10 per cent retention policy

The Wellcome Trust is placing an increasing emphasis on evaluating the impact of the research we fund and ensuring the published outputs are disseminated to the widest possible audience.

The end-of-grant report has been identified as a key tool in assessing the grants we have funded, enabling us to review the outputs and outcomes of recently completed research, assess the quality of the research undertaken and identify important questions raised.

To help ensure all our research can be evaluated we will no longer pay out the final 10 per cent of the total 'transferable funds' budget until an end-of-grant report has been returned and the research publications detailed in the report comply with our open access policy.

Transferable funds include all cost types awarded on grants (e.g. research staff support, materials, equipment, animals, travel, subsistence and flexible funding allowances) except for the personal support costs for fellows and students.

Grant types covered by the 10 per cent retention rule

The 10 per cent retention rule applies to all conventional Trust grants, including investigator awards, project, programme and equipment grants, fellowships, studentships and strategic awards.

The rule will not apply to those grants where it is a condition of the award that payments are conditional on milestones, require specific approval by Trust monitors, or where specific agreement has been made.

Joint grants

Holders of joint grants (i.e. where funds for the project are awarded to two or more institutions) should note the following:

• Regardless of the number of joint grantholders, only one end-of-grant report is required. Where the components of the joint grant are not co-terminous, the end-of-grant report should be submitted by the principal investigator whose work has the later end date. This principal investigator is expected to ensure that the report captures all the achievements from the whole grant and not just from his or her component of the work.
• The principal investigator whose component of work has the later grant end date will receive the final 10 per cent of his or her grant funds when the end-of-grant report is received by the Trust and an assessment has been made to ensure all publications detailed in the report comply with our open access policy. The other principal investigators will receive the final 10 per cent of their grant funds when the Trust is satisfied that their respective component of the work has been completed.