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.

To log in, select cuResearch and enter your MyCarletonOne* (MC1) account details if you already have an account or create an account.

*While the system uses your MC1 credentials to log in, you still need a cuResearch profile created to access the site.

If you are trying to add a team member or a sponsor agency/program and you don’t see the option, likely, they have not been added to the system yet. Reach out to curesearch@carleton.ca to request that they be added.

The first thing you should try is to clear your browser history. If you still experience a problem logging in, reach out to curesearch@carleton.ca.

Submit an Approval Form by following these steps:

• Click “Apply New” at the top right of your cuResearch homepage.
• Select Approval Form under CORIS Awards (see a screenshot)
• Select Approval Form under A. OVPRI Approval Form

The most important reasons to submit an approval form are:

• To enable fund opening when your project is successful. The file you create through this submission is used to alert Research Financial Services to open your research funds, after any compliances are issued, if required.
• To obtain institutional approval to complete the application process, which is conditional upon ensuring your Chair or Director and the Associate Dean of Research are aware of your application and approve of the institutional commitments described therein.

Complete an approval form when you are:

• Applying to an external organization for funding, i.e., your application contains a budget
• Applying for an internal research funding program administered by OVPRI
• Submitting a nomination to an external agency for an honour or distinction
• Requiring institutional signatures on letters of support or applications to an external sponsor
• Responding to a request for a proposal
• Entering into contractual arrangements with another party, including:
  1. Research contracts
  2. Research grant agreements (for leverage in industry-government projects)
  3. Service agreements
  4. Memorandums of Understanding (MOU)
  5. Purchase orders (for funds coming into Carleton)
  6. Intellectual Property agreements
  7. Licensing agreements
  8. Supervising a student or postdoctoral fellow who has been awarded funding from an external agency, such as Mitacs (excluding scholarships); the student’s project must be submitted (and an account will be opened) under the supervisor’s name