RIMO - Frequently Asked Questions

RIMO provides and leads on three core non-technical management services for research grants: 

• Project management 

• Innovation management 

• Dissemination and communication (D&C) management 

These three areas are integral to a competitive proposal and a successful research project. Within the Horizon Europe framework, incorporating these areas is a contractual obligation. 

RIMO supports Imperial academics who wish to coordinate large collaborative research projects. The office holds focused expertise in the Horizon Europe EU-funded Programme, though its support is not limited to this funding framework. 

Yes. RIMO supports proposal submissions for Imperial academics who wish to coordinate large collaborative grants that require project management expertise. 

The earlier contact is made, the more comprehensive the support RIMO is able to provide. RIMO's most effective contributions are made when there is a minimum of three months before the submission deadline. 

Yes. Where less time is available, the scope and scale of support will be adjusted accordingly. For example: 

• At three months: RIMO can assist with call analysis, opening the call on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal, presenting to the consortium on Portal use, and establishing processes and deadlines. 

• At one month: Support is likely to be limited to contributing a work package (WP) description and associated costings.  

RIMO requires written confirmation via email from the Head of Department, Head of Faculty, and Head of Operations, confirming that they are aware of the call being applied for and that RIMO is being engaged as part of the submission.  

No. RIMO contributes to the writing of the parts of the proposal related to the specific services it has agreed to provide. The scientific and technical content of the proposal remains the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (PI) and the consortium. However, RIMO can still work with you in the proposal if you choose to outsource proposal writing to an external agency. 

Yes. Once the faculty has set up the main award on WorkTribe, a subaward will need to be created for RIMO. RIMO will provide its faculty representative with the relevant costings to be populated under that subaward. 

The scope of support is dependent on when RIMO is engaged in the process. Where a minimum of three months is available before the deadline, RIMO has supported Principal Investigators with the following tasks: 

• Setting up and managing an online collaborative working space via SharePoint 

• Consortium meeting planning and agenda coordination 

• Supporting the identification and alignment of core call requirements 

• Advising the consortium on European Commission (EC) rules and expectations (e.g., an appropriate number of deliverables and milestones) 

• Supporting applicants in understanding which templates to complete 

• Writing designated work packages for project management and/or dissemination and communication (D&C) 

• Supporting the input of data on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal prior to submission 

• Conducting due diligence on the application before submission (e.g., formatting, finances, EC requirements) 

• Leading on final submission to the EU Funding and Tenders Portal 

Yes. RIMO is not the scientific coordinator and operates externally to the researcher's department.  RIMO does not, as a general rule: 

• Identify or source consortium partners 

• Find or procure external resources such as a professional proposal writer 

• Make decisions on partner budgets 

• Edit WorkTribe 

• Negotiate with partners on their budgets 

• Write the scientific or technical components of the proposal 

• Attend all consortium meetings 

• Minute or facilitate consortium meetings 

• Complete data on behalf of partners 

RIMO's pre-award support is provided at no direct cost to the researcher. As an office embedded within Imperial, RIMO holds established working relationships with other departments, including the Research Office and is well positioned to facilitate those connections on the researcher's behalf.  

The RIMO team brings a diverse skill set and an institutional legacy of over 10 years supporting Imperial academics with EU funding. This depth of experience means RIMO is able to strengthen the competitiveness of a proposal and draw on a broad network spanning policy, industry, and academia — not only within Imperial, but externally. 

Yes. As RIMO is costed into the grant as a consortium partner, it contributes to and is responsible for the delivery of agreed project management services. RIMO manages its own timesheets and budgets and conducts its own internal due diligence in compliance with EC rules. 

RIMO does not charge a fee for pre-award support. Instead, RIMO is costed into the grant in accordance with the services it has agreed to lead. 

General guidance suggests that approximately 10% of the total project budget should be dedicated to project management. As an illustration, a €6 million budget over a five-year project would allocate approximately €600,000 to project management. 

Where RIMO is also leading on dissemination and communication (D&C) and innovation management, additional costs for staff and associated consumables will be included. 

