Rod Viggers is looking for volunteer organising for the cross-funder non-financial policy assurance system pilot,
please reach out directly.
We dropped a few updates from the agenda to allow more time for on funding assurance due to technical gremlins, a summary is provided below and we will follow up in more depth at the next meeting.
Provisional date: Wednesday 25 February 1.30-3pm - we will confirm and open registration in due course.
At the time of the Forum, a discussion was due to be held on Friday 17 October re. the task management and post award functionality in Worktribe. It was a useful meeting for anyone using or implementing Worktribe, and a
recording can be viewed here until 17 December 2025.
UPDATES
Innovate UK various
Following the February 2025 Forum, it was agreed the level of IUK issues arising in the Forum justified a specific working group. We held a scoping call on 17 July with volunteers for this to identify priority areas, many of which related to the Horizon Guarantee, so it was agreed this should be included in scope. While there was consensus that standard responses to Monitoring Officers would be helpful, it was acknowledged that developing best practice is complex due to ongoing uncertainty in guidance and the lack of a one-size-fits-all solution.
BUFDG followed up with Innovate UK regarding a specific query on the April IFS guidance, which led to a productive meeting on 28 August with Amy Farnhill (Head of Post Award Support & Assurance), John Jenson (Horizon Guarantee lead), and Emma Shaw (risk lead). We agreed on the value of working collaboratively, with the "working group" acting as Innovate UK champions, and I shared a proposal in mid-September outlining ideas, including co-developing resources with IUK to ensure alignment. The outcome was very positive - IUK have proposed quarterly meetings with Joni/co-chairs/IUK champions, and also proposed a monthly drop-in sessions for operational queries, which BUFDG can help facilitate and feed into the more structured discussions. We are in touch re. scheduling these and will share details in due course.
A new query was raised regarding the JeS/TFS April 2025 guidance “ Horizon Europe Guarantee Guidance for Grants Administered via the Joint Electronic Submission and The Funding Service” and Supplementary Jes/TFS guidance. In the main JeS guidance, it stipulates costs should be calculated on actual costs, in Supplementary Guidance, it stipulates for Unit Costs / Lump sum awards the actual costs of the work are not relevant. The latest update can be found on the discussion board here:
Query on Innovate UK Horizon Guarantee guidance vs supplementary cost eligibility guidance (Je-S/TFS)
TRAC facilities
Joni met with volunteers for scoping calls on this early July.
The original aim of a working group was to identity and share best practice to help others navigate status quo, sound out the viability of Directly Allocated costing models, ensure processes and full picture/outcomes are understood, and advocate for improvements. Of course any major change would need to be led by TRAC dev group, and involve UKRI, who were already working on this independently of BUFDG getting in touch. The Chair of RUGIT (Russel Group IT) has been involved due to concerns around computer equipment integration / data security / legacy / sustainability on research projects. There is also some crossover with an in-progress Jisc project on Technical legacy project. BUFDG scheduled a meeting to bring all parties together in late September but this had to be postponed so we are in the process of finding a new date.
Future Forums / MS Teams channel
The last Forum meeting was the one-year anniversay and a good time to review format/usefulness. There was resounding support to continue, with minor suggestions for changes. We will consider breakouts if multiple strands to a topic, but overall the co-chairs are keen to ensure all attendees hear all discussion.
AOB
There will be a session about tax on research at the next meeting, with BUFDG tax specialist Andrea Marshall.
Following the last Forum meeting a small group exchanged emails re. TechOne, there was no demand for a separate call at this time but Joni can put anyone entering into this in touch going forward, or start a Teams thread or Discussion Board.
20 October 2025 
Joni Rhodes, Projects and Development Manager
