Grant payments

How and when we make grant payments, and what you or your organisation need to do to receive them. 

The new Wellcome Funding platform

Wellcome is launching the Wellcome Funding platform to help you manage grant applications and ongoing grants more quickly and easily. 

You’ll be able to continue managing existing grants and payments in Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker until October 2023.

We will be updating all system users on this funding platform switch over the course of the year.

If this is your organisation's first Wellcome award 

You should send us:

We will then set up an account to allow you to complete and submit the OSR.

Please note that your organisation will be responsible for managing the security of staff access to WTGT portal screens, in line with your organisation’s governance and system access policy. You should carefully control how the generic email log-in details are shared.

Grant payment types 

The way we pay grant funds once they are awarded depends on the type of grant.

Milestone grants

This payment method is for grants awarded under special financial conditions, or where a specific agreement has been made.

Milestone grants are paid individually according to the payment schedule set out in your grant award letter. The letter will also explain how the payments will be made.

Non-milestone grants

This payment method is for the majority of grants that we award to organisations funded by Research England or its equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

To claim for non-milestone grants, you need to submit a quarterly Organisation Spend Report via Wellcome Trust Grant Tracker, our online application and grants management system (within the ‘My Organisation > Grant Claims’ section).

When we pay grants 

We pay non-milestone grants quarterly, in arrears.

The claim periods are:

  • January-March
  • April-June
  • July-September
  • October-December

Spend for these quarters must be submitted in the next quarter.

For example, if you are claiming grant spend for January to March, then the OSR will be available to complete from early April. You must submit this between April and June when the payment period for January to March ends.

You will have one OSR for all your active grants.

Grant information in the OSR is automatically populated, but you will need to provide us with information about the amounts spent against each grant, and include comments where requested. For example, include information if there is an unusually high or low spend for the period.

You must only include spend for the three-month OSR period you’re claiming for. If there is no spend on the grant before the OSR deadline, submit the report and include a comment to let us know. You should then include the spend in the next quarter and use the comments field to tell us.

If you have any questions about the pre-populated data, contact grantpayments@wellcome.org.

Please note that all spend for all relevant grants must be submitted within three calendar months of the end of the OSR spend period. After that the OSR for that period will no longer be available.

We will make a payment after we receive the OSR. We provide a detailed remittance for each payment. The approved (paid) amount will be shown on the OSR within 'Grant Claim History' in WTGT.

Grants will only appear in the OSR if:

  • they are non-milestone grants (milestone grants don’t appear on the OSR)
  • the grant is active
  • the grant start certificate has been submitted and approved by Wellcome
  • the grant started during or before this reporting period and hasn’t ended in this reporting period (if it has, you will be asked to complete a Final Expenditure Report)
  • the grant hasn’t been paid up to 90% retention.

Non-payment or part-payment of grants 

If you find that some grants have been part-paid or not paid at all, it may be because:

We have not received and approved a grant start certificate

We will not make any grant payments until you submit the grant start certificate via WTGT and we have reviewed and approved it. This confirms that you’ve accepted the grant and its related conditions.

A grant has reached the retention amount

We will pay up to 90% of the grant but won’t release the outstanding 10% until we receive your completed Final Expenditure Report (‘FER’) via WTGT.

We will make part-payment for any spend which takes this grant up to 90%. Read more about our 10% retention policy.

If you have any questions about grant payment arrangements for your organisation, email grantpayments@wellcome.org.

Final payment for grants that have ended 

When your grant ends, you need to complete a Final Expenditure Report to receive the final payment.

Contact us 

Contact us if you have a question about payments.

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