Grants Management

Grants Management is responsible for the administration of extramural support received by the SMHS for research, public service and instructional programs.

Novelution (ERAC)

Grants Management Services

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Proposal Preparation

Once a faculty member has made the decision to submit a proposal to an identified sponsor, Grants Management is available to assist in and review the financial aspects of the proposal submission. This includes:

Providing consultation on preparing the budget
Identifying potential problems in the financial administration of the proposed project
Options for addressing those problems
Identifying appropriate sources of cost share
Interpreting sponsor guidelines

Proposal Review and Routing

All proposals for extramural support must be reviewed by Grants Management before they are signed by an authorized official of the University.
Grants Management will provide DRAFT reviews upon request.
After the Principal Investigator has done their PI Attestation, Grants Management will review and gather signatures from the Chair, Associate Dean for Research and the Dean.
Upon completion of the SMHS signatures, Grants Management will forward the proposal to the UND Research & Sponsored Program Development office for the final review and authorized signature.

Award Review

The Grants Management office reviews award documents for scope of work, cost, timing, or other financial considerations. While review is allowable, the Grants Management office in not responsible for negotiating the award document. Research & Sponsored Program Development will do the negotiation with the potential sponsor.

Monitoring Existing Awards

Grants Management is responsible for monitoring currently funded sponsored projects at the SMHS in tandem with the Principal Investigators and their administrative staff. This includes assuring that costs are allowable, notification of any sponsored projects which are overdrawn or may be ending soon, assuring that employees are properly certifying to their effort, and assisting PI's with re-budgeting, no-cost extensions, and project close-out.

Training

Grant & Contract Training Sessions are provided as a resource for faculty and staff to help with all areas of sponsored funding. Training is available individually or for a group upon request. There is no cost for a training session.

Effort Reporting: What am I signing?

View 2019 Session

PDF of example PAC form

The focus is for Graduate Students, Post Docs and "new" or "new to" SMHS faculty gearing up to submit a proposal for sponsored funding.

National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) YouTube Tuesdays also provides short presentations on various topics that are new each Tuesday.

News & Updates

Released January 6, 2023, the NIH Salary Cap changed under NOT-HS-23-005. The Federal Executive Level II Salary Cap changed effective January 1, 2023. The amount is $212,100. This will affect new NIH awards and some DHHS and Department of Justice awards.
The current Indirect Cost Rate Agreement date is August 12, 2022.
Indirect Cost Rates are 41% for Research and 35% for Other Sponsored
ASSIST through the NIH Commons is available to generate NIH proposals. Workspace through Grants.gov is also available to generate NIH or other agency proposals.
Graduate student fringe benefits are currently estimated about $120 per year.
The budget tool has been revised to separate out Key Personnel and Other Personnel. Please use this tool if there is not an agency specific budget to use.
In all budget justifications, please designate a Key Personnel section and also an Other Personnel section.

Did You Know - Research Tidbits?

10/5/2021 - The Public Health Service Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) training is now done through CITI training for faculty and staff. Currently the electronic proposal routing system, Novelution, is not yet integrated with the CITI training. For now, if you get a notification about FCOI in Novelution, please ignore it until the Central Office asks you to do the training.
The UND Research & Sponsored Program Development lead time policy for internal processing of grant proposals is five business days. This means that five business days prior to the due date of the proposal, a finalized version should have all SMHS signatures and be ready for the final authorized signature.
As the PI of a grant project, you may be contacted by a Federal, State, or University auditor concerning expenses on your grant. When you receive these phone calls or e-mails, direct that individual to the SMHS Grants Manager.
When a new grant project number is set up by the UND Grants & Contracts Accounting Office, the PI of the project is provided a copy of the PI Report and associated documents.
UND policy states that if your grant project requires IRB approval, a grant project number (ex. UND0012345) will not be set up until the IRB approval has been obtained.
Your proposal budget may ask for a "Cognizant Agency" for our Indirect Cost Rate Schedule. UND's "Cognizant Agency" is the US Department of Health & Human Services. Our Point of Contact is Karen Wong at 415.437.7820.
Federal and UND regulations require that conflict of interest forms be on file for principal investigators (PI's) of proposals submitted to external funding agencies. UND has an approved a policy on conflict of interest. PIs must also submit a "Certification of Filing of Financial Interests Disclosure Statement" to the UND, or more frequently if their status changes during the year.
In order to ensure that correspondence from granting agencies is received by UND Research & Sponsored Program Development in a timely manner, please use UND.RSPD@UND.edu on all external grant proposals.
Reviewing your "PI Report" monthly helps you verify your budget, expenses and budget balance.
If you are proposing a subcontract in your budget, you will need to receive a commitment letter with an authorized signature, budget, budget justification, scope of work and any agency mandated forms from that entity, before the proposal is submitted by UND.
Once an employee receives his/her "Personnel Activity Confirmation" report, they have to review, sign, and return this form to the SMHS Grants Management so it can be certified within 30 days.
It is very important to verify that your actual effort percentage on a grant project meets the effort percentage shown in the grant proposal.
"Spending down" a sponsored project when it gets close to the end date of that project is strictly prohibited per the Federal Uniform Guidance.
Facilities & Administrative Costs (F&A Costs also known as Indirect Costs) are only charged on the first $25,000 of each subcontract, and are not charged on any individual piece of equipment purchase $5,000 and above.
Salary corrections should not be done on an employee once that employee has certified to their time on their "Personnel Activity Confirmation" report.
A grant project number can be set up prior to the award document being received by submitting the appropriate memo to UND Research & Sponsored Program Development.
No-cost extension requests need to be reviewed by Grants Management and submitted by UND Research & Sponsored Program Development.
Expenses such as office supplies, line charges, postage, administrative salaries, memberships, food purchases, subcontracts and equipment are considered unallowable on grants and contracts unless they are listed in the proposal budget and justified in the budget justification.
Your proposal needs to be provided by email notification to the SMHS Grants Manager who will get signatures from Chair, SMHS Associate Dean for Research, SMHS Dean, and UND Research & Sponsored Program Development before you are allowed to submit it to the sponsor. This process may take up to five business days to complete once the SMHS has signed off on the proposal. It normally takes five days to route a completed proposal for signatures after the SMHS has signed off on the proposal.