We spent a minute with Research Grants Manager Dax Carroll who told us how he is settling into his new job at the University, what his team are working on at the moment and how he manages a good work/life balance... Image Research Grants Manager Dax Carroll What is your role? I’m the Research Administration Manager for the Science & Engineering portfolio within Research Grants Section. I've been at the University for less than six months, but it's been a busy start to the year! What does your team do? The team provides administrative oversight of all research grants from a post award perspective within Science & Engineering. This includes opening research grants on eFIN, setting up overhead journals, compiling quarterly and annual reviews for reporting to funders, invoicing external funders, to final financial submissions all to very tight deadlines – as a main overview. We also provide support and guidance to the applicable schools who manage the research grants on a day-to-day basis on a variety of issues, as they are integral to making sure we administer the research grants per the external funders terms and conditions. This is really critical. Another important aspect of our role is to work with internal and external auditors to provide assurance our financial control regime is working effectively and efficiently. What are you working on at the moment? The team has just finished a very substantial reporting period for the various research councils who have granted funding to the University. This involved a significant number of Final Expenditure Statements for quite complex research projects. I’m happy to say we met our deadlines with time to spare. At the same time we had to work on a large number of interim and final financial returns for submission to the NHS – again all to very tight deadlines. The team worked extremely diligently with the various schools involved to ensure we achieved our reporting deadlines. Thank you to everyone who supported the submission process. It was a true team effort! Outside of work? I really enjoy going to the gym a lot. I try and get there four times a week as it helps with my work-life balance and gives me a good focus besides what’s going on at work. Get in touch You can contact the Research Grants team by emailing finance@ed.ac.uk This article was published on 2024-07-01
