Basics Research Administration

Basics of Research Administration


Program Objective

The 2.5-day intensive course will discuss all areas of research administration: finding funding, pre-award, award acceptance, compliance, technology transfer and post-award. Sessions will provide information at every level of research administration from several perspectives.

Program Description

Overview of Research Administration

This session will provide participants with a broad overview of the various aspects involved in research administration. The speaker will discuss all areas of research administration including:
  • Pre-award
  • Award Acceptance
  • Post-award
  • Compliance
  • Technology transfer

Sessions will provide information at every level of research administration from several perspectives.

Pre-Award

This session the pre-award "process" will be discussed, including:

  • Finding funding
  • Basics of writing proposals
  • Components of budget development
  • Institutional review and approval processes
  • Proposal submission and post submission activities

Learning Objectives:

  1. Describe the process of pre-award
  2. Identify components of guidelines
  3. Identify the parts of a proposal
  4. Identify usual budget items

Award Acceptance

This session focuses on the award acceptance process, the review of the award mechanism type, terms and conditions of awards including:

  • Indemnification
  • Publication restrictions
  • Intellectual property
  • Re-budgeting, international collaborations
  • Invoicing and payment terms
  • Reporting requirements
  • Compliance
  • Termination
  • Award acceptance

Learning Objectives:

  1. List three main types of awards
  2. Be able to establish a plan of best practices in review and acceptance of awards
  3. Implement those best practices when reviewing awards
  4. Be able to explain the award life cycle, including changes, transfers and closeouts

Post-Award

This post-award session will discuss functions such as: 

  • Account/fund establishment
  • Cost principles
  • Financial management
  • Re-budgeting
  • Sub-recipient monitoring

Topics related to fiscal and programmatic reporting, cost sharing, program income, procurement standards; indirect cost rate types audit preparation, and the closeout process will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand guiding administrative/fiscal principles and regulations related to sponsored awards
  2. Identify critical information in awards for project setup, monitoring and reporting
  3. Describe typical functions of Post Award and be aware of basic processes and requirements
  4. Understand components of effective post-award administration

Compliance

Compliance is one of the key elements of successful project management. Compliance encompasses a variety of important topics including:

  • Risk assessment of the project
  • Animal subjects
  • Conflict of interest
  • Data management
  • Environmental health and safety
  • Export controls
  • Human subjects
  • Misconduct in science
  • Responsible conduct of research

These topics will be incorporated into the other sections of this workshop as appropriate.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Be able to discern institutional and investigator compliance responsibilities relating to sponsored research
  2. Understand which aspects of compliance need to be addressed at which stage of the grant life cycle

Expected Outcomes

After completing Basics of Research Administration, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the differences among various positions and their responsibilities in research administration
  • Understand the research administration process from beginning to end
  • Learn how to assist an investigator in finding funding sources
  • Distinguish between allowable and unallowable costs
  • Distinguish between direct and F&A (indirect) costs
  • Describe the various components of a proposal budget
  • Describe the difference type of award instruments
  • Identify and learn the purpose of the governing federal regulations
  • Identify the major compliance issues
  • Understand procurement, financial, records and property management
  • Describe the closeout process

Intended Audience

This program is intended primarily for the research administrators with less than 2 years experience who are involved in any area of research administration. The conference is targeted specifically to new personnel in positions such as pre-award coordinators, departmental administrators, post-award coordinators, compliance coordinators, grant accountants, and others with newly-acquired responsibilities who need to understand the broad spectrum of research administration.

CPE Credit for Certified Public Accountants (CPA)

SRA International is accredited by the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. This program is administered by the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) to sponsor and award Continuing Professional Education (CPE's) to accounting professionals. Click Here to learn more about CPE Credit. 

This program is eligible to earn CPE Credit under the following approved Fields of Study: 

  • Business Law - 4.0 credit hours 
  • Business Management and Operations - 2.0 credit hours 
  • Finance - 5.0 credit hours 
  • Management Services - 4.5 credit hours
  • Regulatory Ethics - 2.5 credit hours 

Program Speakers

jamison.jpgJudy Bristow
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs Administration
University of Louisville 		 jbaumann.jpgJohn R. Baumann, PhD
Associate Vice President for Research Compliance
Indiana University

Testimonials

Thank you for making my first conference a great one. In this particular intensive training, there were so many fun and engaging parts to the conference that helped me with learning the material. I am currently an Administrative Assistant with the University of Kentucky Research Foundation, but I plan to advance within my institution if a chance presents itself. The speakers made this training a fun experience for me and I cannot wait until I get to attend another one. I highly recommend this conference to anyone who is in search of the Basics of Research Administration.
–JK LeMay, Administrative Support Associate I, Office of Sponsored Projects Administration, University of Kentucky Research Foundation (Basics of Research Administration, Austin, TX, February 2019)

Thanks so much for hosting the Basics of Research Administration session last week. As someone without direct experience in the research world, I was really grateful to experience a bit about the day-to-day, the complexities teams work with, and best practices.
–Joe Burke, Product Support Specialist I, Cayuse (Basics of Research Administration, Austin, TX, February 2019)

This was a really great experience, I learned so much and enjoyed meeting my peers and making connections.
–Kirsti Moose, Grants Administrator, University of Virginia (Basics of Research Administration, Milwaukee, WI, July 2018)

Overall the program was excellent and well thought out and taught. I learned a lot in just a few short days that helps me put the grant administration I do more in perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from the presenters and others about actual real-life stories and questions as they related to the topics at hand.
–Erika Pierce, Grant Manager, Department of Psychiatry/Research, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center (Basics of Research Administration, Indianapolis, IN, July 2017)

It was great to get an overview of the grants administration process and see how all the puzzle pieces fit together. Being in post-award, it was interesting to see what went on with the compliance, award acceptance, and pre-award side of things.
–Guyane Valian, MBA, Grants Contracts Coordinator, University of Southern California (Basics of Research Administration, San Diego, CA, January 2017)

This conference was incredibly valuable and I am very pleased with the whole experience and information learned. I really liked the handouts and especially the resource book that contained slides and other valuable information! As a new research administrator, I really liked the flow of this class and how it logically followed the flow of the process. I also liked that the instructors were careful not to assume that we already knew/understood anything.
–Saralee Johnston, Research Project Coordinator, Office of Research, Intermountain Healthcare (Basics of Research Administration, Salt Lake City, UT, July 2016)

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the program!  These topics have the potential to be terribly boring, but the presenters all did a wonderful job of taking the information and presenting in a manner that was engaging, informative, and entertaining!
– Lisa P. Gremillion, Grants/Contract Specialist, Louisiana State University (Basics of Research Administration, Orlando, FL, February 2016)

I thought that the setup of this program was wonderfully done.  I really enjoyed all the information.  It was a lot to take in, but I have resources that I didn't know I had before.
– Lenore Johnson, Office Manager, Florida Hospital Translational Research Institute for Diabetes and Metabolism (Basics of Research Administration, Orlando, FL, February 2016)

This was a great opportunity to get the broad overview of what research admin is in general. A lot of it I already knew since I've been in it for a year, but there were a lot of subtle things I picked up on that will be very helpful.
– Patricia McGee-Welch, Executive Secretary, University of Houston - Clear Lake (Basics of Research Administration, Orlando, FL, February 2016)

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