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In this section: internal procedures, finding funding opportunities, indicative staffing costs to help gage your project budget, guides on writing a grant application, and information on the post-award process.
How to Apply for External Research Funding:
A short guide to managing your project from ideation to submission
Download a pdf version of the guide on How to Apply for External Research Funding
Download a word version of the updated Peer Review Form
If you are planning to apply for external research funding, whether as Principal Investigator or a collaborator on an externally led project, the bid will need to be costed and approved in accordance with the below guidelines and workflows prior to its submission to the funder. This short guide aims to offer colleagues a quick overview of our faculty pre-award processes, systems, and support provisions to help you submit an external research funding application. If you have any questions, or comments, or otherwise please contact us at: Tde-research@brookes.ac.uk.
First Steps: Completing an Intent to Submit Form
If you have a research project idea you would like to bid for, please discuss it with your Research Lead and us here at the Research Office (RO) first! We can, for example, help you identify an appropriate funding call, or suggest colleagues who might be able to help you grow your idea! When you are ready to progress to developing the bid, please complete an ‘Intent to Submit Form’:
It is an important first step in that the ITS Form:
- Provides your Head of Department with the details required to consider the workload planning implications of your proposed project;
-Allows your Research Lead to make an early assessment of how the proposed project aligns with the research agenda set out in your PRP, and whether it is viable route to growing your research;
- Provides the RSO with the core details needed to set up a basic project record in Worktribe;
- Allows you to nominate internal peer reviewers;
- Allows you to explain your choice of funder/ funding call, and why it is the best fit for your project; and
- Allows you affiliate your project with an established Research Centre or Institute in TDE, or one of the OBU RIKE Networks.
Bid Development: How to Build Your Project’s Budget
The makeup of your project budget is largely dependant on the funder you are submitting to as the type of eligible costs, and the level to which they will be reimbursed, varies significantly. It is also directly relevant to the university’s aim to recover some of the broader costs of supporting research known as the ‘full economic cost’ (fec), so please make sure to read the call guidelines carefully when establishing what costs you can request from the funder.
Broadly speaking, charities (e.g. Leverhulme Trust, Wellcome Trust, etc) only fund a project’s ‘directly incurred’ (DI) costs – that is, expenditures that are incurred specifically for/by the project itself (e.g. research assistants or travel), but not institutional running costs such your allocated staff time or overheads. By contrast, UKRI Research Councils typically fund 80% of the fec - that is, 80% of the directly allocated, directly incurred, as well as the overheads (i.e. indirect, estates, and technician costs).
The overhead rate applied to a project relates directly to the amount of academic staff time it requires and is roughly £75,000 per 1 FTE per year, irrespective of the role type or salary. In a nutshell, indirect costs are those that impact on all of the University’s activities, and that hence cannot be directly attributed to a particular project. These are calculated annually and, amongst others, account for expenditures such as insurance costs, central services such as the directorates, or depreciation of centrally provided equipment and machinery. Estates costs, for their part, include the cost of maintaining the University's buildings. Depending on the nature of the research project, there are two different rates: one for office-based projects, and one for laboratory-based projects that also include the cost of basic technical support (please note that if the project requires additional/specific technical support, it should be charged directly to the project).
To enable Brookes staff to determine their project budgets, that is, the overall fec as well as those costs any particular funder or funding call will cover, the University uses a software package called Worktribe. We also use Worktribe to run internal approvals, as well as to manage and report on awards. For more information, guides and training resources, see: HERE.
Having identified a suitable call for your project, you should run the potential costs through Worktribe to see how feasible it is for the bid to progress. Please let us at the Research Office know as we are here to help you establish your project costs, albeit you can also access Worktribe directly to either setup a ‘standalone budget’ to experiment with, or a full project record to start costing up your project. When establishing these costs, please consider:
•OBU Research roles (see, HERE): If you are looking to employ a Research Assistant, please note that are obliged to keep to the type and cost of existing research roles, i.e. a grade 6 Post-Graduate Research Assistant cannot be costed as a grade 8 Research Fellow. Please also always cost a DI post using the second spine point on the relevant grade (ie. for a Gr7 PDRA, use Sp24 rather than Sp23) due to the system’s salary increment dates.
•PhD Studentships: If the funder allows for the inclusion of PGR students, please note that three-year studentships should only be included on projects that have a minimum four-year lifespan to ensure there is sufficient time for recruitment, enrolment, and a timely completion ahead of that of the parent project.
The Internal Peer Review process
Peer reviews are the cornerstone of the university’s approach to quality enhancement, and all internally led projects with an award value of over £10,000 must benefit from at least one formal peer review submitted on our Peer Review Form and added to the project’s Worktribe record for audit purposes. As such, our minimum expectations are that bids with a ‘price to funder’ of:
•under £10,000: Are exempt from peer review
•between £10,000 and £150,000: One formal peer review
•between £150,000 and £500,000: Two formal peer reviews
•over £500,000: Two formal peer reviews and an informal assessment by your Research Lead
The Peer Review Form has two parts, the first to be completed by the applicant, the second by the reviewer. It is the Principal Investigator’s responsibility to add the details asked in section 1 and to pass the form and application draft on to the reviewer, who will return the completed form to the PI and the Research Office for archiving.
