Managing your award

This information is for awards made prior to January 2024, under the January 2019 (or previous) conditions of award. 

Claims for actual expenditure on awards will be reimbursed on receipt of invoices quarterly in arrears. All invoices should quote the grant reference and a full breakdown of the costs being claimed should be provided. 

Late claims have a significant effect on the charity’s financial management and will be considered a serious breach of the conditions. 

Important information about invoices

• No payments will be made until the host institution has signed the acceptance of the conditions for the award. 
• Payment of the award will be made to the host institution quarterly in arrears, unless specified differently in any special conditions, or otherwise agreed.  
• All claims must be made by setting out the costs incurred by the host institution during the preceding quarter. 
• The claim should contain sufficient detail to enable Versus Arthritis to verify the costs incurred against the agreed budgets in the Letter of Award. 
• Versus Arthritis may request additional information as required to verify the claim. 
• The final claim will only be accepted if the research programme manager is satisfied that Researchfish reporting has been sufficient and the invoice is submitted within the appropriate time period after the end of the award period, as stated in the conditions of award. 

This replaces quarterly invoicing for all new awards made from February 2024 which are subject to the conditions of award dated March 2023. 

Under this approach, quarterly invoicing in arrears has been replaced by annual payments:  

• Following receipt of the signed award agreement, a single payment for the agreed first year budget will be made one month after the start of the award 
• For each subsequent year, the award holder will be required to submit a financial report for the previous year’s incurred costs via Grant Tracker with a deadline of six weeks after the anniversary of the start date 
• A meeting will be held between the award holder, institutional finance representative and the Versus Arthritis research team to discuss any budget variance, any unanticipated spend and to agree the required payment for the present award year.  
• After this, the next payment will be released 
• In the final year, we will withhold 10% of the final payment to allow for receipt of the final reconciliation from the institution and for submission of any outstanding reports from the award holder 
• A final payment will then be made to meet the outstanding balance, not exceeding the remaining budget for the award.   
• Important information about annual payments  
• No payments will be made until the host institution has signed the acceptance of the conditions for the award 
• Failure to submit a financial report or attend the follow up meeting will prevent release of further payments.  

Rescheduling of an award budget may be necessary from time to time. This can be requested by making an application within your award on Grant Tracker.  

Circumstances that may require a budget request are, but not limited to: 

• Staff recruitment or purchase of equipment has been delayed. This may require the movement of budget to following years of the award. 
• A virement request can be made where it is necessary to move budget from one category to another; for instance, from expenses to salaries. 
• If the spend is not going to be caught up within year, then an award reprofile may be necessary. This should be discussed in the first instance with your awards operations officer or research programme manager. 

Versus Arthritis must be informed of a proposed change to the end date of an award. Approval will not be unreasonably withheld. Extensions can be requested by making an application within your award on Grant Tracker. 

• No cost extensions can be applied for on all awards, except for centre of excellence awards 
• Any approval of a request will be at the discretion of Versus Arthritis 
• All applications for extensions must be submitted prior to the existing end date of the award 
• In the case of clinical study awards, only these can include a request for additional funding (see below section) 

We do not provide supplementary funding except in specific circumstances for clinical studies.

• Whilst rare in clinical studies, delays in recruitment, follow up or other unforeseen circumstances mean that the original budget will not cover the full study. This may require supplementary funding to be added to the award 
• The expectation is that the progress review committee are kept fully informed of such delays as the study progresses but there may come a point where a supplementary funding request is necessary 
• This should be submitted via Grant Tracker giving justification for the delays and will be considered by the progress review committee and approved by sub-committee or by the charity executive depending on the amount requested and the context of the supplement 

Fellowship award holders or named staff members working on an award are entitled to take periods of absence from their award for maternity, paternity and adoption leave, periods of long-term sickness or injury, recruitment issues and other unforeseen problems resulting in a serious delay in completing the proposed research. Your awards operations officer or research programme manager should be notified of any absences as soon as possible. 
 
Versus Arthritis will not pay the cost of these absences, it is the responsibility of the host institution to ensure all employer statutory and contractual payments for such leave are honoured. 
 
No-cost extensions on awards can be applied for to account for time lost due to periods of absence. However, supplements to the award will not be provided. Alternatively, award holders can apply to suspend their award – this is a route typically used by fellowship award holders to cover periods of absence but is available to all award holders.

The full policy regarding maternity, paternity, adoption leave, and sick leave can be found in our terms and conditions. 

Award suspensions can be applied for on all awards. Approval for a request will be at the discretion of Versus Arthritis. All suspension requests must be submitted through Grant Tracker. 

• We have no formal restrictions on the length of time that can be taken, but the dates should be agreed with the appropriate research programme manager responsible for the award 
• No payments will be made for costs incurred during the suspension period. 
• Awards subject to milestone payments will have their payments adjusted accordingly at their annual review meeting to account for the period of suspension. 
• All applications for suspensions must be submitted prior to the existing end date of the award 
• The end date of the award will be extended for the same length of time as the period of suspension, to maintain the award’s duration  

For further advice in managing your award, please contact the awards operations team at awards@versusarthritis.org.