funding
Funding Policies
Collaboration
- RCP Grantees are expected to acknowledge and agree that the very nature of this Project requires ongoing collaboration and a sincere willingness on the Grantee’s part to engage in regular conversations with the Foundation and other RCP grantees to help shape and design research efforts.
- The Foundation will host meetings with RCP collaborators and other potential grant recipients to facilitate further collaboration. Principal Investigators of RCP funded studies will make every reasonable effort to attend these meetings when requested by the RCP. The RCP may also select additional members of the team to attend such meetings, in which case the requested members will also make every reasonable effort to attend. The Foundation will pay reasonable costs for travel to these meetings (above and beyond the Funds). All RCP grantees will attend such meetings to engage in detailed discussion and dialogue about their Projects with other teams and RCP representatives in furtherance of RCP’s mission.
- The Foundation and RCP representatives (including members of the RCP Governing Board) will make periodic site visits to all funded grantees collaborating on RCP projects. The Grantee will allow such Foundation representatives to make site visits to their site and collaborating institutions throughout the duration of the Project to receive in person updates and collaborate on the direction of the Project as well as other RCP initiatives. On such visits, the RCP Governing Board will engage with all members involved in the Project, including but not limited to Principal Investigators, Co-Investigators, Post-Docs, Graduate Students, Staff Scientists, Lab Techs, etc.
Publication and Acknowledgement
- RCP Grantees will commit to use reasonable best efforts to get results of the Project published in leading academic journals. Grantees will agree, as soon as practical, to prepare findings of the results of the Project for publication in scientific literature (a “Publication”), regardless of whether positive or negative results are obtained, and to obtain all necessary assignments or unrestricted licenses of all copyrights and any other intellectual property or proprietary rights, and to transfer such rights only as required by specific scientific journals or other outlets of significant stature that license back the rights to Grantee to publish the Publication in open access journals or otherwise to maximize publication, distribution and accessibility throughout the world (“Open Access”). Authorship of results will be determined in accordance with academic standards and custom. Proper acknowledgment will be made for the contributions of each party to the research results being published.
- RCP Grantees will commit to posting any manuscripts related to the Project on a publicly accessible preprint server (e.g. bioRxiv.org) at the time of first journal submission.
- RCP Grantees will commit to sharing reviews of submitted manuscripts related to the Project with the RCP and collaborating grantees.
- The Foundation will cover expenses for up to three Open Access manuscript submissions, after which Grantees will seek Foundation approval to cover the cost of additional submissions.
- Grants are funded by the Foundation through the RCP and any reference to grants and or research funded by the grant should acknowledge that funding was provided by the “Raynor Cerebellum Project” (in a form, format, and placement reasonably acceptable to the Foundation). This includes but is not limited to references on website pages, press or other media releases, research publications, interviews, conference presentations, and expert panels. RCP would like to approve, in writing, any communication about the Project in the media.
Reporting
- RCP Grantees will provide the Foundation with consistent and ongoing status updates every six months for the duration of the Project. Written updates should include:
- Short one-page narrative update on progress to date and major milestones achieved and yet to achieve.
- Disclosure of any material Project IP (as defined in Section 15 below) with reasonable specificity and detail.
- Financial update, including details on spending to date and budget for the coming year.
- Any other items or concerns the Grantee deems noteworthy.
- RCP Grantees will work with the RCP Governing Board to determine deliverables related to the Project, to be provided by the Grantee no later than at the time of publishing to a pre-print server.
Intellectual Property
- RCP Grantees will promptly disclose to the Foundation all inventions, discoveries, and developments created, developed or contributed to by the Grantee, the Principal Investigator, or the Grantee’s personnel, agents, or contractors, whether or not protectable under patent, copyright, or other intellectual property law, arising from Grantee’s or Principal Investigator’s performance in connection with their RCP funded project. (“Project IP”).
- Title to the Project IP (except with respect to jointly developed Project IP) shall reside with RCP Grantees; provided however, that Grantees agree to grant and do hereby grant (and shall cause the Principal Investigator and any of Grantee’s personnel, agents, and contractors, as applicable, to grant) to the Foundation a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, fully paid-up and royalty-free license to access, reproduce, develop, modify, improve, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Project IP for academic, research, and other non-commercial purposes and/or purposes in furtherance of the Foundation’s charitable mission. The foregoing license may be sublicensed by the Foundation to other grantees of the Foundation involved with RCP.
