Approval of Worktribe

While Worktribe (and its predecessor InfoEd) are often consider as a costing tool they are also used by the College as the approval pathway for a grant application. Within NHLI each application requires approval at various points depending on the value of the application. Confirmation of Head of Section and Head of Division support should be obtained via email and attached to Worktribe prior to submission. Head of Department should also be sought in advance for larger applications and fellowships, with final approval on Worktribe directly.

Below £200,000	Application should be approved by Head of Section, who will need to see the application and the review(s)
Over £200,000	Application should be approved by Head of Section, Head(s) of Division and Head of NHLI, who will need to see the application and the review(s)

Once approved by NHLI the Worktribe record will also require JRO approval (regardless of value).

In order for the application to be checked, and where required returned for editing and subsequent resubmission, a minimum of 5 working days must be allowed from submission of the final version of the application to the deadline.

Approval of Application Forms

Many of the College’s main funders use electronic submission systems. Applicants must therefore register for a user account before they can start to complete an online research proposal. For some systems, the user account must also be validated by the institution.

It is important to remember that even if a funder uses an electronic submission system, the College’s internal authorisation process must still be followed, ie. a corresponding Worktribe record must be completed and approved before a proposal can be authorised by Research Services/Joint Research Office on behalf of the College. Participation of a Head of Section, Head(s) of Division or Head of Department as part of an online application is not, in itself, sufficient to count as an approval.

For the majority of funder systems, approval notification emails are routed to a single generic mailbox which is managed by the central Research Office. To ensure that notification emails are directed to the right place, a Research Office contact person is set up as the default “Finance Officer” or equivalent role (rather than individual Research Services Managers). The Research Office will then forward the approval notifications to the correct Faculty Research Services team, thereby reducing the risk of important emails being left unattended in personal mailboxes. Faculty Research Services teams are still responsible for checking and formally approving proposals as usual, once the Head of Department has given their approval.

Since the College already has a robust two-stage approval process in place using a Pre-Award system, some funders allow the Head of Department and Finance Officer approval steps to be combined in their submission system. This means that Research Services teams can also approve on behalf of the HoD in the Funder’s system (NB: This assume that HoD approval has already been actioned on Worktribe).

However, there are a few funders who do require a separate approval by the actual Head of Department on the funder system, followed by separate JRO approval. This means the Head of Department must log onto the system to give approval.

Applicants should ensure well in advance that all the relevant individuals have the required access to approve. For common funders this will be in place but may not be the case in all circumstances.