Managing your award

Starting your grant

Once contracting is complete, you'll be introduced to your Prostate Cancer UK grant manager who'll be the main point of contact for any queries you might have.

To begin your grant, we need to receive your completed project start certificate. This form will be emailed to you after we've completed contracting and is used to confirm the official start date for your grant and any staff directly employed through the grant. Your start date:

Ought to be the 1st of the month.
Marks the point from which costs can be invoiced.

Is the date on which your reporting schedule will be based.
Determines your grant end date.

We want to ensure that your project gets off on the right foot and so will liaise with all new award holders about the most suitable time-frame for getting their grant up and running.

Invoicing us

We pay grant funds quarterly in arrears, beginning from the project start date (as specified on your start certificate). Invoices must be emailed to [email protected]

Your invoices must:

Quote your project reference and purchase order number, which we will provide you shortly after the start of your grant.
Only include costs incurred from the corresponding claim period which directly relate to the grant.

Have costs broken down into the following categories: staff costs, research costs, animal costs and other costs, as categorised in your application form and within the terms and conditions of award.
Include an itemised breakdown with the names of any staff members whose salaries are being met through the grant.
Include the invoices and the cost breakdown in a single PDF document.

Invoices and cost breakdowns must be submitted within 30 days of the end of the corresponding claim period. The exception to this is the final claim, which must be submitted within six months of the end of the grant period, following the delivery of your final progress report.

Please note, if we are due a progress report on your grant any subsequent invoices will not be reimbursed until the delivery of a satisfactory progress report.

Reporting your progress

We’re always keen to hear updates about you and your project. Keeping us in the loop as your project progresses means we can help advise on any problems you may have, spot opportunities to promote and further your research, and help disseminate and implement your research findings.

All grant holders are required to submit annual reports and a final report within three months of your grant end date. We’ll notify you in advance when a report or any additional update is required.

All progress report forms are available through the grant holder’s account in our online Grants Management System (CC Grant Tracker) and should be completed and submitted through this system.

If you’d like to get in touch with an informal update about your project, we’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to email us at [email protected] at any time.

It is vital we record the impact of our research funding, so that we can continue to demonstrate the value and importance of funding prostate cancer research and work to implement research findings. Hearing about papers you’ve published, follow-on funding and patents you secure on the back of our research funding means that we can understand early on in the life of a grant how your research is contributing to our goal of stopping prostate cancer from being a killer.

We’ll also follow-up after your funding has come to an end so we can continue to hear about the impact you’ve made and understand how your work is contributing to improving the lives of men affected by prostate cancer.

No-cost extension and change requests

We understand that research does not always go to plan and so we will consider requests for no-cost extensions or changes to the project plan. This also includes any delays or setbacks experienced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Any such request must be necessary and well justified and must have sufficient funds remaining on the grant to cover the additional time and activity. Please note that we are unlikely to agree to any changes which will result in an increase in the overall cost of the grant.

How to request a no-cost extension or change to your grant

All requests for no-cost extensions and changes to your grant should be made prior to your award end date and you must complete and return a change request form. To request a form, please email the Research Team.

All extension and change requests must be approved by the Research team at Prostate Cancer UK. Please do not apply for a no-cost extension any sooner than twelve months before the end date of your grant, so that all factors can be considered and multiple requests for the same award can be avoided.

We’ll judge requests based on whether we think the changes are necessary and well justified, and on occasion we may seek advice from members of our Research Advisory Committee.

Email us to request a change request form

Suspending your grant

If activity has completely stopped on your grant, and no costs continue to be incurred (including salary costs), then we may consider putting your grant into abeyance (i.e. suspend your grant). This must be approved by the Research Team at Prostate Cancer UK. If your grant is put into abeyance, the duration of the suspension will automatically be added on to the end of your project to give you time to continue your research once the grant has been re-activated.

Our open access policy

In order to create a step change in our knowledge of prostate cancer, we need to be open in our communication and dissemination of the research we are funding. This is so that others may learn from and build upon this vital research, and we expect the researchers we support to share this same ethos. All grant holders must comply with our o pen access policy (summarised below):

Results should be published in such a way that allows unrestricted access to the data and information, and the research must be made publicly available as soon as possible.
All research manuscripts accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal should be done so in an open access format. If you are unable to publish by the Gold open access route, then it is our expectation that researchers publish their findings via the Green open access route instead.
Electronic copies of all manuscripts must be made available as soon as possible, although certainly no later than 6 months from the date of publication.
Investigators must inform us as early as possible when the results of their work have been accepted for publication or presentation.

Researchers must acknowledge the financial support from Prostate Cancer UK in the following format: “This work was supported by Prostate Cancer UK through a [Award Type] ([GRANT REFERENCE]).”
Once the results have been published, any relevant data and materials must be made available to other researchers upon request (subject to ethics, approvals and Intellectual Property consideration).

Check out our full open access policy