the relevant signatures? - Have you cleared any legal issues, particularly those pertaining to Intellectual Property, with the Research Contracts Officer? For successful grants, ORPS provides guidelines on setting up research 4 accounts. Click here for details on research contracts. Quick access to funding policies: NHMRC Program Grants NHMRC Project Grants ARC Linkage ARC Discovery
7