Module 6: Grant and Contract Administration

1.2 Managing the research grant

1.2.8 Accountability and transparency: maintaining project records

Module 3 Conducting Research Responsibly - Protecting Yourself, Your Research and Your University covers the important issues surrounding responsible research practice and statutory and regulatory practice. It would be useful to go to that module and read (or re-read) Topic 4: Managing your research records. The information provided below complements that of Module 3.

At the institutional level there are administrative systems and procedures in place that enable the university to comply with its obligations to the government, to funding agencies, and to its employees. The systems are designed to ensure accountability and transparency.

Your institution will have archiving policies covering document storage and retrieval. Please refer to them for advice and guidance.

As a research manager you have a responsibility to maintain project records. Do you remember the pro-forma reports you looked at earlier in this Module, in the section on Project Reports? You can see how good record-keeping assists in report writing. It is important for you to be able to access project records quickly and easily, and important for the institution to have access to project records if it is to fulfill its obligations to stakeholders. Administrative staff in your school office will be able to assist with maintaining records, and some of the documents listed below will be collected by them as a matter of course. It is preferable, however, for you to keep copies, but if you don’t you must know where to find them.
It will help you to keep track of records if you:

• Identify the type of record, the person responsible for keeping it, and where it is stored;
• If you are responsible for a team or group, consider placing a list of all project documents on a shared drive, and scan and save all documents in pdf format on the shared drive;
• Arrange for the school Finance Manager to keep copies of all important records.

At a minimum you need to keep the following information:

• The key documents that guide the management of your grant: the scheme funding rules, your application, letters of offer and acceptance, the funding agreement/conditions of award, contracts, author and IP agreements, student agreements
• Ethical and biosafety applications and clearances
• Information relating to the establishment of project accounts
• Project management plan
• Personnel records: position description, advertisement, interview notes, appointment documentation, leave requests and approvals, annual review
• Correspondence and approvals relating to any variations to the project, budget, or investigators
• Financial records: orders, invoices, payment authorisations
• Records relating to proof of discovery, e.g. lab books
• Project data (experiments, surveys, etc.)
• Reports: progress, milestone, and final
• Publications, patents.

When determining which records should be retained, put yourself in the position of someone who, at short notice and without any prior project knowledge, has to take over management of the project. What documents and information would they need in order to do this?

Audits. A word of warning: your project might be the subject of internal or external audit. Universities employ internal auditors who undertake random audits of research projects to ensure that both agency and university requirements are being met. If you maintain good records you are unlikely to be in breach of any conditions, and the audit will be a painless exercise. External audits are less common, but some funding bodies will examine projects that they fund. The main focus of an external audit tends to be financial, but the auditor will cover all aspects of scheme compliance.

Activity

Self-audit of a current grant

Consider your most recent, or current, research project. Following the template below, note down whether you are aware of, and would be able to locate, the documents in question. Where relevant go and find them.

Class of documents	Specifics	Can you (or your project leader) locate these documents and note who else has access to them?	Note any questions you have about where/how/why these documents are kept
Grant Management	Funding rules; application; offer & acceptance letters; funding agreement; author and student agreements;  IP agreements
Ethical/bio-safety	Approvals (if applicable)
Project accounts (GRL)	Account number, project number, expenditure classes
Project management plan	From application
Personnel records	Position descriptions; interview notes;  appointments; leave requests; annual reviews
Budget or personnel variations	Change of CI or PI?
Financial records	Orders; receipts; invoices; authorisations
Proof of discovery	Lab books; reports
Project data	Data, data, data
Milestone reports	Progress and final report
Publications & patents	Journal, conference, disclosure docs, etc.

In general terms how would you rate the document management of this project – and how well do you think it would stand-up to an external audit? Use a scale of 0–5, with 0 being very poor document management and 5 being excellent. Briefly explain the reasons for your score.

Template for self-audit of a current grant (Word file)
Template for self-audit of a current grant (rtf file)