- With respect to any and all patentable Project IP jointly developed by RCP Grantees and other grantees or agents of the Foundation involved with RCP, ownership shall follow inventorship, and any rights to any such inventions (or other patentable subject matter) shall be determined in accordance with U.S. patent laws.
- It is the intention of the Foundation and RCP Grantees that algorithms, models, data, and findings resulting from the RCP funded projects will be made broadly available to other academic and nonprofit scientists for research purposes on reasonable terms and, wherever possible, via a public repository or other public domain.
- After first publication of the manuscript referenced under the “Publications” section above, RCP Grantees will agree to and grant to any academic, non-commercial, and/or non-profit entity that requests it, a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, fully paid-up and royalty-free license to access, reproduce, develop, modify, improve, create derivative works based on and otherwise use all Project IP solely for scholarly research, academic purposes, and other non-commercial purposes only, including research and development without commercial exploitation for profit of any kind and, in the case of use by a tax-exempt entity, such uses as consistent with such entity’s tax-exempt purpose.
- Royalty Sharing. RCP Grantees will make Project IP available to the public on commercially reasonable terms, including through commercial licensing upon reasonable terms and conditions or direct access. From the monies (including equity), if any, received from licensing or direct commercializing of any Project IP, Foundation and RCP Grantees shall share on terms mutually agreed upon in writing by Grantees and the Foundation, prior to any such licensing or direct commercializing of the Project IP (including terms appropriately allocating value to the Project IP relative to the totality of the licensed intellectual property); provided, that (i) such terms will reflect the proportion of funding that Foundation has provided for the specific research project that gave rise to such Project IP through grants and awards, and (ii) if RCP Grantees and Foundation cannot agree on such terms within 90 days of initiating discussions with respect thereto (or Grantee grants rights in contravention of this section without first agreeing with Foundation), then Foundation shall receive 50% of all upfront, milestone, royalty and other compensation received from a licensee or from the direct commercialization of the Project IP (exclusive of compensation that reimburses Grantees for actual costs incurred maintaining patents covering such Project IP). Payments shall be made to Foundation within 30 days of receipt by Grantees of any payments from a licensee or from direct commercialization. If Grantees receives monies in the form of an equity share or other non-cash property, Grantee shall ensure that Foundation receives its proper share of such property, or the value thereof, at the time such non-cash consideration is converted into cash by Grantees.
Material Changes
- If for any reason during the term of an RCP grant the designated Principal Investigator is not available to serve as Principal Investigator of the Project, the Grantee will propose a replacement that is acceptable to the Foundation and if no such mutually acceptable replacement is available, redirect any remaining funds to a mutually agreeable use.
- Any material changes to the Project must be mutually agreed to by the Foundation and Grantee and approved in writing by the Foundation. Material changes would include:some text
- Substantial changes in the specific aims that were originally proposed
- Changes (including removal and onboarding) in key personnel that were originally proposed to carry out a significant portion of the original goalssome text
- Namely, principal investigators at the faculty level), and
- Changes in the locations of where the work will be carried out (including relocation of laboratories to a different institute).
- In other words, the grant funding is approved for the submitted proposal, and any substantive deviations or changes must be agreed to and approved. Should the Foundation and the Grantee fail to agree on any changes, the Foundation shall have the right to terminate the grant in which case the Grantee shall, at the request of the Foundation, promptly return any unexpended and uncommitted grant funds.
Use of Funds, Venue, & Other Terms
Any legal suit, action, or proceeding relating to the Project Agreement must be instituted in the state or federal courts located in Fort Worth, Texas, and each party irrevocably submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts in any such suit, action, or proceeding. RCP Agreements will be subject to and governed by the laws of the State of Texas without regard to conflict of law principles.
- Grantees must be organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”), is not a private foundation as that term is defined in section 509(a) of the Code because it is an organization described in section 509(a)(1) or 509(a)(2) of the Code or is a supporting organization described in section 509(a)(3) of the Code other than a type 3 nonfunctionally integrated supporting organization, and has received a determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service to such effect.
