Manage Your Grant and Hire Research Personnel

Before any grant accounts can be established, ORIS requires a copy of the official notification that your grant proposal is successful. This may come in the form of a notice of award or decision or a letter of offer, or may be a transfer agreement, purchase order, or other type of research contract. Some notices of award are sent directly to your Research Coordinator, but others may be sent only to you, in which case you should forward to your Research Coordinator upon receipt. Your notice of award should include the following key information:

• The contact information for the funding agency
• The amount of funding that has been awarded
• The date from which you may begin spending funds
• If applicable, the date by which all funds must be spend
• Any reporting requirements you must fulfill

When you receive a notice of award be sure to notify your research coordinator immediately as they may not receive a copy of it.

A NOTE ON SIGNATURES: Some letters of offer may require a signature to activate your award. Researchers will note that these signatures bind the institution and therefore must be signed by an institutional representative. For research grants, this signing authority rests with the Vice-President, Research and Innovation or their delegate. This also applies to all types of research contracts. Please contact your research coordinator to request signatures, as additional review steps may be necessary.

If you are working directly with an industry or community partner, your documentation may take the form of a research contract, rather than a Notice of Decision. Please note that individual researchers do not have the authority to bind the University of Windsor by signing research contracts. Your contract must be reviewed and authorized by the Office of Research and Integrity Services. Please contact our Contracts Manager to have your agreement reviewed.

Once your documentation has been received by ORIS and any necessary institutional signatures have been obtained, ORIS will request that a research grant account be set up for you. You will be copied on this email, called a Request to Open a New Grant Account (RTOG), which will include the details of your grant, including:

• The funding agency
• The start and end dates
• The amount of funding, and expected schedule of disbursements
• Required clearances and permits
• Copies of relevant documentation
• A list of your project team members

Please note that any UWindsor faculty members you have listed as project team members will be allowed to submit expenses to your grant account, but you will need to approve all expenditures.

If your project involves human participants, animal subjects, biohazards or other safety concerns, your project will be placed on hold until ORIS has received confirmation that the appropriate clearance or permit has been obtained. See the section below for more details on clearances and permits.

The request will be sent to the Research Finance Office, where it will be assigned to a Project Manager (who is my project manager?), who will support the accounting and reporting requirements. This phase is sometimes referred to as "post-award". There will be a short processing period before your grant funds can be accessed for spending. You will receive an email from Research Finance once your account is active that includes your grant account number and other key information. You can then access your grant in UWinsite Finance to submit expenses. If you require assistance to submit expenses to your grant, please contact your departmental admin or your Project Manager.

Some funding agencies, especially in the private sector, may require an invoice to transfer your grant funds. In order for the University to receive payments, the Principal Investigator must meet all conditions outlined in the research agreement/contract. This may include milestones or specified deliverables. In most cases, the payment is received after the start of the project. In order to allow the project to start, temporary funding is credited to the project and Research Finance collects the funds behind the scenes.

No invoices will be issued unless all required agreements and documentation have been signed by the institution. Agreements must be signed by the VPRI or delegate.

Research Finance is responsible for all invoicing on research agreements/contracts for the University. Invoicing not processed through Research Finance may not be correctly linked to the project in UWinsite Finance, causing problems with collection and risk management issues. Please contact Research Finance directly to have an invoice sent.

To ensure that funds are allocated correctly, all monies received for the research project should be payable to the University of Windsor and sent to:

Financial Services
Attention: Research Accounts Receivable
University of Windsor
Windsor, ON N9B 3P4

If your project involves human participants, animal subjects, biohazards, controlled goods or substances, cannabis, lasers, or x-rays, or may have environmental impacts, it will need to be cleared by the Research Ethics Board, the Animal Care Committee, or the Research Safety Committee, and you will not be able to access your awarded funds until a clearance or certificate has been obtained.

When you submit a new ERSO file, you will be required to declare whether your project involves any of the above. If so, our office will connect you with the right board or committee to review your project. You then have several options for proceeding:

Option # 1: Existing certificate or clearance
If you have an existing valid clearance issued by the REB, the ACC, or the RSC, you may have it applied to this project. Please contact the coordinator for that office and request confirmation that the certificate or clearance does indeed apply to your award. Once they confirm, we will then ask Research Finance to remove the hold from the grant account. Please note that confirmation must be obtained directly from the relevant office - we are unable to accept copies of your past certificates or clearances as confirmation.

Option # 2: No prior certificate - apply now
If you do not have valid certificate or clearance, start the process of application right away. It can take some time to prepare applications, so the sooner you submit your application, the sooner you will be able to access your funds.

Option # 3: Partial release of funds
While you are waiting for your certificate or clearance to be approved, you may be eligible to receive a partial release of funds for those activities that do not require board approval. To request the partial release while preparing an ACC or RSC application, log in to ERSO, select the award file from the list found in Applications: Under Review or Applications: Post Review, and click the Events button. Then, select the Event "Partial Release of Funds". This Event form will submit your request to ORIS, where it will be approved by the Chair of the board who will issue your certificate or clearance, as well as by the Director of the Office of Research and Integrity Services. If you are requesting partial release while preparing an REB application, please contact ethics@uwindsor.ca to request a partial release form.

A typical partial release will be up to 30% of your total award value for preliminary activities.

Option # 4: Declaration of non-engagement or multi-phase project
You may have clicked the wrong option when submitting your ERSO file - it happens!  If this is the case, please send us an email, and we will request that the hold be removed from your grant account. If your project does not currently required a certificate or clearance, but you expect it will in the future, please contact the Office of Research Ethics, Animal Care Committee or Research Safety Committee to complete a Declaration of Compliance.

Key Contacts:

• Research Ethics Board - ethics@uwindsor.ca
• Animal Care Committee - acc@uwindsor.ca
• Research Safety Committee - rsc@uwindsor.ca

Hiring and employment of employees are subject to a number of policies that govern his or her treatment. The hiring of grant-supported personnel is also of concern to the administrative unit which also has fiduciary responsibility in ensuring that there is sufficient funding to pay grant-supported personnel. When deciding on the amount or hourly wage to pay grant-supported personnel, you may seek the advice of colleagues in your department/faculty. You will normally need to make this decision at the time of submitting your grant proposal, as part of your budget.

Once your research grant account is established, you can submit hiring paperwork. There are two types of research personnel that can be employed by a grant: 1) students currently attending UWindsor and 2) individuals not registered as students at UWindsor (including students registered at other universities).

Current UWindsor students are hired via a student appointment, which is managed by the Department of Human Resources.

Non-student research personnel (RAs, postdoctoral researchers, visiting scholars, students from other Universities, etc) are hired via the Request for Research Appointment process, which is overseen by the Office of the Vice President, Research and Innovation. Read the full guide to this process.