Managing your Award

Yorkshire Cancer Research wants to support you through your important project journey with some useful information on how to manage your Award. If you cannot find the information you are looking for below, please contact research@ycr.org.uk.

The Charity will liaise with all new Award Holders to get their Award up and running. Ideally the first meeting will be held at our Harrogate Office but can be arranged via Microsoft Teams if required. This meeting provides an opportunity to discuss the project further, review the response to the reviewers’ comments and confirm the start date for the Award. If there are any questions about these steps, please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team via research@ycr.org.uk.Once you have received an approval letter/agreement from the Charity confirming the start date and costings for the Award, the Award Holder(s) and their Organisation Finance Authority must BOTH accept the Award and the conditions outlined in our Award terms.

The Award will be managed on our online Flexi-Grant system where reporting is updated and monitored, and any changes to your Award and staff can be requested. The Award Holder is required to keep the Charity up to date with changes to their project and can get the support they need via this system.

At the start of the Award, the Award Holder will be asked to submit an Award Record Form via Flexi-Grant. Please be aware that the lay abstract provided here can be used to promote your research, and so should be suitable for a lay audience.

If you wish to make any changes to your Award, for example:

• No cost extensions
• Vire money
• Transfer your Award to a new Organisation (e.g. the Award Holder is moving to a different Organisation)
• Change of Award Holder

You must fill in our Award Variation Request form available on Flexi-Grant. You will need supporting statements from your Head of Department and Financial Authority to acknowledge the proposed change to your Award. If you feel their contribution is not required, please contact research@ycr.org.uk so that the Charity can determine if your request can be processed without this.

Information on changes to Award costings can be found in the Award Forecasting section below.

The Charity needs to be aware of any individuals who are funded directly from your Award. Keep the Charity updated of any staff changes, new members joining or staff that are no longer working on the project, by filling in the Staff Changes form available on Flexi-Grant.

Employment - sick leave and maternity/paternity payThe Charity does not accept any responsibility for the employment of people including recruitment costs, benefits (including sick pay, maternity, or paternity pay), or termination costs. The Charity should be informed of any changes to named staff circumstances for our records.

All Award Holders must provide an update report for their Award using our Research Key Performance Indicators report (KPIs). The initial KPI meeting is held six months after the start of your Award and then generally annually but can be more frequent if needed. For some projects the Award Holder will also be asked to fill in specific reports at the same frequency as the KPI – these are currently for projects involving Smoking Cessation, Screening, Exercise after cancer and Lung Clinical Trials.

The Charity uses Flexi-Grant to capture the KPI data for your Award. If members of your team other than the Award Holder need access, please contact research@ycr.org.uk.

Ideally, set-up meetings and final meetings will be held face to face with annual remote catchups, depending on circumstances. Updated Finance Dashboards will be required as part of this process. More information on Dashboards can be found under Award Forecasting (below).

Once your Award is complete you will be asked to submit a final KPI report and an End of Award report and supply an updated Dashboard. The End of Award report is used by our Cancer Insight Team to monitor the impact of the Award at the end of the funding period and beyond. The final KPI meeting will be arranged three months after the Award end date. Further reporting may be agreed with the Award Holder if further output/impact is anticipated from the research.

Final invoices must be received no more than three months after the agreed end date of the Award. Once your final invoice has been processed and all documentation received the Charity will inform you that your Award has completed.

Every Yorkshire Cancer Research Award will have a budget table, which we term a “Dashboard”, created which shows the costings yearly for your project, for more information on this click here.

Yorkshire Cancer Research Awards should be invoiced quarterly in arrears for actual spend. As such our Award Holders are expected to forecast their spend and inform us if there are any substantial changes to expected spend or update their Dashboards at the request of the Charity.

For each Award that Yorkshire Cancer Research funds, a Dashboard is created from Flexi-Grant. We send out these financial summaries when there have been changes to the forecast spend against your Award. An example dashboard for a 6-year Award is provided below.

Sections of the Dashboard The top of the Dashboard lists the Award reference, start and end dates, where in the Award lifeline the invoices have been received to and the date the last invoice period was. The remaining balance is the total budget minus the amount claimed: this is amount of budget remaining to be spent before the end date of the Award.

Budget Headings The budget is split into salary and non-salary (consumables) with the total shown as the grand total at the bottom. The budgets are shown per Award year and the number of years will differ for each Award. Each year on the Dashboard corresponds to the 12-month period from the start date of the Award not calendar/financial year.

Original Award Amount The original Award amount is the amount for salaries and consumables as shown on your application for funding. These cells are never altered as they must reflect the original and cannot be edited.

Current Award Amount Within these rows are the rephased budgets for any changes that need to be made to the Dashboard.

Amount Claimed When invoices are received, they are entered into the amount claimed by Yorkshire Cancer Research staff. The invoices are split into salary and non-salary. These cells are locked so no changes can be made.

Rephasing the Dashboard for Underspends At the end of an Award year any money remaining from the budget for that year must be reforecast into the later years of the Award. The movement of the underspend is achieved by matching the current Award amount for the Award year just ended to the amount claimed. The movement should then be entered into the current Award amount for the later years of the Award. The funds must only be moved within budgets and the total salary, non-salary and grand total budgets must remain the same.

Virements Virements are movements of funds across the budgets and are only permitted with approval by the Director of Research, Services and Policy. Virements must be applied for via an Award Variation Form using the Flexi-Grant portal and are only actioned once approval has been granted.

No Cost Extension When a Dashboard is rephased for a no cost extension, the underspend money should be subtracted from the current Award amount of the earlier years and placed in the additional years. Again, no cost extensions need to be applied for using an Award Variation Form and they are only active once they have been approved by the Director of Research, Services and Policy. A Dashboard will be sent out to you via email to rephase and the additional years will have been added.

Cost Increase Any cost increase must be approved in advance by the Director of Research, Services and Policy, and applied for using an Award Variation Form. You will be asked to rephase the budget table to incorporate the anticipated spend into the appropriate timeframe.Any queries about this process should be directed to research@ycr.org.uk.

For information on how to request an Award change(s), please go to Award Changes to see if you can apply for an Award Variation Request form.

Travel and Publication Costs Awards are available to our current Award Holders and staff supported by the Charity. We accept applications for these Awards throughout the year. Before you apply for an Award, please read the Frequently Asked Questions below. To apply or to find out more information, visit the Awards page.

All papers deriving from funded work will need to be submitted to Research Output form as a condition of the Award. Your research helps the Charity gain media coverage and update its supporters on the work they are helping to fund. Our Public Relations team will be in touch if they decide to cover your work. Thank you in advance for helping to promote the important work of Yorkshire Cancer Research.

Any marketing and consumer-facing communications associated with the Award must be branded according to charity guidance, including but not limited to; information sheets, questionnaires, posters, presentations, websites, and must be approved by the charity.

Please fill in the Research Output form available on the online Flexi-Grant system and allow at least three days for a response.