- The Funds and any income thereon are to be used solely for the purposes of the Project unless the Grantee receives written consent otherwise from the Foundation; provided, however, that the Funds must be used exclusively for purposes described in section 501(c)(3) of the Code. No funds may be spent for any other purpose.
- Any Funds not expended or committed for the purposes of the Project must be immediately returned to the Foundation. The Grantee agrees that the Foundation has standing to enforce the conditions of this Agreement, including repayment of diverted or unused funds.
- Although the Funds need not be physically segregated, the Funds and the income thereon should be accounted for separately on the Grantee’s books and records. Records of receipts and expenditures under the Project, as well as copies of reports submitted to the Foundation, must be kept by the Grantee for at least four years after the payment of the Funds. The Grantee’s books and records must be available for the Foundation’s inspection at reasonable times upon reasonable notice.
Funding & Subawards
- Halfway through the Project (if not earlier), the RCP Governing Board will perform a Project evaluation on behalf of the Foundation. If the evaluation reveals any material deficiencies in the opinion of the RCP Governing Board, the Project may be placed in a “probationary period” through which the Grantee will work with the RCP Governing Board to ensure any deficiencies are corrected in a reasonable time. During any such probationary period, additional payment of Funds may be withheld or delayed.
- Indirect costs will be limited to 10% of the Funds and will be paid by the Foundation pro rata with each annual installment of the Funds. Any indirect costs assessed by the Grantee on the Project that exceed this 10% limit must come out of the Funds.
- To the extent that the Grantee institution is not expending direct costs itself but, rather, making a subaward of some portion to another institution to fund work there, RCP is not obligated to pay indirect costs twice on those costs. Rather the Grantee and sub-awardee should negotiate this themselves and Grantee could, for example, pass along the 10% rate to the sub-awardee.
- Any overages in excess of the grant amount will be paid for in full by the Grantee.
- RCP Grantees will commit to completing projects using the grant funds and will have a contingency plan in place to complete projects as intended.
- RCP Grantees will handle sub-awards to collaborating institutions. Grantees, prior to funding sub-awards, shall require that the sub-awardee agree, in writing, to be bound by, and comply with, all of the obligations in this grant agreement that apply to the Grantee, including but not limited to the provisions of intellectual property, venue, and governing law.
Collaboration
- RCP Grantees are expected to acknowledge and agree that the very nature of this Project requires ongoing collaboration and a sincere willingness on the Grantee’s part to engage in regular conversations with the Foundation and other RCP grantees to help shape and design research efforts.
- The Foundation will host meetings with RCP collaborators and other potential grant recipients to facilitate further collaboration. Principal Investigators of RCP funded studies will make every reasonable effort to attend these meetings when requested by the RCP. The RCP may also select additional members of the team to attend such meetings, in which case the requested members will also make every reasonable effort to attend. The Foundation will pay reasonable costs for travel to these meetings (above and beyond the Funds). All RCP grantees will attend such meetings to engage in detailed discussion and dialogue about their Projects with other teams and RCP representatives in furtherance of RCP’s mission.
- The Foundation and RCP representatives (including members of the RCP Governing Board) will make periodic site visits to all funded grantees collaborating on RCP projects. The Grantee will allow such Foundation representatives to make site visits to their site and collaborating institutions throughout the duration of the Project to receive in person updates and collaborate on the direction of the Project as well as other RCP initiatives. On such visits, the RCP Governing Board will engage with all members involved in the Project, including but not limited to Principal Investigators, Co-Investigators, Post-Docs, Graduate Students, Staff Scientists, Lab Techs, etc.
Publication and Acknowledgement
- RCP Grantees will commit to use reasonable best efforts to get results of the Project published in leading academic journals. Grantees will agree, as soon as practical, to prepare findings of the results of the Project for publication in scientific literature (a “Publication”), regardless of whether positive or negative results are obtained, and to obtain all necessary assignments or unrestricted licenses of all copyrights and any other intellectual property or proprietary rights, and to transfer such rights only as required by specific scientific journals or other outlets of significant stature that license back the rights to Grantee to publish the Publication in open access journals or otherwise to maximize publication, distribution and accessibility throughout the world (“Open Access”). Authorship of results will be determined in accordance with academic standards and custom. Proper acknowledgment will be made for the contributions of each party to the research results being published.
