iSchool Research Administration

Please contact iSchool’s department research admin, Ida Rahnamai (ida.rahnamai@ischool.utexas.edu), for pre-award sponsored projects submission and post-award funding management. 

Prior to PI status activation, new university researchers need to review and acknowledge the list of Researcher Responsibilities pertaining to research conducted at UT Austin. This link outlines what it means to be a PI with UT Austin and a direct link to review/acknowledge researcher responsibilities.

Additional general resources for new or new-to-UT PIs:

Pre-Award:

Ideal Timeline ahead of sponsor deadline-

• 1-2 months – Notify the department research admin of a potential funding opportunity that you will be applying to or will be a collaborator on. At minimum, the date will be noted and any initial planning can move forward as needed. 

• 3 weeks – Development of budget, looking at all the requirements of the RFP, coordinating between any collaborators or co-PIs.

• 7 days – Budget is finalized

• 4 business day – OSP requires a at least 4-business day lead time that a PI is going to apply to a proposal. We will need to submit a FP (a proposal review form) through the university’s UT Research Management System (UTRMS). Ideally, this is done a few days before to allow enough time for OSP to review. If we need to catch any errors or adjust, then this extra time is helpful.

• 1-0 days – Submission! If possible, the recommendation is to submit at least one day before the proposal deadline, so that if any revisions or corrections need to be made, there is enough time to do so.

• Please note that if UT Austin will be a sub-award to another institution, timeline will be moved up a least a week. 

How a pre-award research administrator will help PIs –

• Reviews rules and regulations for each sponsor and funding opportunity and program announcement.

• Develops budget with researcher and coordinate what proposal documents will be needed for proposal submission. Create budget and budget justification which you will review and make final edits if needed.

• Can coordinate with subaward for proposal materials

• Prepare grant application via the electronic submission portal for each sponsor and upload the requisite documents as needed, though PI can do so if preferred. We track and retain copies of documents for internal records, so please forward any final applications or budgets for submissions not submitted by iSchool.

• Create a FP in UTRMS, which always will require these items before being submitted to OSP. The FP that is submitted serves as our notification to OSP that we will require their services. 

• The materials below are need to be prepared to internally submit proposal for OSP review:

  • Detailed budget

  • Budget Justification

  • Statement or scope of work – this does not need to be elaborate, mostly just a paragraph or so of the work you intend to do. Can use project summaries or description from the proposal application as well.

  • If applicable - any consultant letters of commitment

  • If applicable - Sub-recipeient materials: 1) Budget, 2) Budget Justification, 3) SOW 4) Institutional letter of commitment

• Prepare with you budget revisions based on funding or award terms, if necessary

• Prepare and coordinate with you on consultants – Setting up agreement or purchase order, and then later, upon completion, coordinate payment to consultant

General budget development guidelines -

Salary -

• Rates are based on approved salaries for the fiscal year and are derived from the University approved pay plans for the job categories. In accordance with UT Austin budgeting practices, salary rates are escalated by 3% in subsequent years.

• Faculty are budgeted on a 12-month annualized rate is which based on their 9-month institutional academic base salary.

• Staff are appointed using their 12-month salary rate. Generally, if the scope of their work on the project is part of their duties, that effort is meant to be covered by the F&A rate, so they should not be budgeted.

• Postdoctoral fellows are appointed using their 12-month salary rate for the calendar year. At this time, we are using a $60-65k annual base.

• GRAs are appointed depending on semester usually. iSchool does update PhD rates annually and aligns the TA and GRA rate, so that students can expect the same salary if they switch between job titles in an year. Masters GRA rates are variable but at this time, we are using an annualized base of $54,000, which is prorated to a monthly rate of $2,300 for a full time 20/hr position. A full-time GRA is considered to a 20-hour per week GRA. Part-time is 10-hours per week.

• For graduate students to be employed as a GRA, TA, or AI, they are required to be enrolled. This includes the summer semester. If a PI is funding a GRA with sponsored research or grant funding, they are required to cover the student’s tuition bill for each semester of employment. Prorated tuition rate is acceptable for 10/hr students. If a sponsor does not allow tuition to be budgeted, the PI will need to allocate a different funding source for the student’s tuition.

•  Hourly employees and research assistant can be used, depending on the scope of work. To hire a student has an hourly worker, they must not do work that is contributing to research. Here is more information as to what is acceptable for non-academic student employment. Please refer to this link for academic student employee rules. 