RIMO is not centrally funded by Imperial. The level at which RIMO is costed depends on the agreed scope and the resource required to deliver it. 

 Who is responsible for which tasks when RIMO supports a proposal, and how frequently will meetings be required? 

RIMO works closely with the scientific coordinator leading the proposal. As each proposal is different, the level of tailored support will vary. Respecting that each context is distinct, the following general responsibilities apply: 

The Coordinator is expected to: 

• Understand the admissibility and eligibility criteria and requirements for the call 

• Work with and communicate with their department 

• Identify consortium partners 

• Coordinate weekly consortium meetings 

• Delegate to partners 

• Negotiate with partners on their budgets where required 

• Write and curate the scientific or technical components 

• Attend ad-hoc meetings with RIMO 

The Consortium is expected to: 

• Contribute to the writing of the proposal 

• Submit all necessary documentation (e.g., finance tables) 

• Complete their data on the EU Funding and Tenders Portal 

For RIMO's responsibilities, please refer to Questions 2.9 above. 

This is agreed on a case-by-case basis. RIMO operates as a collective, and researchers may be working with two to three team members across the pre-award process. 

Communication with the department is managed by the Coordinator. RIMO liaises with the department on WorkTribe-related matters. 

RIMO's expertise is continuously aligned with the evolving funding landscape. Members of the RIMO team regularly attend conferences, webinars, and training sessions provided by the EC, Imperial, and other training centres and external agencies. RIMO is therefore well placed to guide researchers and consortia through the proposal process. 

For Horizon Europe, the European Commission (EC) strongly advises that project management be incorporated as a dedicated work package.3.2. What is the role of Coordinator and what is expected of them  

The coordinator serves as the primary point of contact between the consortium and the funder. The role requires a significant time commitment and involves operating in a manner akin to a business leader. Responsibilities span the full project lifecycle — from initial grant agreement negotiations through to final reporting. 

Budget negotiations between beneficiaries are time-intensive and should be factored into the proposal preparation process. The coordinator acts on behalf of the entire consortium, making it essential that the project has robust governance structures, efficient communication systems, and effective financial oversight across all work packages. 

The transition from proposal writing to project implementation requires a fundamental shift in approach — from articulating a scientific vision to delivering measurable results within strict EU compliance frameworks and reporting requirements. RIMO is well placed to support coordinators through this transition. 

RIMO integrates the appropriate tools and expertise to help coordinators deliver across the core areas of research project management: 

• Organisation and administration 

• Finance and reporting 

• Continuous monitoring 

• Risk assessment and monitoring 

• Project amendments 

Legal contracts — including grant and consortium agreements for research projects — are coordinated by the Research Office. RIMO helps to facilitate other consortium-wide contractual matters, such as Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), Confidentiality and Disclosure Agreements (CDAs), and Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs). RIMO is not a signatory to those agreements. 

RIMO can assist the department in carrying out financial disbursements to partners. RIMO also supports the consortium in managing budget transfers effectively and, particularly within the Horizon Europe framework, in ensuring compliance with EU regulations and guidelines. 

The coordinator holds final sign-off responsibility for all deliverables. RIMO supports the monitoring of deliverable delivery and can provide formatting and proofreading services for deliverable reports. The scope and scale of this support is dependent on the quality assurance framework built into the project governance structure, which RIMO can assist in establishing. 

Yes. RIMO liaises with the funder in tandem with the coordinator. This includes liaising with the EC's project officers and other stakeholders on project matters such as reporting requirements, review meetings, financial audits, project extensions, and ad-hoc consortium queries. 

Risk monitoring is an integral responsibility for all project partners. RIMO supports the coordinator and consortium in building a structured risk monitoring process to ensure effective project delivery. This process is designed to ensure that foreseeable risks are assessed and mitigated by the relevant risk owners, that the downstream impact of those risks is identified and managed, and that new or unforeseen risks are continuously integrated into the risk framework. 

