NYU Research Administrators Forum

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NYU Research Administrators Forum

• November 29, 2007

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NCURA National Meeting 2007

• Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts
• Challenges with internal depts partnering
• Participating departments need to learn one
  anothers language and culture
• Large project opportunities may require a limited
  submission process
• Buy-in significant resources (tens of thousands
  of dollars) may need to be dedicated to reach
  submission
• Challenges with external collaborators
• Varied policies, procedures
• Multiple approvals (IRB, IACUC, COI committees at
  partnering institution as well as yours)
• Need to build trust cant always be done in a
  short time
• Lead investigator is key to bringing it all
  together
• Benefit high risk, high yield, high profile

3
Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts
(contd)

• Essential concerns and need to plan for
• Small Business Subcontracting
• Management
• Data Dissemination
• Graduate Education
• Outreach
• Assessment
• Diversity
• Potential Pitfalls
• Turf wars who gets the glory
• Dont be afraid to ask hard questions where is
  the cost sharing coming from?
• Make sure to engage external support
  politicians, other agency/institutional support
  if needed
• Is there enough time to create a competitive
  proposal?
• Need consistency in writing unified voice
• Be ready for site visits

4
Facilitating Large and Complex Proposal Efforts
(contd)

• Success factors
• Strong faculty lead
• Administrative Champion
• TIME
• Centralized support for large submission
  institutional proposal development team (proposal
  production, arranging meetings, etc)
• External support for editing and graphics
• Provide space for materials (proposal war room)

5
NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• Grants.gov Update
• Agencies may use Adobe or PureEdge platform
• 100 opportunities available using Adobe
• Office 2007 supports Adobe
• Download correct version of Adobe at grants.gov
  website
• If have a high version of Adobe reader on
  computer, need to configure so that forms are
  downloaded with 8.1.1, or you wont be able to
  save and submit forms
• Must have Adobe 7.0.9 to create PDFs for upload

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Grants.gov Update(contd)

• Adobe presents an alpha list for all uploads
  PAY ATTENTION to naming so application can easily
  be checked for completeness
• On PC attachments automatically alphabetize
• Make faculty aware of this because they may not
  be able to control order of attachments
• Mac attachments dont automatically alphabetize
• Adobe takes over October 2007 no more PureEdge
  after September 30, 2008!

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NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• Cost Sharing The Tie that Binds Us
• Pitfalls
• Audit findings
• Cost sharing policy statement
• Cost Sharing Definitions Mandatory, Voluntary
  committed, Voluntary uncommitted
• Methods of Cost Sharing
• Consistent Treatment of Costs
• Valuation of third party contributions
• Recognition of Requirements
• Verifiable
• Not used as cost sharing for more than one
  project
• Necessary and reasonable for objectives
• In approved budget

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Cost Sharing The Tie that Binds Us (contd)

• Need for related procedures
• Who approves cost sharing?
• How is approval routed and when?
• Who documents? Department, ledger, cost
  transfers?
• Verification of equipment or buildings used for
  cost sharing
• Cost share accounts established at project set-up
• Best practice Cost share should be monitored to
  ensure commitment is being met proportionate to
  spending
• Difference in federally negotiated overhead rate
  and sponsor rate can be used as cost share for
  federal projects only with prior approval. For
  other sponsors, depends on award terms and
  conditions.
• Voluntary uncommitted effort should not be
  reflected on the TE certification to sponsored
  project(s).
• Once reported, it must be included in the
  organized research base and would potentially
  reduce our overhead rate.

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Cost Sharing The Tie that Binds Us (contd)

• Take aways
• Only commit to required cost sharing and only up
  to required level
• Commit only what you are prepared to deliver
• Document, document, document
• Educate PIs about cost-sharing only what is
  required

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NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• Time and Effort Reporting
• Recent NSF Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
  Audits (Caltech, Yale, Univ. of Arizona, Univ. of
  Pennsylvania, Univ. of Hawaii and the list is
  growing!)
• Summarized audits at other institutions can be
  found at www.costaccounting.org
• Problems identified
• Variance between percentage of salary charged and
  effort claimed to have been spent by PI
• Inability of certifiers to verify work was
  performed
• No process for timely reporting of significant
  changes to effort
• Significant change should be defined in policy
• Committed effort cannot be reduced by more than
  25 for a period exceeding three months without
  sponsor prior approval
• Some certifying budgeted amount instead of actual
  effort, not including uncompensated or cost
  shared effort
• Submission of incomplete reports
• Late submission of reports

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Time and Effort Reporting (contd)

• Take aways
• Dont charge or claim 100 time and effort to
  grants in 99.9 of cases, faculty are doing
  something other than solely research
• Tolerance of /- 5, which would not require a
  reallocation of salary and effort
• Only applicable if committed effort to sponsored
  projects is less than 100
• Time must be expressed as percent of total
  activity, not hours
• Frequency of reporting should match method of
  certification
• Better to have no policy than one that is not
  enforced!

