Survey on Staffing - Professional and Sup RUSTY 08 Jun 1994 08:00 EST

I have looked for this type of information many times.  However I
am reluctant to answer this survey because it does not address
the comprehensive picture and would be taken out of context by
most academic administrators and by all faculty.  For example,
you want to know the number of proposals issued as well as the
number of staff members it takes to accomplish you work, etc.,
but you never ask anything as to the number of responsible areas
of the office.  Does your office provide comprehensive pre-award
services?  Do you maintain large files of information about
funding sources?  Dou you maintain CD Rom files about funding
opportunities?  Do you send out individual announcements to all
research faculty? Do you conduct special searches for funding
opportunities for individual faculty? Do you coordinate funding
opportunities with your faculty and local industry? state or
national industries?  Do you provide technical and or support
services such as word processing, graphics, statistical
assistance, image processing, etc?
 Do you provide comprehensive management of funded projects
including such things as dunning notices to faculty for
deliverables due, writing of subcontracts and administration of
same, property and inventory control and management for contract
and grants, Defense and Industrial Security Classification
program administration,  Institutional Review Board
Administration, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
administration, and/or Institutional Ethics Committee
administration?

Do you provide any or all of the accounting functions necessary
to successful management of contracts and grants?  Do you do the
billings to funding agencies for costs incurred on contracts and
grants?  Do you close out financial accounts at the end of a
project?  Do you handle out of country fiscal transactions to
facilitate off-site research such as wiring money to foreign
banks, etc.?

Do you do the training necessary for new faculty and staff on a
regular basis to insure continuity of your institutions policies
and proceedures?

Are you responsible for the disclosure and patent process for
your institution?  Do you use in-house lawyers for patent issues
or do you hire outside consulting attorneys?  Do you handle the
subcontracts with outside attorneys?  Do you prepare copyright
and patent paperwork including checks or other remissions to the
Patent and copyright office?  Do you handle the licensing of
technology from within your office or do you use an outside
service for such arrangements?

I guess my point is we all do things in different ways and assume
different responsibilities in the management of our research
offices at our individual institutions.  I believe that a quick
and dirty collection of data as proposed by the first writer in
this string is of little or no value for comparison purposes.  We
must not compare apples to oranges!  Does anyone else have any
thoughts on this subject?  I would like to hear for you!