The CU Commitment Form provides documentation, in a single location, of all Carleton contributions to a research project, including detailing any relevant conditions or restrictions on the contributions. This provides clarity to you, as the researcher, on the full details on how to access and maximize the benefits from these contributions when you are awarded the funds.

A duly completed CU Commitment Form also ensures that OVPRII can more efficiently pay out contributions from OVPRI to you (the principal investigator [PI]), without follow-up by yourself to each contributor, upon fund opening.

Your cash or in-kind contributions to research projects need to be documented for several reasons: 

1. Facilitate award management and reporting of Carleton’s cash and/or in-kind contributions to research projects by Research Financial Services.
2. Create a written record that you have approved the contribution. 
3. Provide documentation to mitigate the risks of over-committing your time, existing research funding, and/or other resources that may jeopardize the ability to fulfill obligations under the proposed project. 

PIs need to sign a Commitment Form when they are committing cash from existing research funding or research time (if eligible) in an application, institutional letter, or agreement. 

Any fund holder is required to sign the Commitment Form to ensure sufficient documentation of their cash contributions to the project. Similarly, Commitment Forms are used to ensure that in-kind contributions are approved by those with the authority to make those contributions. This applies to the PI, where you are committing their own research funds and research time (if eligible) to a project. 

When required, the form should be prepared by an OVPRII staff member, the Dean’s office, or the PI with the support of a research facilitator (as applicable) and circulated to all relevant signatories, in advance of the submission of an application to the funder, or the institutional signature on a letter of support or a research agreement.

As a PI, you may be asked to sign a Commitment Form in cases where you are making contributions from your own research funding or research time (if eligible) to a project.

A Commitment Form is required when:

• there are committed cash and/or in-kind contributions committed as part of a funding application, institutional letter of support, or research agreement; or
• there is an agreement at the time of application that part of the research funding will flow to Carleton or its administrative units for specific costs (for example, PI fees, salary recovery, course buyout, etc.).

The Carleton University (CU) Commitment Form is a document used by the Faculty Research Offices and various offices within the OVPRI. It is designed to capture:

1. Internal cash and/or in-kind contributions to a research funding application/research contract/agreement included in sections of applications in abridged form (i.e. letter of support), such as source, amount and required signing authority approvals; and/or
2. Direct and indirect research support cost reimbursements expected to be received if the project is successful by administrative units at Carleton University that are incurred as part of the ongoing support to a research project, such as the budgetary amounts for course buyouts, PI fees, salary recovery, and/or
3. Research revenues expected to be generated by the project if successful.

The form complements the cuResearch Approval Form by providing more detailed documentation of institutional contributions and allows for the documentation and approval of cash and/or in-kind contributions from a wider range of potential contributors.