Managing Projects

A Managing Projects - Postaward Top 3 Questions Video (3 mins) is available for this page.

Managing the administrative aspects of your sponsored research project is critical to meeting your fiscal, administrative and technical/scientific contractual obligations. Succeeding at these aspects of your award is as important as succeeding at technical/scientific aspects to establish good relationships with sponsors and build credentials required to win more and larger research awards in the future.

Expenditures 

Properly charging expenses to sponsored projects is a critical aspect of staying on budget and surviving audits. Identifying Allowable Costs vs Unallowable Costs is the cornerstone to accurate project accounting. The majority of allowable costs incurred on sponsored projects comes from personal services/labor. Effort Reporting is the system for applying and tracking Personal Services (Personnel Services). 

Other Operating Costs distinguishes between many common project expenses such as meeting vs entertainment costs where one type of cost is allowable and the other is not.

Project Financials, Status and Changes

Principal investigators and project managers need to be able to status a number of aspects of their projects and adapt to changing circumstances. This level of detail provides a snapshot of the overall health of the project. The resources associated with these functions allow you to adapt to project changes in sponsor approved methods and mitigate challenges as they arise.

Fiscal Responsibilities covers a range of topics including: deficits, financial status reports, program income, license fees and royalties and cash management. Similarly, Cost Sharing provides guides to properly tally and account for cost sharing obligations.

The Project Changes page describes procedures for changing key personnel, scope or objectives, and timeframes including effective dates and no-cost extension. The Award Transfer page treats complete transfers of ongoing sponsored projects between the University of Arizona and other institutions.

Various forms of Reporting such as technical, financial and invention disclosures meet contractual obligations while also proving our ability to manage our research and meet deliverables.

Sponsored projects with Subawards usually indicate large scale, multi-organization projects where maintaining control over status, change and audit events is more challenging than single organization projects.

Property/Equipment and Information Management

Maintaining proper custodial purview over Property/Equipment Administration, Record Management and Data Access and Ownership are important elements of successful projects. Properly accounting for these administrative functions also creates a strong foundation toward prudent Audit Management.

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