- RCP Grantees will commit to posting any manuscripts related to the Project on a publicly accessible preprint server (e.g. bioRxiv.org) at the time of first journal submission.
- RCP Grantees will commit to sharing reviews of submitted manuscripts related to the Project with the RCP and collaborating grantees.
- The Foundation will cover expenses for up to three Open Access manuscript submissions, after which Grantees will seek Foundation approval to cover the cost of additional submissions.
- Grants are funded by the Foundation through the RCP and any reference to grants and or research funded by the grant should acknowledge that funding was provided by the “Raynor Cerebellum Project” (in a form, format, and placement reasonably acceptable to the Foundation). This includes but is not limited to references on website pages, press or other media releases, research publications, interviews, conference presentations, and expert panels. RCP would like to approve, in writing, any communication about the Project in the media.
Reporting
- RCP Grantees will provide the Foundation with consistent and ongoing status updates every six months for the duration of the Project. Written updates should include:
- Short one-page narrative update on progress to date and major milestones achieved and yet to achieve.
- Disclosure of any material Project IP (as defined in Section 15 below) with reasonable specificity and detail.
- Financial update, including details on spending to date and budget for the coming year.
- Any other items or concerns the Grantee deems noteworthy.
- RCP Grantees will work with the RCP Governing Board to determine deliverables related to the Project, to be provided by the Grantee no later than at the time of publishing to a pre-print server.
Intellectual Property
- RCP Grantees will promptly disclose to the Foundation all inventions, discoveries, and developments created, developed or contributed to by the Grantee, the Principal Investigator, or the Grantee’s personnel, agents, or contractors, whether or not protectable under patent, copyright, or other intellectual property law, arising from Grantee’s or Principal Investigator’s performance in connection with their RCP funded project. (“Project IP”).
- Title to the Project IP (except with respect to jointly developed Project IP) shall reside with RCP Grantees; provided however, that Grantees agree to grant and do hereby grant (and shall cause the Principal Investigator and any of Grantee’s personnel, agents, and contractors, as applicable, to grant) to the Foundation a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, fully paid-up and royalty-free license to access, reproduce, develop, modify, improve, create derivative works based on and otherwise use the Project IP for academic, research, and other non-commercial purposes and/or purposes in furtherance of the Foundation’s charitable mission. The foregoing license may be sublicensed by the Foundation to other grantees of the Foundation involved with RCP.
- With respect to any and all patentable Project IP jointly developed by RCP Grantees and other grantees or agents of the Foundation involved with RCP, ownership shall follow inventorship, and any rights to any such inventions (or other patentable subject matter) shall be determined in accordance with U.S. patent laws.
- It is the intention of the Foundation and RCP Grantees that algorithms, models, data, and findings resulting from the RCP funded projects will be made broadly available to other academic and nonprofit scientists for research purposes on reasonable terms and, wherever possible, via a public repository or other public domain.
- After first publication of the manuscript referenced under the “Publications” section above, RCP Grantees will agree to and grant to any academic, non-commercial, and/or non-profit entity that requests it, a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, fully paid-up and royalty-free license to access, reproduce, develop, modify, improve, create derivative works based on and otherwise use all Project IP solely for scholarly research, academic purposes, and other non-commercial purposes only, including research and development without commercial exploitation for profit of any kind and, in the case of use by a tax-exempt entity, such uses as consistent with such entity’s tax-exempt purpose.
- Royalty Sharing. RCP Grantees will make Project IP available to the public on commercially reasonable terms, including through commercial licensing upon reasonable terms and conditions or direct access. From the monies (including equity), if any, received from licensing or direct commercializing of any Project IP, Foundation and RCP Grantees shall share on terms mutually agreed upon in writing by Grantees and the Foundation, prior to any such licensing or direct commercializing of the Project IP (including terms appropriately allocating value to the Project IP relative to the totality of the licensed intellectual property); provided, that (i) such terms will reflect the proportion of funding that Foundation has provided for the specific research project that gave rise to such Project IP through grants and awards, and (ii) if RCP Grantees and Foundation cannot agree on such terms within 90 days of initiating discussions with respect thereto (or Grantee grants rights in contravention of this section without first agreeing with Foundation), then Foundation shall receive 50% of all upfront, milestone, royalty and other compensation received from a licensee or from the direct commercialization of the Project IP (exclusive of compensation that reimburses Grantees for actual costs incurred maintaining patents covering such Project IP). Payments shall be made to Foundation within 30 days of receipt by Grantees of any payments from a licensee or from direct commercialization. If Grantees receives monies in the form of an equity share or other non-cash property, Grantee shall ensure that Foundation receives its proper share of such property, or the value thereof, at the time such non-cash consideration is converted into cash by Grantees.
