Managing your award

Rescheduling of an award budget may be necessary from time to time. This can be requested by making an application within your award on Grant Tracker. Circumstances that may require a budget request are:

Budget spend has been less than originally planned.

• Staff recruitment or purchase of equipment has been delayed. This may necessitate the movement of budget to the next year of the award.
• A virement request can be made in the circumstance where it may be necessary to move budget from one category to another; for instance, from expenses to salaries.
• If the spend is not going to be caught up in the next year then an award reprofile may be necessary. This should be discussed in the first instance with your research programme officer or research programme manager.

Budget spend has been more than originally planned (normally clinical studies only).

• Rarely in clinical studies, delays in recruitment, follow up or other unforeseen circumstances mean that the original budget will not cover the full study. This may require supplementary funding to be added to the award.
• The expectation is that the progress review committee are kept fully informed of such delays as the study progresses but there may come a point where a supplementary funding request is necessary.
• This should be submitted using the budget request facility in Grant Tracker giving justification for the delays and will be considered by the progress review committee and approved by sub-committee or by the charity executive depending on amount and context of the supplement.

Versus Arthritis must be informed of a proposed change to the end date of an award. Approval will not be unreasonably withheld.

Important information

• No cost extensions can be applied for on all awards with the exception of centre awards.
• In the case of clinical study awards only these can include a request for additional funding.
• Any approval of a request will be at the discretion of Versus Arthritis.
• All applications for extensions must be submitted prior to the existing end date of the award.
• All applications must be submitted via Grant Tracker.

For further advice please contact the research department at research@versusarthritis.org.

Claims for actual expenditure on awards will be reimbursed on receipt of invoices quarterly in arrears. All invoices should quote the grant reference and a full breakdown of the costs being claimed should be provided.

Late claims have a significant effect on the charity’s financial management, and this will be considered a serious breach of the conditions.

Important information about invoices

• No payments will be made until the host institution has signed the acceptance of the conditions for the award.
• Payment of the award will be made to the host institution quarterly in arrears, unless specified differently in any special conditions, or otherwise agreed.
• All claims must be made by setting out the costs incurred by the host institution during the preceding quarter.
• The claim should contain sufficient detail to enable Versus Arthritis to verify the costs incurred against the agreed budgets in the Letter of Award.
• Versus Arthritis may request additional information as required to verify the claim.
• The final claim will only be accepted if the research programme manager is satisfied that Researchfish reporting has been sufficient and the invoice is submitted within the appropriate time period after the end of the award period, as stated in the conditions of award for the award in question.

For further advice please contact the Research Department on research@versusarthritis.org.

Fellowship holders or named staff members working on an award are entitled to take periods of absence from their award for maternity, paternity and adoption leave, periods of long term sickness or injury, recruitment issues and other unforeseen problems resulting in a serious delay in completing the proposed research.

Versus Arthritis will not pay the cost of these absences - it is the responsibility of the Host Institution to ensure all employer statutory and contractual payments for such leave are honoured.

No-cost extensions on awards can be applied for, to account for time lost due to periods of absence. However, supplements to the award will not be provided. Alternatively, award holders can apply to suspend their award – this is a route typically used by fellowship holders to cover periods of absence, but is available to all award holders.

Award suspensions:

• Award suspensions can be applied on all awards, with the exception of centre of excellence awards.
• We have no formal restrictions on the length of time that can be taken, but the dates should be agreed with the appropriate research programme manager responsible for the award.
• No invoices can be claimed for costs incurred during the suspension period.
• All applications for suspensions must be submitted prior to the existing end date of the award.
• The end date of the award will be extended for the same length of time as the period of suspension, so no award/fellowship time will be lost.
• Any approval for a request will be at the discretion of Versus Arthritis.

All suspension requests need to be submitted through Grant Tracker.

The full policy regarding maternity, paternity, adoption leave and sick leave can be found in our terms and conditions.

For further advice please contact the research department on research@versusarthritis.org.