Module 5: Financial, Resource and Risk Management

Topic 1.1: The financial management cycle of a research project

The financial management of research projects operates across many stages, from the initial process of developing a proposal for funding, through the ongoing dispersal of those funds to meet the agreed commitments, and finally, the reporting of expenditure to show that the funding was appropriately deployed.

In reading this module, it is important to be aware of your own university’s requirements and expectations as to how the funding process operates.  You will find that there are many sources of support that you can access. These may include your faculty or school financial experts, your research office, and research advisers who are employed to assist you. You should also be able to access   considerable information from your university website on the process that operates in your institution. This may include information about required forms that must be completed, reporting deadlines, and sources of expertise that will be helpful to you in costing and managing the research expenditure.  At The University of Western Australia, for example, all grant applications must be routed through the Grants Office to ensure they are properly costed. Similarly, formal acceptance of the grant and the setting up of the project files must occur before funds are released to a project. 

Typically, your research project may follow a similar path to that illustrated in Figure 1.  There will be many points in this process where you will be applying good financial practices to ensure the project runs smoothly.

Click here to view Figure 1(PDF)

As Figure 1 illustrates, at each stage of the project you will be involved in some form of financial management or oversight. These are not hard tasks, but they do need to be undertaken regularly.

Module 1 offered a set of guidelines for financial management as part of the full project management checklist.  A copy of the section relating to financial management has been extracted and is included as a resource for your use. (See: Handout 1: Financial management checklist for a research project). It is a useful practical guide as to what steps should be taken during each part of the project.  We will explore these elements more fully in the rest of this module.