Jennifer,
I think you have a good research project on your hands.  It would be very
interesting to know the kinds of services different institutions
provide.  I would appreciate it if you forward representative responses or
a summary, if you do one, when all the info is in.

At Rockefeller, we would love to set a firm date, but I can see the faculty
now swarming with torches outside our door if we did.  We don't have a
departmental structure (we only have individual labs, all reporting to the
President - as do we), so we essentially take the place of the departmental
administrators with regard to grant preparation.  We do the budgets with
the assistance of the PIs (we confirm all salaries, animals costs, etc.),
help with Other Support information, and give a hand with the application
process, depending on the investigator's needs.  If it's a new faculty
member or a postdoc, obviously we'll be much more involved than if it's a
senior faculty member with a first-rate lab administrator.  [We also
coordinate the institution-type applications, such as the training grants,
and copy and send in any applications for which the PI has had to have been
nominated by the University (since applying for the award was not the PI's
idea).]  Since we do so much work on the applications, we ask that a rough
draft be in our office two weeks prior to the deadline, and the final copy
three days before.  We also ask them to call their grants management
specialist in this office when they know they are going to apply for
something, as a 'heads up' -- this info goes on a large dry-erase board by
deadline date as well as on an Excel document on our shared drive.  We have
our three Senior Grants Management Specialists assigned to specific labs -
they have about 40 apiece.  And yes, that is too much.  We only request a
draft of the scientific portion with the final copy, as we know they are
going to fine-tune that until the time they have to send it off, but we
request the rest of it in final, especially human subjects and animal
sections, and introductions to revised applications (we also ask to see the
pink sheets on those).  If we don't get it within our time frame, we mark
the application "insufficient time to review" on our review sheet, which
also has the date it was submitted to our office.  We note on that sheet
all of the things we have told them to change and any other information we
want preserved for the record.  We also confirm all the compliance
information, and collect Conflict of Interest statements and forward these
on to the COI committee, if necessary.  We put notes on post-its all over
the application and send it back (we copy the application WITH the post-its
so we know exactly what we've told them to do).  If they are just editorial
corrections (we proof-read and check grammar too) I will go ahead and sign
off; but if there are substantive changes/problems I won't.  Our success
rate last fiscal year appeared to be about 40%, but this is a lot of work.

I'd love to hear what other institutions do.

Joni.

At 04:30 PM 3/7/02, you wrote:
>Hello All.
>UMass would like to pick your collective brains...   Like many of you, I
>am sure, we
>are stuggling with limited resources and growing demand for our
>services.  One area
>that we are exploring is a firm internal receipt deadline for proposals to our
>sponsored research office.  I would appreciate knowing how many of you set
>a firm
>deadline for your faculty to submit proposals to your office for review &
>submission
>to the sponsor.
>
>If you do set an internal deadline, what is it?  Do you have a separate
>policy for
>NSF Fastlane or other electronic proposals?  If you have a firm deadline,
>do you not
>accept proposals from faculty members if they don't give you the requisite
>lead
>time, or do you have an exception handling policy?  If so, what is it?
>
>Also, what level of review do you provide on your proposals:  institutional
>compliance, sponsor compliance, or both?  Is the level of review you give
>a proposal
>related in any way to the amount of time your faculty gives your office to
>review it
>before it is due to the sponsor?
>
>Are there other "value added" services you provide, such as copying and
>mailing?
>Again, are these related to how long you are given to review & process a
>proposal
>before it is due to a sponsor?
>
>If others would like me to share the information I receive, just drop me
>an email &
>I'll be happy to do so....  Thanks so much for your help and information!
>-jennifer
>--
>Jennifer Donais, CRA
>Assistant Director
>Office of Grant & Contract Administration
>University of Massachusetts
>Amherst, MA 01003
>(413) 545-5888 FAX (413) 577-1595
>http://www.umass.edu/research/ogca
>
>"If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
>something."
>
>
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Jon Hart, Director, Sponsored Programs Administration
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Ave.-Box 82, NY, NY 10021-6399
tel:  (212) 327-8054; fax:  (212) 327-8400

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