The form’s second section largely mirrors the assessment criteria used by UKRI (which is also the funder we apply to most as a faculty), and focusses on how a project application explains its:
•Vision: “What are you hoping to achieve with your proposed work?”
•Approach: “How are you going to deliver your proposed work?”
•Applicant and team capability to deliver: “Why are you the right individual or team to successfully deliver the proposed work?”
•Resources and cost justification: “What will you need to deliver your proposed work and how much will it cost?”
•Ethics and responsible research innovation: “What are the ethical or RRI implications and issues relating to the proposed work?”
That said, as these broad categories are not universally relevant to the wide range of funders we submit to, the form also includes additional questions on:
•Funder specific eligibility or assessment criteria: Does the funder have any particular stipulations regarding the project remit or methodology (e.g. no medical research, a thematic focus, interdisciplinary criteria, etc)?
•Engagement and Impact: Does the project proposal include a pathway to impact, or otherwise public / stakeholder engagement strategy?
Ultimately, the peer review process is about gaining useful input that can add value to your bid and increase its likelihood of being awarded, but please do also consider school and faculty level opportunities such as research seminars or GrantsLabs to present your project ideas for formative feedback at an earlier stage as well.
Internal Approvals: Who approves what, when?
Before a bid can be submitted to the funder, it needs to be approved by both the faculty and the university. For the approvals process to start, the RSO must have received the final budget and final application form. Please allow at least two weeks for the relevant checks and approvals, which basically means one week for faculty approvals and the second to gain university approval. Please also note that:
•Expressions of Interest or preliminary applications: The approvals process is the same for single and multi-stage applications, so full Faculty and University approvals must be gained for an Expression of Interest, Letter of Intent, Outline or Preliminary bid. If the funder approves the stage one submission and you are invited to submit a full proposal, the Worktribe project will be returned to ‘Bid Development’ for amendment and will need to re-run approvals for the final submission.
•Before requesting bid approval, please make sure you answer the ‘Risk’ and ‘Ethics’ PI questions on the project’s Worktribe record – the system will not allow the approvals run to start unless they are.
•The last mile: Please note that, as the Brookes PI, you must be available and able to make amendments to, and eventually submit, your application in the runup to the deadline in case faculty or university reviews identify issues to be remedied.
Who approves what?
The workflow in Worktribe includes five individual approval steps:
1., Faculty Research Manager: Confirms that the budget and application documents are final and correct
2., Faculty Head of School: Confirms named staff have the necessary WLP allocations to conduct the project, and any particular/ bespoke arrangements for the project’s delivery
3., Faculty Head of Finance: Approves the project budget, e.g. if it involves in-kind or other direct contributions from the faculty
4., Faculty Dean for RIKE: Confirms that the project is of strategic relevance to the faculty
5., University RSG: Reviews and approves the application on behalf of the University
Faculty Approval Processes and Deadlines
Please not the below timelines for a bid’s development and approval run:
•3 Weeks from the external funder deadline: You are expected to have discussed your project proposal and submitted an ITS form to the RSO at least three weeks prior to the deadline
•2 Week marker: You are expected to provide a full draft costing we can support translating into Worktribe, and to have a full draft of the application for internal peer review
•1 week marker: The formative bid development work must be complete, and the application submitted for approvals on Worktribe.
University Approval Processes and Deadlines
Subsequent to gaining full Faculty approvals, the Directorate of Research, Innovation, and Enterprise’s ‘Research Support and Governance’ (RSG) team will support a project bid’s submission by:
•Arranging for the signing of institutional letters of support where required.
•Reviewing the final application documentation and, if there are no further queries or revisions, providing university approval on Worktribe.
•Notifying the PI that the bid can be submitted, or do so on the university’s behalf in cases where the funder requires an institutional submission.
In most cases, the RSG can itself provide university approval, but please note that there are two escalation points that may require additional time to complete if:
•OBU Finance Director Approval: Central finance must approve bids with a cost to HEI over £500,000 (excluding partner costs, and combined in cases where there are multiple contributing faculties - with the approval of the lead faculty being escalated rather than all of them individually), and a contribution to overheads of 0% or less.
•OBU Vice-Chancellor or Pro-VC: Central approval from Joe T is required for project budgets that have a cost to HEI over £1,000,000 (excluding partner costs as per above)
Similarly, It is important to note that the RSG’s university review of external funding applications fulfils several functions in addition to those discussed above, reflecting particular funder requirements. The Wellcome Trust, for example, requires the university submit a statement confirming that the lead applicant has not had any allegations of bullying or harassment upheld against them, which must be solicited from the People Directorate, and which takes time.
