Grant matters

General matters

1. Award letter

Successful applicants will receive the award notification letter from NMRC which states the amount of fund awarded and duration of project grant. Upon receipt of the award notification letter, respective PIs are required to submit their revised budget according to the prescribed format. PIs are also expected to address any reviewers/panel's comments. PIs are advised to revise their budget by following strictly to the panel’s recommendations. In addition, the revised cashflow projection has to be as accurate as possible in order to ensure 90% utilization of approved budget.

2. Terms & Conditions and Ethics requirement

The revised budget is to be submitted for council's approval and subsequently PIs will receive a Letter of Award which states the amount of budget and duration of project granted. PI and Host Institution are required to sign Letter of Acceptance to ensure that he/she and the Host Institution will be bound to the Terms and Conditions [PDF, 380 KB].

All projects utilizing human subjects, human tissue/cells and animals as well as those with requirement for containment should obtain full approval from the Ethics Committee of respective institution where the project/s will be conducted. For multi-centre projects or trials, Ethics Approval must be obtained from each participating institution.

Fund disbursement to the host institution can be facilitated only when the council has received the Letter of Acceptance and relevant ethics approval document(s) from the PIs.

3. Submission of Progress and Final reports

PIs are required to submit a Progress Report on an annual basis or whenever required by the Council. For projects that have been completed, the Final Report should reach the Council within three months of completion of the study. You may submit the progress/final report via nGager.

PIs are also required to report to the Council if there are other significant achievements or outputs arising from the project after the completion date, eg. new publications, direct clinical application of the research, commercialization of methodology or findings directly related to the research, etc.

4. Disclosure

PIs must inform the council of any manuscripts submitted for publications, conference abstracts, media coverage/news, National/International Awards received, Patents fillings or any other publications related to the research grant.

For Conferences attendance, PIs must inform NMRC and to submit their conference abstracts.

Specific matters

5. Grant variation

MOH/NMRC reserves the right to reject any claims that have resulted from project changes without prior approval from MOH/NMRC (in specific circumstances as stated in these guidelines). Request for any variation (except for Grant Extension) should be made before the last 3 months of the original end of the Term. Retrospective variation requests will not be allowed, unless there is compelling justification for submission of a late variation request.

Virement between votes

MOH/NMRC delegates the approval authority for the virement of funds between votes to the Host Institution, subject to a cumulative amount not exceeding 10% of the original total project direct cost value. For virements cumulatively above 10%, the approval authority remains with MOH/NMRC.

Any virement into the EOM and Research Scholarship votes would require MOH/NMRC’s approval, even if the cumulative amount is below 10% of the original total project direct cost value.

Inter-institutional virements, where applicable, require MOH/NMRC’s approval and acknowledgement from the director of research (or equivalent) for all Institutions involved.

Virement of funds into the Overseas Travel vote is not allowed. Overspending will not be reimbursed.

Variation from Research Scholarship vote to other budget category is not allowed, regardless of the variation amount.

Any grant variation / virement must be within the scope of the “Non-fundable Direct Costs” at Annex 1 of the Guidelines for the Management of NMRC Funding Programmes;

Grant variation / virement is not allowed for items that have been specifically rejected from the approved application.

6. Grant extension

Request for grant extension should be made to NMRC before the last 6 months of the original end of the Term. The PI must ensure sufficient funds in each vote to support the extension request. Any variation requests necessary to meet the extension period must be made known as part of the extension request.

A one-off project extension should not be more than a total of 6 months. An extension beyond 6 months will require compelling justification. No additional funds should be given for any extensions.

7. Amendment to the research proposal

PIs must inform NMRC for any changes in the research proposal such as change of project title, protocols, etc. PIs must ensure strict adherence to the ethical guidelines and to submit relevant ethics approval documents to the council if the changes involve new ethics approvals from the relevant ethics committee.

8. Change of PIs, co-investigators and/or collaborators

Existing PI must seek NMRC's approval with regards to the handover of the project grant to a new PI. A written consent from both the existing and new PIs must be submitted to the council prior to the project handover. All new PIs/co-PIs, co-investigators, collaborators have to submit their CVs to the council.

9. Transfer of host institution

PIs must inform NMRC on the change of grant's host institution, and submit to NMRC the acknowledgment signatures from the institutional Research Directors of both institutions involved with regards to the change. The institutions involved should make corresponding agreement about rights; liabilities and consequences related to the change of host institution.