Re: Conflict of interest? Susan Meslang 19 Nov 2004 13:42 EST
thanks - and that is a great story. Susan W. Meslang Director of Grants and Sponsored Programs Tidewater Community College 121 College Place Norfolk, Virginia 23510-1907 Office 757 822-1773 Cell 757 409-2887 Fax 757 822-1007 xxxxxx@tcc.edu >>> xxxxxx@UAF.EDU 11/19/2004 1:37:32 PM >>> Susan - Oh, yes, this is a conflict of interest. But we've all seen love blossom over the lab bench, so it's not that unusual and the conflict can be managed. 1) Prove the spouse's credentials - publications, synergistic activities, research/awards in the field, etc. This needs to be able to stand up to a rigorous external review (your local newspaper, the relevant IGs office, etc....) 2) I assume the spouse is an independent contractor and not a temp employee for the institution? If you have a co-PI on the award that the spouse can be supervised by, that is good. Other options are that they would report to and have invoices/effort reports signed off by a department head/director/dean. You must remove all approvals of spousal work from the other spouse. It's a control issue, and no matter how honest and above board everyone is, if you don't the liability possibilities are enormous. 3) Facilities & Office Space - where is the work going to take place? At this point, we'll assume that the spouse is qualified and legitimately capable of doing the work. Now we need to know where the work will take place. Are they using their own space, or using the organizations space? Why? Is there an agreement in place? Is it appropriate? Are we (the organization) going to be charged for samples being processed on our own equipment? Or will we be only charged for data analysis after those samples are run? You get the idea..... are we paying someone's overhead costs as a consultant when they are using our space and don't really have any overhead. 4) Finally - why the spouse and not someone else? If the spouse's credentials have been proven sufficient enough that they are capable of doing the work, why the spouse? If the spouse happens to be the only North American expert on the mating habits of Star Bellied Sneetches, and the project needs one, case proven. I have had a number of PIs that were/are married work together, and we've managed to make it work. I've also had a situation where no one knew of the relationship, and the spouse contracted to do work with us on the other spouse's award, and was doing work after hours in one of our labs, and then charging us a full fee for sample processing, analysis, and write-up. That was ugly. Good luck! Tania -- Accountability and accounting are not the same thing Tania H. Clucas, CRA Financial Manager College of Natural Science and Mathematics University of Alaska Fairbanks 354 NSF, 900 Yukon Drive Fairbanks, AK 99775-5940 Voice 907.474.5740 Fax 907.474.5101 mailto:xxxxxx@uaf.edu http://www.uaf.edu/csem ====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ====================================================================== ====================================================================== Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists") ======================================================================