At VCU the contractual signature for proposals and awards is granted by the
Board to the V-P Research and Graduate Studies, who may delegate in writing.
(President can sign anything!)  Current official delegation is ONLY to
Director, Sponsored Programs.  Two senior staff members of OSPA sign the
Director's name, with the informal concurrence of both the V-P and the
General Counsel; Director takes full responsibility.  (V-P has been known to
sign things that cause problems; he knows little of the esoterica of
contractual matters and can be suckered into being a "good Guy" -- this can
be a problem in any organization where the big boss deoesn't have
specialized knowledge but feels a compulsion to make decisions without
counsel of staff.)

This is for almost $100M/year.  It includes ALL agreements for sponsored
programs.  Clinical trial agreements would be a problem to delegate because
there are a number of legal points in the agreements that we have to watch
carefully, in part because we are a state institution.  Our experience is
that, outside of OSPA staff, there is little concern about those legal and
other-than-P.I.-type matters -- until someone makes a commitment that
shouyld not be made, and the institution has problems!

We are about to do one limited delegation:  we're calling it "catalogue
proce agreement", and it will be limited to  a) activities/prices on an
approved list,   b) fixed unit price agreement,   c) use only of a
prescribed, standardized agreement form, and    d) signature assigned to
supervisor of unit making the "sale of services".

Chuck

At 10:08 AM 8/26/97 -0700, you wrote:
>We are currently evaluating our policy on signature authority
>for external funding applications and for research and
>clinical trial agreements.  I would greatly appreciate it if
>you would share your policy.  Please e-mail, fax, or provide
>your home page address.
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------
>Name: Karin Carey
>E-mail: Karin Carey <xxxxxx@carolinas.org>
>Assistant Vice President
>Grants & Contracts Management
>Carolinas HealthCare System
>P.O. Box 32861
>Charlotte, NC 28232-2861
>Phone (704) 355-1957
>FAX (704) 355-3305
>Date: 8/26/97
>Time: 10:08:38 AM
>
>-------------------------------------
>
Herbert B. Chermside, CRA
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs Admin.
Virginia Commonwealth University
PO BOX 980568
Richmond, VA  23298-0568
Voice:  (804) 828-6772
Fax:    (804) 828-2521
individual e-mail:   xxxxxx@vcu.edu
OFFICE e-mail:     xxxxxx@vcu.edu
OFFICE website:   http://views.vcu.edu/views/ospa/