Starting your project

Skip to content London School of Economics and Political Science

LSE Staff Toggle navigation

TIP: Award agreements cannot be signed by the Principal Investigator or other staff not designated by LSE’s financial regulations.

Once your research project has been awarded, your Research Development Manager (RDM) will finalise initial set up.

They will:

review award terms and conditions and negotiate any revisions with the funder
obtain LSE’s signature to the award agreement. This must be signed on behalf of LSE by the Director of Research and Innovation or another individual designated by LSE’s financial regulations. Award agreements cannot be signed by the principal investigator or other staff not designated by LSE’s financial regulations.
finalise awarded budget
set up any collaboration or consortium agreements with project partners
set up any overseas consultant agreements
discuss any ethics requirements
provide a handover of the award to your Research Awards Manager.

Following handover to your Research Awards Manager (RAM) they will:

arrange a kick-off meeting with you to discuss project implementation and any funder or LSE requirements
create a unique project account code to which all project-related expenditure will be charged
Assign the appropriate project members and support staff as approvers and access to project finances via the OneFinance project dashboards
finalise set up of the project in Converis (Research and Innovation's research award management system)
circulate the Converis project information report to the department/centre, principal investigator, and Finance Division providing a project overview, budget breakdown and tasks timetable
create the initial financial statement to be used for budget tracking
provide funding confirmation for staff appointments and equipment purchases

Discuss any of the following with your Research Awards Manager in your kick-off meeting:

Important: in most cases no expenditure should be incurred prior to the start date of the project. There may be some exceptions, such as arranging travel that will occur after the start date of the project. If unsure, contact your RAM.

Our Research Awards Team works collaboratively with principal investigators and other academic, research, and professional services staff to support the management of externally funded research projects.

A Research Awards Manager (RAM) is allocated to each academic department and research centre, providing each unit a single point of contact for all projects. Discuss any aspect of your research project with your RAM.

As principal investigator (PI) you are the budget holder and have responsibility for managing the overall project and award received by the funder.

be clear about your responsibilities as PI
our service standards provide a framework setting out the core services we offer and how we work collaboratively with PIs and other partners in academic units. You can also view summary information on our core services and indicative timeframes in our Research Development and Research Awards infographics
review the Converis project information report (PIR) provided at the project set up stage. This will provide an overview of your award, your award budget and a a timetable for the project deliverables. If you need a further copy contact your RAM)

The principal investigator, as budget holder, is responsible for the effective financial management of the grant.

The Research Awards Team acts as budget controller to oversee that all staff appointments, expense claims and supplier payments made against a research project meet contractual, budgetary and financial regulations.