The primary function of the pre-award team is to support the research community with the development of research and consultancy proposals. Our key contacts are Principal Investigators (PIs) and their research teams, college and school leads and administrators and other core professional services teams within IRIS and across the university (for example the Legal and Governance Services team and the Finance Office).
Service Provision
IRIS can add-value and increase the overall quality of the submission
- Identify key funder requirements, ensuring compliance to increase the chances of success.
- Assist with budget preparation, related documentation and proposal submission forms using our Worktribe database.
- Support as appropriate the preparation of sponsor administrative forms e.g. registering and using online funder systems.
- Support the PI and team with stakeholder management with partners to secure accurate budgets and due diligence information.
- Initial pre-award due diligence assessments, assuring regulatory and export control issues are identified.
- Support with identifying data management and IT infrastructure requirements relating to the project.
- Maximise the resource and plan for research innovation, impact and interdisciplinarity within the proposal and budget.
- Support with identifying and protecting any Intellectual Property
- Acting as a central point for signposting to other Professional Services such as HR, Governance and Legal Services, Health & Safety.
- Providing enhanced support for Early Career Researchers or PIs requiring interdisciplinary teams in partnership with academic mentoring.
- Review the final proposal to ensure all administrative requirements have been met and pathways to impact have been maximised.
- Obtain academic and institutional approval e.g. from Head of School and acquiring university Statement of Support as required.
Processing Timeline
Our pledge for priority proposal processing
To take full advantage of the value-added services of the pre-award team to ensure the best chance of success with your applications, PIs must follow the timelines listed in the table below.
Table 1. Minimum timeframe for engaging pre-award support for research grant development and submission.
PIs to provide the initial notification of bid, full details of funder, partners and their individual deadlines. Sufficient information so that budget development and due diligence assessment can be initiated. | Minimum of 3 weeks (15 working days) |
Complex or larger proposals require longer lead in times and we advise notifying IRIS as early as possible (e.g. low FEC recovery requiring Executive approval, or for large collaborative proposals). | Minimum of 4 weeks (20 working days) |
Final draft proposal and budget. If this is the first sight IRIS has had of the details o the project, then only basic checks will be performed. | Minimum of 1 week (5 working days) |
| Final documents for submission | Minimum of 3 working days (72 hours before funder deadline) |
IRIS may not be able to perform all services listed in our Service-Level-Agreement in a shortened timeframe. If a PI is unable to meet the processing timeline, pre-award will endeavour to submit the proposal to a sponsor by the stated deadline but with a reduced service provision. Proposals processed by PIs within the expected timeline will take precedence over those that are outside the expected timeline (i.e. last-minute submissions). The PIs who have adhered to the IRIS schedule will be prioritised.
The relevant Head of School has the authority to prevent an application being submitted if insufficient time has been provided for them to review the proposal, particularly where legislative compliance is in question. PIs are advised to contact their Head of School and Dean of Research at the earliest stage possible to discuss their proposal, gain the support and advice of their lead academics to maximise the quality of their submission.
Bid Development and Processing Details
Outlining the pre-award team and Principal Investigator’s responsibilities to maximise the value-added service.
Please visit the webpages where the workflow for developing a research proposal and important resources are available. All new research applications are created and managed in Worktribe and full guidance for how to use the system is available on our webpages.
Standard FEC recovery rates expected by funder are available on the IRIS webpages. Specific schemes may deviate from these rates and Principal Investigators are required to check with the Research and Impact Support Officers before communicating any project costs with external collaborators or funders.
Special Circumstances
Full Economic Costing (FEC) Recovery
To avoid under costing and to receive a fair price for the research proposed, IRIS we will work to funder guidance when preparing costs. Anything that deviates from the maximum FEC recovery permitted by the funder will require additional internal approvals and should therefore work to complex, larger grants internal schedule for support (see table 1).
Early notification and extended processing times
Large multi-institutional or complex funder applications will require wrap-around support which the service can only offer with extensive lead-in time and will be discussed on a case-by-case basis. This is particularly important where due diligence checks indicate an export control licence may be required with average processing time for this being more than 60 days.
Where the university can only submit a minimum number of bids to a scheme, demand management processes may be required, and this will incur extended processing times. In some cases, IRIS will not roll-out a university-wide competition to select the proposals for the funder set quota, instead operating a first-come-first served basis for demand management. This means earlier engagement is critical for the PI to gain strategic support and mentorship for a submission.
Where a funder requires match-funding or capital investment (estates and equipment) early notification is advised to ensure we adhere to our internal and external regulatory processes.
Tender terms are more contractually binding at the pre-award stage and require a review from our legal team which also requires earlier engagement of the service from PIs.
Enhanced due diligence assessment may be required at the pre-award stage depending on external collaborators included in the bid and/or considerations of Export Control Act.
Submissions made via online funder portals are reliant on systems external to Bangor and therefore as much time as possible should be allocated for the final IRIS approval and submission. PIs typically do not complete the submission in funder portals, this is dependent on IRIS approvers making the final submission, which is contingent on the online portal records matching the data in the relevant project record in Worktribe.
Proposals processed outside the expected service timeline.
IRIS is unlikely to be able to perform all services listed in our Service Level Agreement in a shortened timeframe. As previously stated, the Head of School has the authority to withhold approval for any submission if they have insufficient time to review the proposal or have any other concerns.
Retrospective bids which have been submitted without a Worktribe record or have not gone through the university’s bid submission approval process will be reported and monitored at Research Committee, with details provided to the relevant College research committees. An annual report to the University and College Research Committees will be provided detailing PIs who consistently submit proposals outside of the IRIS processing timeline.
To learn more about our services and to meet the experts in our pre-award team visit the Integrated Research and Impact Support (IRIS) team
Or contact: research-support@bangor.ac.uk