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Office offers grants administration help

by Dick Peterson
Public Relations
It really comes down to knowing who’s best at playing the grants game, the guy who reads the rules, or the guy who writes the rules.

That’s how Dillard Marshall in the MUSC Office of Research and Sponsored Programs sees it. “If there’s one thing I’d like our researchers to know, it’s that we’re here to take care of the administrative requirements of their federal grants and let them do their science.”

Marshall ought to know. His participation in the Federal Demonstration Partnership project makes him privy to not only the rules, but the intent with which those rules were written. The project is a National Science and Technology Council response to a presidential directive to improve the federal government’s partnership with universities, “The rules are changing,” Marshall said. “And they are making life easier for the research scientist who depends heavily on federal funding to continue working.” What he wants the researchers at MUSC to know is that working with his office will get them what they want more readily than if they try to work the system themselves.

What few people outside the grants-for-research system know is that a federal award for a research project is permission from a federal agency for the university to spend its money. The permission comes with restrictions on how the money can be spent and for what purpose. 

Money spent is accounted for by the project’s principal investigator, who itemizes the expenditures in line with the restrictions. Items may include such things as salaries, equipment, supplies and anything else as spelled out in the terms of the grant. 

Expenditures accounted for by the investigator are then reviewed and reimbursed by the federal agency awarding the grant. 

Problems arise when a principal investigator realizes his research is hindered by a lack of funding for an item not included in his grant. So he enters the murky realm of rules and regulations— Marshall’s expertise—looking for the “permission” he needs. 

Marshall said that more often than not the principal investigator can get what he needs to continue his research unhindered by consulting first with the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. The office, Marshall said, exists not to deny or police the investigator’s use of federal grant money, but to facilitate it in ways that will keep both the investigator and the university out of trouble three years later when—not if—federal auditors take a microscopic look at how the grant money was used.

Investigators, take heart. In April, President Clinton directed the National Science and Technology Council to improve the research partnership between the federal government and the nation’s universities. From the outset, the council has been guided by principles that view research as an investment in the future and recognize the vital link between eduction and research. The council also determined that merit review of investments in research promotes excellence, and research must be conducted with integrity.

Changes initiated by the federal program affect research continuity by carrying over funds from one grant year to the next and re-engineering of research administration activities to give relief from bureaucratic rules and regulations. 

Other issues under discussion include exempting universities from cost accounting standards and the total elimination of salary caps. Also, the National Institutes of Health is willing to increase modular grants above the $250,000 limit in the budget, and the National Science Foundation has already revised and clarified its cost sharing policy to avoid the perception of creating bidding wars for grants. Voluntary cost sharing will no longer be a criteria for selection and awarding of grants, but voluntary cost-sharing submitted in the grant application will be enforced. The foundation is also considering allowing salaries for investigators.

The 11 federal agencies that fund research agree that they should move toward the same rules and regulations as much as possible. Where agencies can’t have the same rule, the formats for the rules must be similar. Foreign travel, for example, would always be the same in each agency’s manual.

“On a global scale, the Federal Demonstration Partnership program’s impact on MUSC reminds me that the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs needs to think differently about how to be more service-oriented,” Marshall said. 

Among changes to be in effect beginning Jan. 1, the office will no longer require proposal data sheets for federal continuing applications. “We already have the data we need from the first year. Under the revised award guidelines from the Department of Health and Human Services, what is seen in the first year is what the principal investigator gets for the term of the grant.

“Second, we can shorten the awards process. Because proposals have been approved at the departmental and institutional levels during the application process, the internal award process can be shortened to go directly to the Office of Grants and Contracts Accounting.” Marshall said that his office can go a step further on awarding account numbers. “Once we know the grant is competitive, we can establish a number well in advance of the award—a kind of ‘pre-award’ number.”

Marshall allowed that his office needs to communicate research administration more effectively. “We have information on the web that people don’t know about,” he said by way of example. “We have several things on our agenda.” Among them are:

  • Establish a research advisory committee consisting of faculty and staff from all colleges to help create an agenda for quarterly roundtable discussions.
  • Conduct an electronic survey to find out ways the office can be of more assistance.
  • Establish a corporate programs office or section to provide more assistance with clinical trials and corporate entities.
  • Propose two specific workshops on clinical trials administration, one to address clinical and fiscal issues in budget preparation for a clinical trial and another to review the research contract articles and what the institution will be striving toward.


“Research administration is dynamic and the rules for grants, even those received just last week, have changed subtly,” Marshall said. “I am pressing my staff to have more contact with individual investigators, and I would suggest that people with questions about their grants call the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. That’s where the policies are administered.”