Obtain Signatures & Submit

Signature Requirements

Collecting signatures for grants is the last step before submission to a funding agency, but it’s important to plan for this step up front. The signature process, determined jointly by the institution and the funding agency, ensures that the funding application is legitimate and supported by all listed researchers. It also allows the institution to keep statistics about the success rates of investigators.

Before submitting a grant application or contract to a funding agency, you must collect internal / institutional signatures.  Read about the UBC Signature Policy on the Office of Research Services (ORS) website.

Signature requirements can vary depending on the funding agency, institution, faculty, and department. It is beyond the scope of this website (due to volume of information and maintenance) to identify signature requirements for each funding agency or university faculty and department. Please refer to the primary sources themselves for comprehensive and up-to-date information on signatures and submission. The links below are a good place to start in clarifying this process.

Funding Agencies

• CIHR: http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/22630.html (see section 1B-3 of the 2007-2008 CIHR Grants and Awards Guide)

• NSERC: http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Professors-Professeurs/FAQ-FAQ_eng.asp#signaturesrequired

UBC (Point Grey)

• General information on the UBC signature policy: http://www.ors.ubc.ca/policies/sigpolicy1.htm

UBC (Okanagan)

• http://web.ubc.ca/okanagan/provost-research/grantinfo/signature-policy.html

Hospital Research Institutes

• Providence Health Care Research Institute: http://www.providencehealthcare.org/research/grants.html
• Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute: http://www.vchri.ca/s/PoliciesAndGuidelines.asp
• Child & Family Research Institute: http://www.cfri.ca/research_support/research_services/grant_application_processing.asp
• Women’s Health Research Institute: http://www.whri.org/researchsupport/researchfacilitation.htm

Research Centres & Institutes

• BC Cancer Agency: http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/
• BC Centre for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.ubc.ca/AboutUs/Policies%20and%20Procedures.htm

Funding Program Deadlines & Submission

Ensuring that you meet the deadline for submission is a crucial step in the grant facilitation process.  Most funding agencies will not accept late submissions.  To help you plan accordingly, make sure you know the deadline for submission.  Some suggestions for meeting deadlines are below:

• refer to the funding agency websites as a primary source
• for CIHR funding opportunities, ResearchNet has a feature whereby you can be notified a certain amount of time in advance when a grant you’re applying to is due
• input the deadlines with reminders into your Outlook calendar
• for cross-discipline/institution applications, use the web-based Google calendar to ensure that all team members are on the same page
• confirm the mode of submission for your grant – electronic or paper-based