The following Helptext is applicable for Standard Research Proposals. If you are applying against a particular Call for Proposals you should check the Call Guidance documentation to determine whether there are specific Research Council requirements which would override the information below.
You may scroll down this page or use the quick links below to take you to the appropriate Helptext section:
Principal Investigator
Add New Principal Investigator Details
Post will outlast project
Total number of hours to be worked
MRC/ESS Staff Member
Salary Rate
Cost Type i.e. whether Directly allocated or Directly Incurred
Principal Investigator
The Principal Investigator (PI) should be the individual who takes responsibility for the intellectual leadership of the research project and for the overall management of the research. He/she will be the Council's main contact for the proposal.
Please note:
Principal Investigators, whose time and salaries have already been wholly funded from other research or fellowship grants provided by the Research Councils should still indicate their level of involvement in a new proposal, but with zero hours charged to the grant.
Principal Investigators whose time is not fully funded on other Research Council grants, but who are not paid a salary by the Research Organisation (e.g. Emeritus or honorary staff) should show their hours attributed to the project, but with a zero salary cost request.
If a Principal Investigator is retired, the expectation is that their involvement in a project would be covered by a contract with the Research Organisation. If there are costs associated with such time these should be regarded as a Directly Incurred cost (See B below) Link only Je-S Account holders may be selected from the searchable list and to be named as a PI they must have a verified level of Je-S account.
One of the Investigators must be the Owner of the document at the point of submission e.g. it could be prepared by a Departmental Administrator but ownership must be transferred before the Proposal can be promoted to the Research Organisation’s submission process.
All fields must be completed
The Principal Investigator must be from the organisation at which the award would be held.
Exception: For EPSRC only, one of the Principal or Co-Investigators must be from the organisation at which the award would be held.
All investigators must have completed and confirmed their personal details on Je-S in the last 12 months (The system will prompt when this is due).
Completing the Principal Investigator section on the Je-S System:
Add New Principal Investigator Item select Add New Principal Investigator Item
A new screen will open.
To the right of the Name box click on Select.
A new screen will open. Enter the Surname and Initials. The search will default to only search for people at the same organisation as the organisation selected within the Project Details. The search can be widened to include people at other organisations by deselecting the tick box.
Only Je-S Account holders may be selected from the searchable list. If they do not have an account then the message “ No Person Found” will be displayed.
The system may display several names. To select the correct person click on the highlighted detail on the left hand side of the screen. The Name field will now be populated.
If the following message is displayed Warning: The selected user does not currently have the appropriate level of Je-S account to be named as an Investigator then the applicant may have a Je-S account but it is either not Verified, or the account has just been created and is awaiting approval, or a verified level has yet to be sought. The PI can check whether their account is verified (See the Account Summary section on the left hand side of the screen when you log into the Home page of your account).
The details of the proposal may still be completed but it will not pass validation at the submission stage if the Account has not yet been Verified.
Select Yes or No. If No is selected then a warning message will appear when the page is saved advising “if the proposal is funded then the Post will have to be extended to match the project end date”.
Exceptions: AHRC. Certain AHRC schemes still require that the ‘post will outlast the project’, for specific guidance please refer to Section 3 of the AHRC Research Funding Guide for further information on eligibility.
Total number of hours to be worked on the grant over duration of the grant:
Indicate the total number of hours to be worked on the grant over the duration of the grant. Enter a numeric value only. This information is required to help with the peer review evaluation, rather than for costing purposes, and may be more (but not less) than the number of hours to be charged to the grant for that investigator.
Select either Directly Allocated or Directly Incurred:
Directly Allocated should be selected if the PI time charged to the grant will be based on estimates rather than actual costs. See A) below (link required).
Directly Incurred should only be selected if time spent working on the project will be supported by an auditable record for its duration. See B) below (link required)
A) If selecting Directly Allocated the following information must be entered:
Enter a numeric value only.
For salary rate (£) enter the rate for the investigator averaged over the planned duration, based on a pay band or actual salary. The salary rate is the gross salary rate, including the NI and Superannuation but not indexation.