Fringe-

• The university has current federally negotiated fringe rates, with a 0.5% escalation for the start of each future fiscal year. Fringe rates are applicable to any full time faculty or staff and GRAs. Current fringe rates available on this page.

Indirect cost rate – aka facilities and administration – Current rate effective 9/1/20 is 58.5%. There are exceptions under the F&A rate, i.e., a non-profit foundation sponsor who has set their own rate. More info can be found her for UT Austin's indirect costs policies. 

Direct costs - UT OSP page. Examples of other direct costs:

• Participant support

• Consultants

• Sub-awards - Must use their full negotiated IDC rate for any federal or federal pass-through proposal budget submitted to UT. UT’s portion of IDC to be recovered on this subawards is up to the first $25K of each subaward), regardless of the period covered.

• Materials and Supplies – computers, laptops, software, poster printing

• Publication Costs

• Transcription Costs or crowdsourcing

• Workshop and Conference costs

• Computer services

• Travel – depending on sponsor, they may require a breakdown of expenses. To review the university’s travel policy and reimbursement rates, click here.

Course Buyout – Requires approval from the Dean and ADE before proposal is submitted, email request and record is acceptable See attached policy.              

Open

Gift Funding –

If funding will be award as an "Unrestricted gift”, then it will be gift funding and does not need to be authorized by OSP before you submit. We keep records of budgets for our department as well as notification to iSchool Director of Development of potential funding. If uncertain whether a potential funding proposal would be received as a gift or a grant, please contact the department research admin to verify.

Cost-sharing – UT OSP page

If voluntary, this is generally discouraged. Significant cost share resources beyond PI effort requires approval from the Dean before proposal is submitted, email request and record is acceptable. iSchool faculty are allowed to cost share up to 25% of effort per year. 

Limited Submissions - https://research.utexas.edu/find-funding/limited-submission-programs/

Award Management:

Financial Conflict of Interest - UT Austin PIs and other covered individuals must submit their Financial Interest Disclosure (FID) to be complete PI status and must update their FID form annually, or within 30 days of acquisition of a new financial interest that requires reporting. Covered individuals include graduate research assistants, click here for further guidance on who is a covered individual. More information on requirements for university covered individuals, and links to submitting and updating PI FID form are on the VPR Research Support and Compliance page. 

IRB – If a project requires human subjects, a IRB application must be approved before spending can occur. It is the PI responsibility to complete any IRB applications, which must be approved before work can begin. Some funding agencies require some sort of documentation at the time of review (NSF). A PI can always submit an application even if it’s not known whether this will be funded, especially if the will need participant expenses at the beginning of the project. https://research.utexas.edu/resources/human-subjects

Award Negotiation – If notified that an award has been made, usually OSP is also notified directly, as most of the institutional letters include OSP contact information. Award negotiation and set-up is handled by the OSP Awards team, and may take some time to be finalized. If there is a need to spend money for the research project before the funding actually comes through, a Credit Authorization can be requested through OSP, though an alternative funding source account must be provided (like Start-Up funds). This is usually done for GRA appointments. Please email the department research admin to determine what would be allowable.

Sub-awards and Consultants – this are done usually as in a contracting process.

• Outgoing sub-awards, in which UT is the sub-recipient, is primarily handled by OSP billing. Revisions or amendments are routed through OSP Contracts, however department research admin can usually assist as a go-between parties.

• In-coming sub-awards, in UT is the prime or lead institution, requires coordination between OSP, the sub-recipient, and iSchool PI and department research admin on the department level. The prime PI is responsible for approving costs for each invoice received by a sub-recipient, and that invoice is paid by the department research admin, and final approved by OSP post-award.

• With most consulting, this is primarily handled on a department level. Once funding is available, we can either set up a “payment authorization” as a purchase order through Purchasing or a business contract through UT Business Contracts office. It will depend on the scope of work. Please loop both the department research admin and the department purchasing (purchasing@ischool.utexas.edu) to verify what payment authorization is appropriate, to establish the contractor within the university’s accounting system, and set-up either a contract or purchase. Work cannot begin until an approved payment authorization is in place.

• Any total payment to a vender for either services or good over $15,000 triggers the university threshold for competitive bidding. To be exempted from soliciting bidding, we to submit an Exclusive Acquisition Justification Form to UT Purchasing. Please loop both the department research admin and the department purchaser (purchasing@ischool.utexas.edu) to determine how to best proceed.