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!