Salary increments over the period of the project should be taken into account, but possible future pay awards should not be anticipated.
Where it is expected that individuals will be promoted during the lifetime of the grant provision may be made under the Salary heading.
Contracted Working Week expressed as % of full time work
Enter a numeric value only.
Show the number of hours the investigator is contracted to work at the organisation as a percentage of the standard working week, using a standard of 37.5 hours for a working week. This question is about whether the investigator is employed full-time or part-time (and if part-time, what percentage). Therefore do not enter in this box a percentage that relates to the number of hours a week the investigator expects to spend on this project. The percentage entered must be greater than zero and no more than 100%. For example, someone who was contracted to work 20 hours would enter a figure of 53%. An investigator contracted to work more than 37.5 hours a week should still enter 100%.
The total number of hours to be charged to the grant over the duration of the grant:
Enter a numeric value only.
Estimating investigator time: include only the estimates of the time spent working directly on the project. For any one investigator, the maximum amount of time that Research Councils will fund across all the projects they support is 1650 hours a year (equivalent to 37.5 hours a week X 44 weeks a year). It may include, for example, time for research, fieldwork, supervising other research staff, project management, interaction with project partners and the costs of a Principal Investigator’s time for reporting outcomes to the Council (although the duration of the grant should not be extended to include this). It must not include time for supervising postgraduate research students, writing publications after the end of the project, writing grant applications or peer review.
Having completed all the fields Select “Calculate” and the cost estimate (£) will be calculated automatically from the rate of salary and hours charged to the grant. The average number of hours per week charged to the grant will be calculated from the entry on total number of hours charged.
Select “Save” from the top of the screen
If any section is not completed then the relevant validation warning will be displayed:
Please enter the correct information and Save. When the section has been completed then the icon against PI on the Document Menu indicates that the section has been successfully completed and passes validation.
B) If selecting Directly Incurred the following information must be entered:
Applicants should only request a salary under the DI heading if their time working on the project will be supported by an auditable record for its duration. When a person is contracted to work 100% of their time on a single project (whether they are working full-time or part-time) timesheets are not necessary. In all other cases, timesheets or project records are required.
Start Date: the date of starting on the project.
The Date will default to the current date. To amend this click on the calendar icon Clicking on the Month at the top or the arrows to change the year and month as appropriate. Alternatively enter the date in the DD/MM/YYYY format.
Duration Months: The period, in whole months (or system will round down) to be spent working on the Project.
FTE%: This is the percentage of time that the post holder will spend working on the project based on a full time post. This does not relate to the contracted working hours of the post holder. For example, someone that is contracted to work at the organisation for 50% of full time and will be spending the whole of this time devoted to this project should put 50% as the FTE%.
Scale: Use the Research Organisations pay scale. This can be alpha or numeric.
Effective Date of Scale: The date on which the scales used came into use. The Date will default to the proposed project start date. To amend this click on the calendar icon Clicking on the Month at the top or the arrows to change the year and month as appropriate. Alternatively enter the date in the DD/MM/YYYY format.
Increment date: The Date will default to the proposed project start date. To amend this click on the calendar icon Clicking on the Month at the top or the arrows to change the year and month as appropriate. Alternatively enter the date in the DD/MM/YYYY format.
Starting Salary: Salary when starting on the project.
London Allowance: If in receipt of London Allowance include the £ Value (numeric).
Super Ann & NI: Superannuation and National Insurance costs (inc. Health and Social Care Levy) over the duration of the project.
Total Cost: Enter the total cost of the Post over the period of the project.
RC additional Fields
MRC/ESS Staff Member: Please indicate if you are employed by the MRC.
Having completed all the fields Select “Save” from the top of the screen
If any section is not completed then the relevant validation warning will be displayed.
Please enter the correct information and Save. When the section has been completed then the icon against Principal Investigator on the Document Menu indicates that the section has been successfully completed and passes validation.