Budget period
The stretch of time one instalment of funding covers, usually twelve months. A multi-year award is normally a chain of budget periods inside one longer period of performance, each with its own report and its own decision to continue.
Part of the GrantTrove grant funding glossary — one entry for every field the catalogue stores.
Also called Budget year
In detail
The distinction matters because a three-year award is frequently three one-year commitments in a row. Money for year two is released on a continuation decision that considers your reports, and a project designed as though all three years were guaranteed is a project with a cliff in it.
Notices state the total period far more often than they state the budget period structure inside it, which is why a "three-year" programme and a "three consecutive one-year" programme look identical in a listing.
Against the period of performance
The period of performance is the whole window in which costs may be incurred. A budget period is one funded slice of it. We store the deadline and the open date — `deadline_at` and `open_at` — which describe the application window, not the award window. Neither is a period of performance and neither is a budget period.
How GrantTrove stores it
- `deadline_at`, `deadline_type` and `open_at` describe when you may apply. `deadline_note` keeps the source’s own qualifying wording beside them.
- Where a notice states a project duration, that sentence stays in the notice. We do not derive an award window from an application window, which would be a date nobody published.
Common questions
Is a three-year award guaranteed for three years?
Frequently not. It is often three budget periods with a continuation decision between each. The notice says which.
Do you store the project duration?
No. The date fields on a record are about applying, not about performing.
What happens between budget periods?
A report is due and a continuation decision is made. Both are award terms, in the award document.