Material Changes
- If for any reason during the term of an RCP grant the designated Principal Investigator is not available to serve as Principal Investigator of the Project, the Grantee will propose a replacement that is acceptable to the Foundation and if no such mutually acceptable replacement is available, redirect any remaining funds to a mutually agreeable use.
- Any material changes to the Project must be mutually agreed to by the Foundation and Grantee and approved in writing by the Foundation. Material changes would include:some text
- Substantial changes in the specific aims that were originally proposed
- Changes (including removal and onboarding) in key personnel that were originally proposed to carry out a significant portion of the original goalssome text
- Namely, principal investigators at the faculty level), and
- Changes in the locations of where the work will be carried out (including relocation of laboratories to a different institute).
- In other words, the grant funding is approved for the submitted proposal, and any substantive deviations or changes must be agreed to and approved. Should the Foundation and the Grantee fail to agree on any changes, the Foundation shall have the right to terminate the grant in which case the Grantee shall, at the request of the Foundation, promptly return any unexpended and uncommitted grant funds.
Use of Funds, Venue, & Other Terms
Any legal suit, action, or proceeding relating to the Project Agreement must be instituted in the state or federal courts located in Fort Worth, Texas, and each party irrevocably submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of such courts in any such suit, action, or proceeding. RCP Agreements will be subject to and governed by the laws of the State of Texas without regard to conflict of law principles.
- Grantees must be organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”), is not a private foundation as that term is defined in section 509(a) of the Code because it is an organization described in section 509(a)(1) or 509(a)(2) of the Code or is a supporting organization described in section 509(a)(3) of the Code other than a type 3 nonfunctionally integrated supporting organization, and has received a determination letter from the Internal Revenue Service to such effect.
- The Funds and any income thereon are to be used solely for the purposes of the Project unless the Grantee receives written consent otherwise from the Foundation; provided, however, that the Funds must be used exclusively for purposes described in section 501(c)(3) of the Code. No funds may be spent for any other purpose.
- Any Funds not expended or committed for the purposes of the Project must be immediately returned to the Foundation. The Grantee agrees that the Foundation has standing to enforce the conditions of this Agreement, including repayment of diverted or unused funds.
- Although the Funds need not be physically segregated, the Funds and the income thereon should be accounted for separately on the Grantee’s books and records. Records of receipts and expenditures under the Project, as well as copies of reports submitted to the Foundation, must be kept by the Grantee for at least four years after the payment of the Funds. The Grantee’s books and records must be available for the Foundation’s inspection at reasonable times upon reasonable notice.
Funding & Subawards
- Halfway through the Project (if not earlier), the RCP Governing Board will perform a Project evaluation on behalf of the Foundation. If the evaluation reveals any material deficiencies in the opinion of the RCP Governing Board, the Project may be placed in a “probationary period” through which the Grantee will work with the RCP Governing Board to ensure any deficiencies are corrected in a reasonable time. During any such probationary period, additional payment of Funds may be withheld or delayed.
- Indirect costs will be limited to 10% of the Funds and will be paid by the Foundation pro rata with each annual installment of the Funds. Any indirect costs assessed by the Grantee on the Project that exceed this 10% limit must come out of the Funds.
- Any overages in excess of the grant amount will be paid for in full by the Grantee.
- RCP Grantees will commit to completing projects using the grant funds and will have a contingency plan in place to complete projects as intended.
- RCP Grantees will handle sub-awards to collaborating institutions. Grantees, prior to funding sub-awards, shall require that the sub-awardee agree, in writing, to be bound by, and comply with, all of the obligations in this grant agreement that apply to the Grantee, including but not limited to the provisions of intellectual property, venue, and governing law.