The RSG hence has two set deadlines that must be adhered to allow for these workflows to be completed:
•The Five Day Deadline
The expectation is that, at five working days ahead of the funding call deadline, the project will have acquired full faculty level approval on Worktribe, and that the Brookes PI has submitted the final bid documentation to the funder’s application portal (e.g. Jes/ TFS, Leverhulme, or BA) insofar as it is submitted by the RSG on the University’s behalf rather than by the PI directly.
If the five day deadline cannot reasonably be met, please get in touch with your Research Office. Your DRIKE can exceptionally grant a three day extension, but must include the rationale for the exemption in their approval on WT. These exemptions ought to be substantively based on considerations such as:
1., The application is a second stage/ full submission with a short turnaround time of under two weeks
2., The application is for extension funding to an existing project
3., Rarity of the call (that one-off opportunity that just cannot be missed)
4., This is an invited application with heightened prospects
5., Has a clearly definable strategic significance to meeting the faculty research strategy (please specify)
6., Delays beyond the PI’s control in securing SOECAT approval from Accord
7., Externally led projects: The Brookes PI is expected to ensure the external PI is conscious of our internal approval processes - and the importance of our adhering to them. Please copy the Faculty Research Office and RSG into your email to the external lead impressing this requirement.
Exemptions cannot be sought for internally led bids to funding calls with recurrent funding deadlines of six months or less (e.g the BA/ Leverhulme Small Research Grants) and should be deferred to the next round.
•The Two Day Cliff Edge
If an internally led project’s Worktribe and final application documentation have not been received by the RSG for review by two working days from the external deadline, the bid will be declined.
Once you know the outcome of your funding application, please do inform us at the RSO and the RSG so we can update our files and help you with the next steps – hopefully with setting up your award, which will also be managed through Worktribe, but also with establishing the lessons learned and scoping out alternative funding calls if it has not gone to plan on this occasion.
Funding Opportunities
Funding Opportunities
There are many ways to scope out suitable funding calls, e.g. signing up to funder newsletters, but certainly have a look at:
The fortnightly TDE Courrier circulated by Bous Baiche, which is full of funding opportunities, training and other events. If you missed any, or just want to peruse the back catalogue, see: HERE.
The Pivot RP online database of funding calls that allows you to search a vast array of funding opportunities by keyword or subject, and setup regular email alerts too! The dedicated page, including tutorials, can be found: HERE
UK Research and Innovation - Overview of current funding opportunities at all Research Councils.
Newton Fund - Overview of current funding opportunities for collaboration with academics in Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Africa and wider Africa, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. You can also sign up for the Newton Fund funding bulletin here.
Global Challenges Research Fund: Please note that if you will be required to submit a 'Due Diligence Form' if applying for a GCRF award
Estimating Staffing Costs
The salary costs for Postgraduate Research Assistants or Research Fellows are frequently a significant portion of a research project's budget. That said, the actual amount we would receive towards these depends on the type of funding body the bid is submitted to and their particular rules. As a rule of thumb for colleagues designing budgets, please have a look at the indicative costs outlined below by staff and funder category.
For more information on the particular roles and their job descriptions, please see: Research Roles
You can also download and use the 'Project Budget Builder' excel to help scaffold and estimate your project costs - if you could please complete and send it to us we can review and use it to build your Worktribe project.
Writing a Grant Application
Writing a Grant Application
Below are some useful links and guides for writing a grant application.
Your guide to winning research funding - Including the Brookes processes, tips for writing a good funding application, who's who in Research Support and the biggest funders relevant to TDE.
Data Management Plan - Most Research Councils and other major funders now require you to submit a Data Management Plan if you will be generating data as part of your project. Many funders provide templates for the Data Management Plan that can be downloaded off their website, or provide a list of questions that you should consider. Alternatively, you can use the Digital Curation Centre's template to assemble your Data Management Plan. Brookes guidance on using the DCC's website can be found here.
Impact - A lot of funders now require you to not only demonstrate the academic impact of your work, but also the economic and societal benefits. This guide explains what funders mean by impact, and provides some tips on writing a Pathways to Impact. For queries around impact, contact Dana Vilistere (dvilistere@brookes.ac.uk) in RBDO.
Writing a Justification of Resources - Writing a good Justification of Resources (JoR) doesn't need to be tricky. This guide takes you through the process and breaks down what you need to justify, contains questions to consider and answer in the JoR, and some examples. (Included in Your guide to winning research funding)
How to write a good proposal for the Global Challenges Research Fund - Professor Mark Reed (University of Newcastle) shares a list of suggestions that he learned as a GCRF panel member.
The EU Guide to Science Communication - The EU H2020 guide to communicating your research: 9 videos to help you achieve impact. Not only relevant to EU funding applicants, but to anyone wanting to achieve impact.
How to apply for research funding: 10 tips for academics - Advice from researchers and reviewers.
Research funding: 10 tips for writing a successful application
Reviewing your application - This guide contains several tests that provide a constructive way for grant applicants to elicit feedback from reviewers.
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