Completing an RPIF

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The form is required to: identify funding partner(s), understand the resources required for the project, identify any budgetary issues that may need addressing, and collect the necessary Departmental and Faculty approvals.

Please note that forms submitted to the Office of Research Services must observe competition-specific internal deadlines in order to guarantee processing. If no internal deadline is posted, please submit RPIFs 2-business days ahead of the deadline.

Guidance notes are included on the form itself if opened using Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader, and are also provided below.

The UBC Principal Investigator is the UBC lead on the research project, and will have signing authority on the research account once funds are received. Only one researcher can be named as the Principal Investigator for a project. Please provide UBC contact details.

Academic Rank: Select the appropriate academic rank from the drop-down list.

If the Principal Investigator is a research associate, lecturer, instructor, or selects other, a research account can only be opened with the authorization of the relevant Dean.

Title: Please insert a title as it appears on the application form, or as it should appear in a contract to follow.

Original Funding Source: It’s necessary for UBC to track where funds for research projects originate, and this may differ from where UBC ultimately receives the funds. For example, the funds may flow through a partner research institution.

Scenario 1

A UBC researcher has been successful in an application for funds from CIHR. CIHR is the Original Funding Source, and the Primary Funding Source, so the “Same as original funding source above” checkbox should be selected under Primary Funding Source.

Scenario 2

A University of Manitoba researcher has been successful in an application for funding from CIHR. For its participation in the research project, UBC will be receiving some of those funds from University of Manitoba. Please insert CIHR as the Original Funding Source, select the “Other – please specify” checkbox, and enter “The University of Manitoba” as the Primary Funding Source.

Additional Funding Sources
Please list all additional partners providing cash contributions. This will facilitate the opening of multiple accounts for a single project utilizing just this one form.

Funding Program: If applicable, enter the relevant/specific agency funding program

Student Fellowship: For tracking purposes, please enter the recipient’s name and their student number or employee number. For student and trainee fellowships, sections A through E must be completed. Required signatures include the Principal Investigator/Supervisor, Department Head/School Director, and Dean, as appropriate. Centre Director signature is not required in the Faculty of Medicine for student and trainee fellowships only.

Budget: Please detail only cash contributions.

Please select all appropriate funding sources and the funds to be received from each source. The total must include the indirect costs being recovered, and for each source these indirect costs must be entered separately into the second box. UBC’s indirect cost of research calculations procedures are available here [ICR policy page]

For funding from the Tri-Agencies, Indirect Costs included in research projects are collected separately once per year at an institutional level, and $0 should be entered in the Indirect Costs Included box for the Tri-Agency portion.

For matching funds grants and partnerships, please separate out the total budget and indirect costs from the different categories (government, non-profit, industry and UBC internal).

Note: Indirect cost recovery should only be presented to sponsors if required by the sponsor in writing. Whenever possible, indirect costs should be built into each budget line item, and only the final “price” should be presented.

If you are a co-applicant on the project, please include the anticipated funding that will be subgranted to UBC if the application is successful. If this is not known, include the PI’s entire funding request.

Project Length: Please indicate the length of the project covered by this funding application in months.

Main Institution: Please include only the primary institution. If the research activity is conducted in locations other than those listed (e.g., Vancouver Island, Communities, etc.), the default for which location to choose on this Research Project Information Form will be at “UBC Okanagan Campus”. Until such time that UBC has identified a new location as a main institution, the form will be updated to reflect any additional sites at that time.

Clinical Project Account: For clinical projects only, accounts may be opened at a UBC Affiliated Teaching Hospital, or at UBC. For all others, the account will be set up at UBC. The location of the account will not affect the sharing of indirect costs between UBC and the affiliated hospital.

Buildings: Please specify location(s) and add an estimate of the percentage of the project activities being undertaken at each location.

Resource Implications for whom? Please indicate who will be bearing the associated costs of providing this office and/or lab space.

HQP Involvement (required only for Faculty of Medicine): Please indicate if, and how many additional highly qualified personnel will be involved in this project.

If your project does not involve the use of humans, animals or biohazardous materials/ biosafety, it is not subject to ethics or other approval. Please select “No” and continue to Section E.

If your project does require certification or approval, please indicate the elements involved and either the certificate number if already received, or the application number if under review. Please enter “pending” if no certificate number has yet been assigned, or if you have yet to initiate certification. Note that accounts cannot be opened without the requisite approvals.

If you are attaching a grant application form to the RPIF, please indicate “Yes” and continue to the signatures section. For all other projects please indicate “No” and proceed to Section F.

Please supply details of the entity from whom UBC is receiving funding. This must match the party indicated in Section Bii.

If you, your co-Investigators, or students involved in the project have no commercial, contractual or proprietary interest with or in the sponsor, please select “No” and proceed to Section H.

If you believe that you or your UBC co-investigators or students involved in the project do have, or will have a commercial, contractual or proprietary interest with or in any of the sponsors, please indicate the nature of that interest. Indicate any other conflicts of interest that may have a bearing on this project. This may include family members or other persons with whom you share a financial interest, and who are involved in the project.

Note: in addition to declaring any potential COI on the RPIF, you are required to immediately disclose via the COI procedures available via RISe.

Note: ORS will confirm with both the researcher and Department Head regarding what, if any, management plan has been put in place prior to providing  institutional signature required for application submission.

Please note that any conflict of commitment or interest must be disclosed annually and managed as per UBC Policy SC3.

Proprietary Materials: Please briefly outline the source and nature of any proprietary or confidential materials or information that will be used in this project. This includes materials such as software, biological materials, physical devices, or information that a partner deems confidential.

Overlap: Please indicate if you are working with anyone on other projects where the subject matter may overlap.

Collaborator/Sponsor Employees: Please indicate whether employees of the sponsor or collaborator will be engaged in the research activities of this project and if so, whether they will be participating on site at UBC or at an affiliated teaching hospital.

To open research accounts, signatures must be obtained from the PI, the Department/Unit Head, and the Dean or designate.

For the Faculty of Medicine only: the Director of any Centre or Institute involved in the project must also provide their signature.

Signatures can be provided in three ways:

• As hard copy
• As a digital ID by clicking on the arrow red arrow next in the Signature box. If you do not already have a digital ID, you can create one that can be reused for future forms by clicking on the signature box
• As a scanned signature by clicking on the scanned signature box as indicated and selecting the image file (please note that the file can be a *jpeg, *png, *gif or *tiff file)

Title: Only required if the authorized signatory is not the Department / Unit Head or Dean

Initials: For industry and non-profit sponsored projects only, signatories may also choose to authorize a future budget increase without the need for approval at a later date, by initialing the box.

Cap: A cap can be placed on the authorized budget increase amount without further approvals/signatures being required. If there is no limit, then the field can be left blank or N/A can be entered.