No. While the creation of a Data Management Plan (DMP) is a requirement under Horizon Europe funding and may sit within the Project Management Work Package, RIMO does not lead on this task. The DMP is typically led by another consortium partner or an Imperial research group with specialist expertise in making data and research outputs findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). FAIR data management is a Horizon Europe proposal requirement and requires a dedicated project partner to ensure oversight and implementation. 

Innovation management (IM) is the coordinated strategic and practical support provided to researchers to manage innovations emerging from projects. It enables informed decision-making and greater confidence in pursuing opportunities to extend, adapt, and maximise the impact of those innovations across scientific, technological, economic, environmental, and societal domains. 

RIMO costs an Innovation Manager into the project. The Innovation Manager incorporates a structured support system — delivered through the proposal's exploitation plan — that helps Imperial researchers translate project outputs into multi-dimensional impact. Through mechanisms designed to identify, develop, and package innovations for wider application, RIMO enables opportunities for use across academia, government, and industry. 

While RIMO's approach to innovation management is grounded in a clear and consistent framework, support is tailored to the specific context of the project, its researchers, its funders, and the wider stakeholder environment. 

By applying this opportunity lens, RIMO ensures that potential pathways for development, application, and impact are identified early and pursued strategically, so that valuable opportunities are not missed. 

• Communication is concerned with promoting the project and building awareness of its activities.  

• Dissemination is concerned with sharing project results with the audiences that will use them.  

• Exploitation is concerned with ensuring the uptake of applications to create scientific, economic, and policy value — including the commercialisation of technology, further research development and funding, contribution to policy context, and adoption within the scientific community and the public. 

Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that results are known, accessible, credible, and usable. Dissemination and communication (D&C) create the conditions for a credible pathway to impact via exploitation. As the Horizon Europe framework increasingly treats impact as an integrated package, RIMO's approach reflects this by aligning innovation management, D&C, and exploitation as interconnected workstreams.

Where innovation management is not integrated into a research grant, promising results may not be systematically identified, assessed, protected, or directed towards uptake. As a result, opportunities such as further development, follow-on investment, strategic partnerships, standardisation, policy use, or market and application pathways may be missed. This can weaken the project's exploitation strategy, reduce the credibility of its pathway to impact, and limit the consortium's ability to translate research results into sustained scientific, technological, economic, environmental, or societal benefits beyond the lifetime of the grant. 

Yes.  Many funders make D&C a contractual obligation. Within the Horizon Europe framework for example, it is not only for the life of the project but up to 4 years after project closure. 

D&C is most effective when it is led by a partner with dedicated expertise and experience, such as RIMO. D&C requires clear coordination and a strategic vision; without this, a project's impact can be significantly diminished. RIMO frequently fulfils this lead role within consortia to ensure that D&C activities are expertly aligned with the needs of the project and the expectations of the funder. 

RIMO provides support for D&C across the full project lifecycle. Our role is to go beyond simple compliance with funder requirements and make D&C purposeful, achievable, and aligned with your research goals. From the proposal stage, we work with research teams to design a realistic, tailored D&C strategy, identify key audiences, and select the most effective channels to reach them. 

Once a project is underway, we produce clear and engaging content with the consortium across media platforms; translating complex research into accessible language without sacrificing accuracy. We design and deliver engagement activities including community events, science festivals, and exhibitions. RIMO ensures that D&C activities meet funder expectations and reporting requirements. Through ongoing support, we help communication evolve alongside the research; maintaining momentum and impact throughout the project. 

The appropriate budget depends on the call requirements and the proposal's impact objectives. As part of its pre-award services, RIMO will propose a realistic budget based on the call and project requirements and will agree this with the Principal Investigator (PI) and consortium.  

The core elements typically costed for D&C include:  

• FTE for a dedicated staff member to lead the D&C workplan / work package 

• Website creation and maintenance costs 

• Stakeholder engagement 

• Event production and management 

• Publication fees 

• Outreach activities 

Yes. All partners within a consortium are contractually obliged to perform D&C activities using their allocated budget and to report on these activities to the funder. RIMO supports the management of this reporting process and provides guidance to the consortium in implementing their D&C activities.  

Case study: SONICOM at RSSSE