Submitting an application

Before submission to the funder all funding applications must undergo due diligence checks before being approved by the faculty and the Research, Enterprise and Scholarship Unit (RES) via the Awards Management System (AMS). Projects in AMS can be fast-tracked for approval if the price to funder amount is below the faculty threshold values for grants, contract research or consultancy. Please see the pdfs in the key documents section for more information regarding due diligence and fast-tracking.

OU Contribution (cash) process

Change to: For major bids (greater than £1M) the Open University (OU) contribution to the cost of the research project will be high. Advance approval in principle is required, prior to significant development of the application, from your faculty Associate Dean for Research.

Principal investigators should liaise with their faculty research support team to facilitate approval in AMS.

1. Principal Investigator notifies faculty research support team and initiates a project in AMS.
2. Faculty research team supports the Principal Investigator to cost the bid and complete AMS record.
   • Peer review conducted in faculty, review of T&Cs by Legal Services (LS), VAT implications clarified by finance.
3. Faculty initiates the approval process via AMS.
4. Due diligence carried out by RES or in faculty (if fast-tracked).
5. Application submitted to funder (once approval completed in AMS).

AMS Approval process

Approval in AMS is linear, each approval group is notified when the project is assigned to them for approval. Wider notifications (e.g. to PI) are only sent once the approval process is complete.

• Projects need to arrive with RES at least 3-5 working days prior to submission deadline.
• The Legal Services team are required to review all terms and conditions where the funder makes them available at submission stage, with the exception of standard terms and conditions relating to bids submitted to Research Councils and regular charitable funders: British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society and Wellcome Trust.
• LS must be informed at least 10 working days prior to submission date.

To ensure all approvals are completed on time we advise that if you are submitting with less than five days’ notice you notify Finance via the Comments tab so that they can start their due diligence and review checks in good time.

Funder submission portals and Institutional Approval

Most funders use a portal to facilitate the submission of funding applications. Some funders allow the Principal Investigator/Project Lead to submit applications directly to the funder whereas others require the institution to approve the application to accept a submission. Please ensure you check the call guidance ahead of the submission deadline to determine if your submission requires institutional approval. This is where RES or faculty (if delegated) approves the submission of the application to the funder as the last step in the submission process. Examples of institutional approval include submissions to the following funders: British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, UKRI Research Councils (institutional approval delegated to faculty research support teams) and Wellcome Trust.

if you are unsure whether the OU is registered on a particular funder portal, or if your application requires institutional approval, please contact the Research Development team.

Delegated Authorities

Some funders will ask for a legal representative/authority to approve a funding application as part of the submission process. The delegated authority for The Open University is Catherine Lee (Acting Head of Legal Services).

If you are unsure if this is a requirement please contact the Research Enterprise team for further advice.

Key documents

• RES - Due diligence checks and fast-track thresholds (internal only)
• RES - AMS guidance (internal only)