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Research Administration

Office of Sponsored Programs

The Office of Sponsored Programs performs administrative maintenance, compliance review, and oversight of external funding to support faculty and staff.

The purpose is to ensure that all research proposals and projects comply with regulations, policies and procedures. These regulations, policies and procedures come from university, federal and sponsor entities.

The office is made up of service teams to provide expertise in their areas.

Pre Award: Pre Award Associates strive to provide customer friendly support services to faculty and staff preparing and submitting research proposals to a wide array of external sponsors. Their duties and responsibilities include Requests for Proposals (RFP) review, budget development and review, proposal package checks and edits, and cost share review and authorization.
Post Award: Post-award associates play an integral role in successfully performing funded research projects by offering expertise in financial accounting and contract administration and serving as liaisons with academic departments and sponsors, pre award, the Controller’s Office, and the Procurement Department.
Contracts: Awards associates with the Contracts team expedite the set-up of new grants, cooperative agreements and contracts which have standard terms and conditions that do not require negotiation with the sponsor before acceptance.
Compliance: Compliance associates provide quality assurance through continuous monitoring of financial transactions charged to sponsored awards, assuring the expenditures are in compliance with sponsor and university regulations, policies and guidelines. They identify and monitor emerging compliance issues in extramural award administration.

Visit the Office of Sponsored Programs website to see more details related to each team.

Research Administration

Electronic Research Administration team provides cutting-edge intuitive tools that facilitate the effective and efficient management of research administration and regulatory compliance tasks by Virginia Tech’s research community, including faculty, department staff, and research administrators.

Financial Compliance

Post award associates are responsible for overall fiscal and administrative oversight of all extramural funding (sponsored awards) within their portfolios, including account setup, monitoring budget spending activity, billing and financial reporting, assuring projects comply with university, federal and sponsor regulations as the technical work progresses, and financial reporting to sponsors. Principal Investigators (PIs) are responsible for monitoring the day-to-day fiscal performance and technical progress of their sponsored award.

As soon as the department becomes aware of the PI's plan to leave VT employment, the department must inform OSP so that plans can be developed as to how to manage the PI's Portfolio. Please refer to OSP PI Eligibility procedure to learn more about department PIs inability to remain a VT PI for longer than three months after PI departure date.

Visit OSP's financial compliance website to learn more about good monitoring practices, roles & responsibilities.

Cost Transfers

A cost transfer is the reassignment of an expense to or from an award after the expense was initially charged to another sponsored award or non-sponsored fund. Costs on sponsored projects must be documented and adhere to university policies and procedures, sponsor requirements, and regulations of the sponsor and federal government.

Fringe Rates

These are for use on grants, contracts and/or other agreements issued or awarded to the University by all Federal Agencies of the United States of America. These rates shall be used for forward pricing and billing purposes.

For more information, read the Fringe Benefits Rates section of the Ledger published by the Controller's Office.

Fixed Fringe Rate Agreement Document

NIH

For NIH research applications for funding, including the Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Plan in a new section in the PHS 398 Research Plan and Career Development Award forms called "Other Plans."

Utilize the nonprofit VT Research Contracting Services, LLC (VTRCS) for help with negotiating and the execution of agreements with different sponsors with limitations due to specific terms and conditions. For additional information, visit the VTRCS webpage email Daniel Cockrum, dcockrum@vt.edu.

Human Subject Form

The Controller's Office has implemented a new Human Subject Confidentiality Certification form. When participant information must remain confidential and cannot be included in reimbursement request documentation, the form must be an attachment of the Chrome River Non-Travel Reimbursement request of the HokieMart ISR (if repaying a petty cash loan). The form replaces the Accounts Payable Manager's approved control plan.

Controller's Office Procedure 23715c, Selecting and Paying Human Subject Participants, has been updated to reflect the change.

Lab & Equipment Purchases

All materials and/or equipment purchased must be received prior to the end of the period of performance in order to be allocable to a sponsored project. When ordering lab supplies and equipment, it is extremely important to enter the actual date the lab supplies and equipment are physically received in the lab. Also, please attach the packing slips in HokieMart as proof of receipt of merchandise. All supplies/ equipment ordered and/or received after the sponsored project end date will be deemed unallocable and must be removed from the sponsored project.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

Do controls include appropriate accounting for and monitoring of total effort?
Are wage charges both allowable and reasonable? Are they appropriately allocated?
Were the reports submitted timely?
Does the person certifying the PAR have first-hand knowledge of the employee’s effort?
Are cost transfers accurate and complete?
Are cost transfers adequately supported and justified?
Are cost transfers completed timely?
Are end of project/grant transfers adequately supported and reviewed?
Are cost sharing requirements being tracked accurately in the Office of Sponsored Programs database?
Are controls adequate to ensure that multiple cost shares aren't occurring on the same funding?
Is cost sharing requirements being monitored and met?