Creating a Funding Opportunity

Research Funding Administrator, Research Funding Data Administrator, and Research Manager (Funding) can create, edit, and copy funding opportunities via the Funding Management Console. Only the Research Funding Administrator is able configure Proposal and Eligibility form templates.

Guidance on configuring a Funding opportunity end-to-end is available in this support article.

Creating and configuring a new funding opportunity

Go to the Funding Management Console and navigate to Funding Opportunities. Select 'New'.

On the first screen you will be asked to provide some basic information:

Funding opportunity name	The name of the funding opportunity	Mandatory
Configuration type	Initial Expression of Interest, Expression of Interest, or Proposal	Mandatory
Proposal form	Select from available templates	Mandatory

Select 'Save'. On the next screen you will be asked to provide additional descriptive details:

Describe the funding opportunity
Funding opportunity name	The name of the funding opportunity	Mandatory (already selected on 1st screen)
Summary	Formatted text field
Summary of Eligibility criteria	Formatted text field
Funder	Select the funder from the list of available organisations. If the desired funder is not listed, it must be added to the list of Awards Management Organisations.
Funder opportunity identifier	Funder's ID for the opportunity
Source identifier	Source ID for the opportunity where sourced from another system
Additional details about the opportunity	Field to support providing additional details about the opportunity such as links back to the original source of the funding opportunity (e.g. Funder's website)
Currency	Select the currency value of the award, if different to your base currency (where no value is selected, the currency is interpreted as your base currency) (note that your base currency is not available for selection)
Funder programme	A funder may offer multiple funding opportunities with different research priorities within a funding programme. Listing the wider funding programme allows for individual funding opportunities to be grouped together. You can select from existing Funder programmes. Further details on how to create Funder programmes is available here.
Funder scheme	A funder may offer multiple funding opportunities with different research priorities within the one funding scheme. Listing the wider funding scheme allows for individual funding opportunities to be grouped together. You can select from Funder schemes associated with the selected Funder. Further details on how to create Funder schemes is available here.
Funding type	Select the funding type from the set list
Contestable funding	Indicate whether the opportunity is contestable or an RFP / Tender
Internal funding	Indicate whether the opportunity is internal to the institution
Matched funding	Indicate whether the opportunity requires the institution (or another organisation) to contribute funding to match that granted by the funder
Research funding	Indicate whether this is a research funding opportunity
Funder fEC policy	[determined during implementation whether Full Economic Costing applies at your institution, and therefore whether this field is displayed]
Add relevant dates
Funder open date	Informational date to communicate when the funder will start accepting applications
Funder close date	Informational date to communicate when the funder will cease accepting applications
Funder timezone	Select the funder timezone. Note that if no timezone is selected, the default system timezone will be assumed.
Internal open date	Date on which the funding opportunity opens for proposals in Elements	Mandatory
Internal close date	Date on which the funding opportunity closes and proposals can no longer be submitted in Elements	Mandatory
Internal close (timezone)	LEAVE BLANK
Show closing date	Indicate whether to show the internal closing date to users. It is recommended this is selected. For 'generic' funding opportunities (see below), or where the institution wishes to keep an opportunity open indefinitely, enter an internal close date decades into the future and do not show the closing date.
Internal approval date	Estimated date when internal review and approval processes are expected to be completed and the decision whether to proceed to funder application is made.	Mandatory
Key dates and descriptions	You can capture additional dates that are key to the timeline of the funding opportunity. These dates are informational and do not control any system behaviour, other than appearing on the timeline display for the funding opportunity.
Set the visibility of the funding opportunity to users
The 'Published', 'Status', 'Access', and 'Internal open / close dates' are used in combination to determine the visibility of the Funding Opportunity to users. If the Opportunity 'Internal open date' is in the future, select 'Under preparation' for the 'Status'. Once the 'Internal open date' passes, the 'Status' will automatically update to 'Applications Open'. If the Opportunity 'Internal open date' is today (or in the past), select 'Applications open' for the 'Status'. Once the 'Internal close date' passes, the 'Status' will automatically update to 'Opportunity closed'.