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NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• Cost Transfers - Where Youll Find Unity and
  Diversity
• Institutions utilize Time Effort reports to
  process cost transfers
• Others have a hard and steadfast rule not to
  process cost transfers
• Must comply with institutional cost transfer
  policy
• Other institutions are still processing cost
  transfers manually

13
NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• NIH Update
• As in the past, will be issuing non-competing
  awards at 80
• Upward adjustments considered after final
  appropriations determined
• New Scientific/Grants Management Policies
• Centralized database of Human Genome Data
• Ensures broad access to data sets
• Policy effective 1/25/08 http//grants.nih.gov/gr
  ants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-088.html

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NIH Update (contd)

• New Limits on Application Resubmissions
• http//grants.nih.gov/grants/plicy/resubmission_q
  a.htm
• NIH Salary Cap
• 2008 rates to be announced soon, continue to use
  2007 rates (186,600) for now
• Include full salary information so NIH can adjust
  based on future limits

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NIH Update (contd)

• Elimination of Paper Award Letters (NoA)
• Effective 1/1/08, NIH will no longer send hard
  copies
• NoAs sent by email to AOR and accessible via eRA
  commons
• Financial Status Report Submissions
• Effective 10/1/07 must be done electronically
• Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency
  Act
• Impact Well have to provide information about
  subrecipients and subcontractors to federal
  agency so they can enter into centralized
  database accessible by all
• Information fields amount, description of
  purpose, name and location of performer and where
  work is to be conducted, others

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NIH Update (contd)

• FY 2008 NIH OIG Audit Workplan
• Focus will be on cost principles, time and effort
  reporting, cost transfers, admin and clerical
  salaries being charged directly
• Compensation for Grad Students
• Tied to zero level NRSA postdoc stipend
• Includes salary/wages, fringe benefits and
  tuition remission
• No adjustments made to noncompeting award years
  grantees may rebudget to accommodate higher
  levels
• Policy on Data Sharing
• Apps for 500K or more in a year must include
  plan for sharing final research data
• Must include plans for sharing model organisms
  when appropriate
• Upcoming NIH seminars see http//grants.nih.gov/g
  rants/seminars.htm

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NCURA National Meeting 2007 (contd)

• NSF Update
• America COMPETES legislation passed 8/07Creating
  Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence
  in Technology, Education, and Science
• NSF implementation expected Dec 07/Jan 08
• Some changes coming down the pike
• Post doc Research fellows must be mentored
• Responsible Conduct of Researchtraining
  component in Institutional Training Grants must
  be described in proposal
• Reporting of Research Resultsprogress reports
  and final reports must address activities
  undertaken to meet training, mentoring
  requirements
• Sharing Research Resultsmust be made
  available to all
• Cost Sharing Yes, its back! For Major Research
  Instrumentation (MRI) program as of now but will
  also apply to 2 new programs not yet
  authorized/released by NSF
• MRIproposals include 30 cost sharing
  requirement specify on Line M of 1030
• ONLY EXCEPTION NO cost sharing required of
  NON-PhD granting universities

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NSF Update (contd)

• Revised Proposal and Award Policies and
  Procedures Guide (PAPPG)
• Expected December 07
• Will address and describe Transformative
  Research
• Revised language for intellectual merit and
  broader impact statements
• NSF will be specific as to what they want
• Effective 1/5/08 proposals will be evaluated
  against new review criteria

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NSF Update (contd)

• Updated font requirements
• Arial, Courier New, or Palatino Linotype must be
  10 pts or larger
• Times New Roman, Computer Modern family must be
  11 pts or larger
• Math formulas, equations, tables have no limits
  but must be readable
• May advise PIs to start using now
• Proposal reviews automatically accessible by PI
  via Fastlane

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NSF Update (contd)

• Merit Review website http//www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/
  policy/meritreview/index.jsp
• Send to new PIs
• NSF program staff will be required to complete a
  mandatory merit review class
• Being implemented to help provide guidance and
  consistency re evaluation of proposals

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NSF Update (contd)

• www.research.gov web portal
• NSFs next adventure in E-commerce
• Seeking participation from other federal agencies
• Goal is one-stop shop for information
• Search on a PI name and see entire portfolio of
  proposals submitted to any participating agency,
  with status, reviewer comments, etc. as well as
  access to award information
• Bookmark http//www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/ for
  updates from the NSF policy office

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DoD Cap on Indirect costs

• Inserted into FY08 DoD appropriations bill
• Capped at 35 total costs
• Translates into 53.8 tdc no effect on NYU WSq
  currently

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Survey of research administration at NYU

• 33 administrators
• 482 faculty
• Common complaints
• Payroll
• OBR accuracy and readability
• Interfaces among offices