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When you move to a new university, what happens to your grants or fellowship? You might be moving because you have a new job and a promotion. You might be moving because things are bad where you are right now and you need to get out. You might be moving because someone you care about is moving and you want to go along. Whatever the reason, it is a really busy time, often full of emotion.

In this post, I want to give an overview of the process of moving your research funding to a new university. There are a few things to work out, and thinking about them ahead of time can make everything easier in the long run.

Before I begin, it is worth remembering that my experience is based on what happens in Australia. While much of this advice may hold true for you, always check with your local research whisperer because things might be different where you are. Also, I’m going to talk about grants and fellowships. I’m not going to cover other types of funding, like donations or external earnings.

Start as soon as you can

It can take a long time to organise a move to another university, particularly in another city or country. Think about when you will tell different people that you are moving so that everyone knows at the right time – when will you talk to your current boss, the other researchers on your grants, your postdocs and your students?

From the perspective of the universities involved, nothing should happen until your move is official. That is, while you might be talking to people at your current university and your new university, nothing should be made official until you have accepted an offer in writing from your new university. That way, everybody knows that the move is actually happening and the process is less likely to get derailed by a counter-offer from your current university or something like that.

Having said that, start as early as you can. It can take a frustratingly long time to move funding around, so you want to give both universities as much warning as possible.

Who cares?

People sometimes seem worried that moving their money will make people upset. While that may be true, there are two groups that you generally don’t need to worry about: your current university and the funding agency.

While you might need to be careful about how you arrange things with your boss and your colleagues, your current university (as an organisation) doesn’t really care that you are moving unless you are taking millions of dollars with you. While moving is a very rare event for you, it is common practice for most universities. They know that for every grant that leaves, there is probably another one that comes, most of the time. As an administrator, it is just part of the working day.

Your current university will care about internal funding – the funding that they have given you. Those funds usually can’t be transferred. If you have internal funding, you might want to negotiate with your new university to match that funding so that you aren’t disadvantaged. As you can imagine, this sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. My rule of thumb is that it never hurts to ask.

If you’re moving within the same country, the funding agency doesn’t usually care because it will have rules about whether funding can be transferred between universities (very common occurrence) and how this happens. You don’t need to worry that the funding agency will penalise you for moving the funding. They don’t really care – they just want it to happen according to their rules. Just keep in mind that the move might delay your research for a bit, which means that the end date might extend. If the funding agency has rules around how many grants you can hold, that might mean that you aren’t eligible to apply for a bit longer.

If you are moving countries, however, the funding agency may care a lot. Some funding agencies (particularly government funding agencies) have special rules about moving money off-shore. Your status on a grant may change or you may not be allowed to move the funding at all. If that is the case, you want to understand that ahead of time.

So, who does care? You care a lot. Your PhD and research Masters students will care, especially if they are getting a stipend from your grant. Anyone employed under the grant will also care a lot – postdocs, research assistants and technical assistants. You need to talk to them as early as you can, so that they can work out whether they want to move with you or look for another supervisor or another job.

Timing

Most of the time, you will be moving funding that you’ve already won. However, that isn’t always the case. Because academics can sometimes give up to six months notice before they move universities, there are a couple of special cases to consider.

• Funding you are applying for. Read the guidelines to see if you should list your current university or your new university on the application. If it isn’t clear, ask your local research whisperer to check with the funding agency.
• Funding you’ve applied for, but hasn’t been announced yet. Read the guidelines – it might be easier to wait to see if you win the funding before telling the funders about the change, or the rules might say that you have to tell the funding agency as soon as the move is official.
• The funding has been announced and you’ve been successful. Congratulations! Before you sign the acceptance paperwork, read the guidelines. It may be simplest to accept the funding via your new university, or you may need to accept via your current university and then transfer it to your new university.
• You’ve accepted the funding but the grant hasn’t started yet. Usually there is a time between the accepting the funding and when you can start spending the money. If you haven’t started spending yet, the transfer can often be quite straightforward.
• After the official start date of the funding. This is when most transfers happen. You’ve spent some of the money and you are in the middle of the research. There is a pretty clear process for this sort of transfer.
• At the end of a grant. Sometimes you have funds that you are spending down at the end of a grant. This can get a bit tricky. The granting body may not want to transfer a small amount, or may not want to authorise an extension. While it doesn’t hurt to ask, they may say no. On the other hand, you might have a grant that technically needs to be transferred (because it hasn’t finished yet), but the money has been spent. It still might need to be officially transferred.

What’s the process?

From your point of view, the process should looks something like this:

• You talk to the other grantees, your students, the people you employ on the grants and work out what everyone wants to do.
• You tell your current university and your new university. They sort it out with the funding agency.

Unfortunately, it is rarely that simple. Let me walk you through the process from the funding administration end, so that you can understand why.

Technically, each grant is governed by a contract between your current university and the funding body. The contract with your current university needs to be finished and a new contract needs to be set up with your new university.

Because your current university administers the funding, they need to start the transfer process. They need to tell the funding agency how much money you’ve spent. To do that, they will need to know the date that you are finishing. This is usually the date that you finish your employment. Besides a financial report that they prepare, you may need to write a written report on what has been done to date.

To set up the new contract, the funding agency will need a start date at your new university. For administrative purposes, this may be the day that you finish at your current university, even if you are taking a break before starting at your new university. Keep in mind that, even though you might be taking a break, your students or staff on the contract might still need to be paid. Make sure that everyone knows if payments need to keep flowing.

The funding agency will probably want to know a few other things:

• What work has happened to date (in brief).
• Any changes to your research program as a result of the move. Will it mean delays or a change in direction?
• The relative advantages and any disadvantages of moving. This is important to them if the research environment was part of the selection process. It can be a question of feasibility of continuing the project. For example, if you argued that the equipment or expertise at your current university was excellent, they will want to know that there is similar equipment or expertise at your new university. If there isn’t, what are the other advantages that compensate for that?

Your new university will want to check the new contract and approve it. If they deal with this funding agency a lot then that will probably be pretty straightforward. If they’ve never dealt with them before then there may be some discussion of particular clauses in the contract before signing. If there are other partners (researchers from other universities or industry partners), then they may also need to check the contract.

As part of the contract, everyone will need to know what funds remain to be spent, when the funds are coming in from the funding agency, and when funds need to be paid out to other partners. This needs to be agreed upon with your partners so that the contract can be signed.

Once the contract is signed, your new university will need to set up the funding in their system. They will need the finance details of the partners (usually listed on the contract) and set up a schedule of in-coming and out-going payments, as well as any milestones (e.g. progress reports) that are required as part of the project. They will also need to set up employment contracts for any staff that are coming with you, and enrol any students that are coming with you.

This needs to happen for every research funding agreement. It all takes time, and different people from different parts of the university will need your help to set this up. At the end of it all, they will be able to give you the account code that you need to spend funds to do your research.

I hope that this helps you understand what needs to happen in the background to move your funding to a new university. Good luck with your move!