As announced in April, 2017, the University has embarked on a project to launch new financial conflict of interest (RAS-COI) and grants management (RAS-Grants) systems. As we have gone through the design process of RAS-Grants, several issues regarding data and salary security were raised.
Discussions among the University’s IT and HR departments in conjunction with the Office of Academic Affairs and the President’s Office have led to some design decisions which will impact the manner in which applications and awards are developed and managed. In particular, the process for developing budgets will be impacted.
Faculty and their staff will need to work directly with their Sponsored Programs Officer (SPO) in the Office of Sponsored Programs Administration (OSPA) to develop their budgets for proposals. OSPA has several options for assisting with this process, including Excel and Word budget templates, which faculty and their staff will need to provide to their SPO. The SPO will then enter the data into RAS-Grants and provide drafts of the budget to the PI and/or their admin for edits and changes. These draft budget reports can be run quickly by each OSPA staff member and provided in an on-demand basis. Faculty and their staff will not have direct access to the budgets within RAS-Grants.
Additionally, each application and progress report will have a detailed budget prepared, whether the application is a federal or non-federal, modular or non-modular application. This change will enable OSPA and Finance to help ensure that applications and awards properly account for all costs and cost-sharing aspects of the project. OSPA staff will follow the same process outlined above for all applications. It is important to note that this change shifts a significant workload around proposal preparation from the labs to OSPA.
These decisions were made after great consideration and discussion among IT and HR, as well as the RAS Steering Committee. For further information or questions, please contact Collette Ryder, Director, OSPA.
