Unspent Grant Funds

At the expiration of a research grant, any remaining funds may be returned to the sponsor or transferred to an unrestricted research account, depending on the terms of the research agreement. To qualify as unrestricted, unspent funds in expired grants must meet one of the following criteria:

  • The agreement or award letter specifies that surplus funds will be retained by the PI/Institution, or
  • The agreement or award letter is silent on the treatment of surplus, and the surplus is less than 40% of total project funding, or
  • The sponsor is invoiced via cost recovery or upon delivery of certain milestones

These funds were originally designated for research and should continue to be used for research-related purposes in a broad sense. This could include travel expenses for research conferences, hiring students for research, or purchasing other research supplies when not covered by other grants.

The PI must ensure that all expenditures comply with applicable ethics guidelines.

Research Finance Procedure

Research Finance will follow the steps below when handling unspent funds:

  • Review of Grant: The Research Finance Officer (Research Financial Analyst) will review the expired grant and apply the criteria above to determine if surplus funds can be categorized as unrestricted and retained by the PI/Institution
  • Confirmation and Transfer: If the surplus meets the criteria, Research Finance will coordinate with the PI to confirm the transfer of the surplus to an existing unrestricted research grant. If the PI does not have an existing unrestricted research grant, they will need to request the creation of a new one by submitting a request to the Office of Research Services (ORS)
  • Transfer of Funds: Once confirmed, the surplus funds, net of overhead, will be transferred to the PI’s unrestricted research grant
  • Grant Inactivation: The expired research grant will then be inactivated
  • Budget Adjustment: ORS/Innovation UBC will be requested to increase the budget of the PI’s unrestricted research grant to reflect the transfer