Leiden University Request for Approval (RfA) procedure

Researchers who are planning a research project often need to have specific contracts or legal documents approved and signed. These could be, for example, confidentiality agreements or contracts for sharing data or material, or (more frequently) documents that are needed when applying for grants, such as a declaration of intent or a declaration of honour.

It is important that both the researchers themselves and the research support professionals who assist them know what steps they must take to have these research-related contracts and grant documents approved and signed – and who should be contacted for this. To make this process more efficient, it was recently revised and simplified. A visual representation of this new procedure within Leiden University has also been developed, in the form of a handy flowchart. 

For each type of document, the flowchart clearly shows:

• which research-related contracts and grant documents require legal evaluation;
• which approvals must be obtained (using the Request for Approval form);
• who is permitted to sign, according to the applicable Mandate Regulations.

Request for Approval form (RfA)

The Mandate Regulations state who has the requisite power to sign legal documents on behalf of Leiden University. The Request for Approval form is used to arrange the internal approvals that are needed from the person with financial, legal, and substantive responsibility ahead of this step.