ARC Reporting

As a condition of award, ARC grants holders must submit an annual Progress (End of Year) report while the grant is active and a Final Report on cessation of the grant. The ARC must also be notified of all major changes to investigators and participating  organisations and other issues as indicated in the Funding Agreement via a Variation of Funding Agreement.

For active ARC-funded projects

Progress/End of Year reports are required for all ARC-funded projects active in the previous calendar year. ‘Active’ means the grant is receiving funding according to the original funding offer, has carryover of funds or an extension to the end date approved by the ARC. The Research Accounting Team will contact the Lead CI on all UON-administered ARC projects in Jan/Feb each year regarding reporting requirements.

Progress/End of Year reports must include changes to start and end dates, carryover of funds requests and any significant issues that affected the progress of the project. The ARC also requires a more detailed explanation in the following circumstances:

1. When there is a request to carryover 75% or more of the total ARC allocation.

2. When there is a request to carryover the unspent portion of a previous year's carryover (+ 12 months carryover) i.e., a carryover form may have been previously submitted for this project.

Research Accounts (G numbers) are only active in RFS within the project period. Once the project end date has passed, you will no longer be able to access projects funds. If your ARC project end date has passed, please contact Research Grants to discuss whether funds need to be carried-over and end dates extended.

For ARC-funded projects more than three years after the original allocation

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, the ARC will not allow projects to be extended for more than three years past the original end date. If your Project is more than three years past its original end date and you think you need a further extension please contact Research Grants.

Checking the balance of a research project

To determine if the project needs to carryover funds please check RFS by following the below steps:

  1. Researcher Home Tab; displays all grants the user has access (named within RIMS)
  2. My Research Grants
  3. Drill down on the Grant number
  4. Drill down on year to see that year’s budget line items (BLIs)
  5. Drill down on the BLI's actuals or commitments for the detail

Where grant includes ‘Shared Out - Other University’ the collaborating institution’s acquittal must be included in the funds to carryover.  Research Accounting will request acquittals on your behalf from the collaborating institution and forward to the CI once received.

Alternatively, the appropriate Research Accounting team member can assist with this information.

Final Reports for Discovery (FL, FT, DP, IN, DE) and Linkage programs (LP, LX, LAPDC, LIEF, SR) are completed and submitted through RMS.

It is the Lead CI’s responsibility to ensure the Final Report is true and complete in accordance with the ARC Funding Agreement and Rules, meets the ARC’s reporting requirements and is submitted in RMS within the required timeframe.

Information in the Final Report is used by the ARC to determine whether the project has reached satisfactory completion. If a Final Report is deemed inadequate, the Lead CI will be contacted for further information.

If the ARC is not satisfied with the outcomes of the Project, this will be noted against any further project applications under any ARC scheme submitted by, or on behalf of, the Lead CI and will be taken into account in the assessment of those applications.

New Final Report Form

The ARC has updated the Final Report form in RMS (November 2017). The new form applies to rounds funded in the following schemes and onwards: DP14, LP14, DE14, FL12, FT13, IN14, LE16, CE11, IH12, IC13, LA14.

Please refer to the ARC Final Report Instructions – Second Release prior to completing your Final Report. For prior schemes please refer to the Final Report Instructions – First Release.

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Final Report Submission Process

Research Grants will review, certify and submit completed Final Reports to the ARC through RMS. Research Grants will review the report and ask the Lead CI to confirm the following certification in writing before the report is submitted to the ARC:

  • I certify that I have read, understood and complied with key requirements of the ARC’s Funding Rules (the Funding Rules) and Funding Agreement (the Funding Agreement) for my project.
  • To the best of my knowledge all details provided in this Final Report are true and complete in accordance with the ARC Funding Rules and Funding Agreement.
  • All named participants and Organisations listed in Part A of this Final Report are accurate and current and all funds for this Project have only been spent for the purpose for which they were provided, unless otherwise approved by the ARC.
  • I confirm that all ARC funding has been spent and no carry-over of funds remains for this Project at time of submission.
  • I am able to provide additional information and documentation with regards to this Final Report, upon ARC request.

RMS does not send Research Grants an alert when a Final Report is submitted. Research Grants checks RMS once per week (on a Thursday) for completed Final Reports and requires at least 10 working days to review and submit a Final Report to the ARC. This time is necessary in case changes are required, to complete the certification and given the volume of reports and other priorities in Research Grants.

The Lead CI is responsible for the timely completion of the Final Report to allow Research Grants to submit it by the due date. The Lead CI will receive an automated email reminder from the University of Newcastle’s Research Information Management System (RIMS) one month before the Final Report is due.

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All ARC project accounts (G numbers) must have a $0 balance prior to submitting the Final Report to Research Grants. The account balance can be obtained from RFS or by contacting Finance Services.

Final Reports and Eligibility for Future Rounds

It is now an eligibility requirement for all ARC schemes that:

  • At the time of the submission of a Proposal, all obligations regarding previously funded Projects involving the participants named on the Proposal must have been fulfilled to the satisfaction of the ARC. Such obligations include the provision and acceptance of satisfactory Progress and Final Reports. (Discovery Funding Rules 2018; A6.2.2/Linkage Funding Rules 2018; A7.1.5)
  • A Final Report must be submitted for the Project within 12 months of the final payment or within 12 months of the final ARC approved Project end date. The form for this report will be made available by the ARC in RMS, with instructions on the ARC website. (Discovery Funding Rules 2018; A10.2.1/Linkage Funding Rules 2018; A11.2.1).

The ARC have advised that proposals which list a CI with an outstanding final report at the time of submission will be ruled ineligible. If your Final Report is not appearing in RMS because the Scheme form has not been made available by the ARC, this will not affect your eligibility when applying for future grants.

Unfortunately, the administrative access our Office has in RMS does not allow us to verify the status of final reports for CIs from other institutions. Therefore, we strongly encourage the lead CI to ask each CI listed on their proposal to check the status of all final reports flagged in RMS, to ensure that eligibility requirements are met.  Final reports that are overdue for UON CIs must be completed as soon as possible and submitted to RMS no later than 3 weeks prior to the ARC closing deadline for the scheme under application.

Final report status can be found in RMS by selecting ‘Final Reports’ under ‘Applicant Project Management’.  This will lead to a page displaying the status and due date of all final reports for projects the CI is listed on.

We highly recommend that the Lead CI asks each participating CI on their application to take a screenshot of the final report status page in RMS for their records, in the case of eligibility queries.

A Variation of Funding Agreement (VFA) is required for all major changes on ARC-funded projects.

Changes requiring a VFA include:

  • Changes to participating organisations e.g. add, update, withdraw.
  • Changes to named personnel e.g. add, update, additional appointment, defer commencement, suspension, withdraw.
  • Changes to project – defer commencement, change end date, suspension, scope, budget title, transfer, transfer correction, asset relocation, full or partial relinquishment, salary conversion, salary relinquishment.
  • Changes to allowances e.g. maternity/parental leave, reimbursements.
  • End of year expenditure corrections.

The Lead CI should check the relevant Funding/Grant Agreement and Funding Rules/Grant Guidelines to confirm if a VFA is required. Please contact Research Grants if you are unsure if a VFA is required.

VFAs must be submitted by the Administering Organisation’s Research Office. This is a formal process requiring full documentation and authorisation from all parties (CIs/fellows/PIs/Partner Orgs/Collaborating Orgs). Please contact Research Grants if you require a VFA and further advice on the required documentation will be provided.

The ARC can take several weeks to several months to process VFA requests.

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