Your Questions Answered | Preventing Communication Failures
Each month, the Catalyst will feature a question posed to our panel of SRAI Distinguished Faculty members to get their take on all sorts of topics encompassing research administration. Do you have a research administration question for our experts? Send your questions to catalyst@srainternational.org!
This month, we asked our experts: At your organization, how do you prevent egregious failures in communication between PIs and fellow research administrators? What kind of policies or procedures do you have in place?
Domenica G. Pappas, CRA, Associate Vice Provost for Research, Office of Research, Illinois Tech, SRAI Distinguished Faculty
- We do not have any formal policies/procedures on communications. We do have formal training program son discrimination/communication which is mandatory for all individuals.
When something “goes wrong” we handle it on an individual basis. If we find that communications are becoming unprofessional/rude/attacking, it is brought to the Supervisor. If it occurs with a Faculty Member, it is brought to the Vice Provost for Research and/or Provost.
If it’s between Research Administrators, we have a one-on-one. If needed, we escalate to Human Resources.
Jason Guilbeault, MBA, CRA, Associate Vice President for Sponsored Programs Administration, Executive Director for Augusta University Research Institute, Augusta University, SRAI Distinguished Faculty
- Generally speaking, policies should outline roles and responsibilities to manage the expectations of PIs, department admins, and central sponsored programs offices, so everyone knows who should be doing what. We’ve created tools/checklists in collaboration with faculty/admins to show tasks that each party is responsible for, and what my office (central sponsored programs) actually reviews/verifies. I hold 2 monthly meetings each month, one with dept admins and one with faculty (almost the same presentation but tailored towards each audience) where we cover a key process(es) each month to cover policies, procedures, regulatory requirements, and resources for completing the particular task(s), as well as give updates from sponsors and reminders on internal and external training opportunities. This gives everyone a chance to obtain education on a certain topic but also allows for discussion on proposed changes.
On the process side, for tasks like reports, we send out 30/90 days notices (it’s an automated process) that tells the PI and their department admin that an award is ending, which could be a trigger for completing a report or requesting a no-cost extension. For account setups, I revamped the entire process from pre- to post award and built statuses into our eRA Commons system (InfoEd) where the status is updated for each handoff, so a PI/dept admin can easily see where we are with the account setup process (management can track setups that are taking too long as well and see what’s going on). When it comes to processes, you have to figure out what the key ones are that are causing frustration and try to build in communication into the process, so it’s not just one-off communications that are hard to manage. It’s more efficient to set up your reporting deadlines in your eRA Commons system at the account setup phase, so your system can automatically send out reminders at set intervals, or if it can’t be done automatically, the central office can run queries on the data and distribute regularly in bulk.
Dara C. Little, Associate VP for Research/Executive Director Sponsored Programs, Northern Illinois University, SRAI Distinguished Faculty
- In addition to the other great comments, one other thing that I do is meet regularly with associate deans and other division heads to discuss issues as well as new policies and procedures to keep pace with changing regulations. These groups can be helpful in disseminating information and be a sounding board to think through policy and procedure considerations that we may not be aware of in the grants office.
I could mention some of the “stick” mechanisms we have for PI compliance (luckily, I’ve never had to use them!) but more important to me with this question is recognizing that it’s incredibly challenging to keep up with changing requirements and unfunded mandates for many sponsored programs offices. Sometimes a failure isn’t so much about negligence as it is simple capacity.