Published	If ticked, visible to all users, if Status and Access settings below permit
Status	Under Preparation The Funding Opportunity Open date is in the future, and if Published, the Opportunity will be listed as 'Upcoming' Applications Open The Funding Opportunity Open date is today or in the past, and if Published, the Opportunity will be listed as 'Open' Applications Closed The Funding Opportunity Close date is in the past, and if Published, the Opportunity will be listed as 'Recently closed' for 1 month (after which it will no longer appear in the portal) and Proposals can no longer be submitted Closed The Funding Opportunity is complete and no longer in use See the Closing a funding opportunity support article	Mandatory
Access	Public Available to all Awards Management users Hidden Only users you have granted access will be able to apply for this Opportunity. You can grant access to individual users and/or groups by going to the 'View Access' page for this Opportunity. More guidance is available here. This should be selected for multi-stage opportunities where only those invited to proceed to this stage will have access to this Opportunity	Mandatory
Configure the opportunity
Configuration type	Initial Expression of Interest, Expression of Interest, or Proposal	Mandatory (already selected on 1st screen)
Proposal outcome workflow	Select the appropriate configuration: Default workflow - used for internal calls / stages (where a successful outcome would be 'approved' or invitation to the next stage) EOI funder submission - used for external EOI calls (where a successful funder outcome would result in an invitation to the next application stage) Proposal funder submission - used for external full Proposal calls (where a successful funder outcome would result in the award of funding)	Mandatory
Eligibility form	Select from available templates
Proposal form	Select from available templates	Mandatory (already selected on 1st screen)
Reference format and Next reference	Upon proposal submission, the proposal is assigned a new 'Submitted proposal reference' ID; the format of that reference is determined by this field. Use any of the below codes to merge information into the generated reference number. e.g. AM-{0} (and Next reference = 1) will produce AM-001, AM-002, etc. Available Codes {0} = Next Reference {1} = PI name truncated to 60 characters {2} = Funder organisation truncated to 60 characters [do not use] {3} = PI organisation truncated to 60 characters [do not use] {4} = Grant Title truncated to 60 characters {5} = Date submitted (DD-MM-YYYY) {6} = Date submitted (YYYYMMDD)	Mandatory
Prevent multiple proposals being submitted	Select to block users from submitting multiple Proposals for this opportunity
Disable submissions	Select to disable the ability to submit Proposals for this opportunity
Reason for block	Provide the reason for disabling submissions
Meetings (from v7.1)
Approval decision	In order to be able to record overall approval decisions on Proposals, you must add the relevant Funding Opportunity to the 'Approval Decision Meeting'. This can be done here, or via the Meeting's edit page, as described here.
Provide contact details for internal support and management
Support contact	To select the Support contact from available Console users, enter at least 3 characters and select from the list - otherwise, input the desired support contact directly. If the support contact is selected from Console users, their email address (as held in Elements) will be used wherever the support contact details are provided to users If the support contact is selected from Console users, no other support contact fields can be populated
Contact phone	Phone number
Contact email	Email address
Contact URL	Support contact URL (e.g. to an FAQs page)
Contact URL description	The name of the URL to be provided to users (e.g. Research Office FAQs page)
Funding opportunity managing group	Select the administrative owner of the funding opportunity
Customise submission confirmation messages
On-screen confirmation	On-screen message that can optionally be displayed to the Principal Investigator when they have successfully submitted their proposal
Email confirmation	Message that is merged into the email that Principal Investigators receive when they have successfully submitted their proposal. Note that HTML is NOT supported.

Copying an existing funding opportunity

To copy an existing funding opportunity, go to the opportunity you wish to copy, then select 'Copy' from the left-hand menu.

You can modify basic details prior to initiating the clone. Once you select 'Copy', a new funding opportunity will be created and you will be navigated to the new opportunity's 'Details' page. If you wish to modify any additional details, go to 'Edit'.

Copying a Funding Opportunity will also copy the following from the original opportunity:

the Review and Approval configuration
for Hidden opportunities, the selected users and/or groups granted access
the allocated Approval Decision Meeting

Copying a Funding Opportunity does not copy the following:

Funder fEC policy
Classifications