Sub-Awardee Co-PI not communicating /not cooperating

[research_prof]

Just ask the grant manager for advice. Best to just listen to what they have to say.

Yes, at some level, it comes down to what RP says, but as Mleok says, if your grant depends on this person, its to your benefit to bring them back into the fold rather than scare off or punish.

Also, there might be extenuating circumstances (serious illness or death in the family of sub-awardee, etc.).

But if it comes down to pulling the sub-award, you want to have first pursued every other reasonable option  and also figured out how to do the scholarship with other collaborators.  You don't want to come across as a crass bully, but a person who acts reasonably, rationally and compassionately.

That's correct. There might be extenuating circumstances and that's why grants can always be extended. The problem I see here is that the sub-awardee does not respond at all and it looks like they have not responded for several weeks (or even months at this point). Even if there was a health issue going on, I believe someone from the sub-awardee's university should have reached out to let the PI know. At least, that's what I would have asked my university to do and that's also common sense professional etiquette. The fact that the sub-awardee has failed to communicate (in any way, directly or indirectly) with the PI is a big red flag in my opinion and that's why I am talking about pulling the sub award. We can all argue about how well we work with our grant collaborators or whether they deliver on time or about the quality of their work, but in this case it seems like there has been no communication at all (absolutely nothing). At least, our collaborators do "something" (bad or good, sufficient or not enough). And as a very famous person in my field has told me when I asked about words of wisdom after so many years of them being in academia: "the most important thing in academia is to do SOMETHING".

[sambaprof]

I just got off of the Zoom meeting with my grants manager from our research office. She suggested me to email (and copy her) the Sr. Grants officer of the collaborator's institution and who is the  admin contact in the agreement and explain the situation and seek their input on this.

[fizzycist]

Some odd advice in this thread.

This is an NSF grant, not a contract to do work on a certain timeline. Sure the subcontractee submitted a SOW, but I'm gonna guess that it was boilerplate stuff and the real agreement is private between you and them.

At this stage, the award has only been going for a few months to lead institute, and subcontractee probably did not get access to the money until very recently if at all yet.

If someone goes totally dark, it usually means they are going through something difficult. You should try to have some grace here.

My first plan of action in this situation would be to just carry on with my work and wait until the co-PI re-emerges (while continuing to email/call once a week or whatever. But it sounds like you need this person to respond in order for you to get started on your work? In that case I would (aside from calling/emailing directly) talk with mutual acquantances and see if anyone has talked to the co-PI recently. I suppose a grant admin at their uni is fine if you don't know any faculty there. But you could also just cold email someone you know they collaborate with (or in similar field at their uni) and ask if they have seen them around recently.

My prediction is this will work out fine, probably the co-PI is dealing with something tough and they will eventually find the time and courtesy to get back in touch.

I also want to point out that I can relate to your frustration, have been here before, and it may very well be that this is not the right collaborator for you in the long run. But too early to tell for now.

[Ruralguy]

I'm sorry, but around age 50 I developed a "no a-hole" rule. I don't want to be one, and I don't want to be around them, or vote for them.
If it means maybe losing academic standing, or losing money or whatever, I can live with it. But I don't to be a jerk or promote jerk-i-tude.

So, maybe the number one rule of academia is to just get crud done (and published, funded, etc.), but the number one rule of life, other than rudimentary survival, is to not be a jerk, even if being nice might delay a publication. I know plenty of decent people who publish a lot.

[Hibush]

I'm sorry, but around age 50 I developed a "no a-hole" rule. I don't want to be one, and I don't want to be around them, or vote for them.
If it means maybe losing academic standing, or losing money or whatever, I can live with it. But I don't to be a jerk or promote jerk-i-tude.

So, maybe the number one rule of academia is to just get crud done (and published, funded, etc.), but the number one rule of life, other than rudimentary survival, is to not be a jerk, even if being nice might delay a publication. I know plenty of decent people who publish a lot.

This attitude is curcial to satisfaction. Soon you discover that there are a bunch of delightful and productive people who follow the same principle.

In addition. when you do run into conflicts wiht Aholes (and it is unavoidable), colleagues and leaders tend to defer to you.

[sambaprof]

I just got off of the Zoom meeting with my grants manager from our research office. She suggested me to email (and copy her) the Sr. Grants officer of the collaborator's institution and who is the  admin contact in the agreement and explain the situation and seek their input on this.

The email to the Sr. Grants officer in the collaborator's institution did the trick. The collaborator emailed me the next day and suggested that we have a Zoom meeting. I  had Zoom meeting with him earlier this week. The collaborator said sorry that he could not reply because he was very busy with a multi million dollar grant submission last month...  We had a good conversation and we are planning to meet every week starting second week of January and I am hoping to ensure this momentum going...

[Puget]

I just got off of the Zoom meeting with my grants manager from our research office. She suggested me to email (and copy her) the Sr. Grants officer of the collaborator's institution and who is the  admin contact in the agreement and explain the situation and seek their input on this.

The email to the Sr. Grants officer in the collaborator's institution did the trick. The collaborator emailed me the next day and suggested that we have a Zoom meeting. I  had Zoom meeting with him earlier this week. The collaborator said sorry that he could not reply because he was very busy with a multi million dollar grant submission last month...  We had a good conversation and we are planning to meet every week starting second week of January and I am hoping to ensure this momentum going...

That's good news! But really, I never buy that someone is too busy to reply to an important email, even if that reply is "I'm so sorry I'm too busy to get to this right now but I will get to it by X date". That literarily takes a minute to do. So, yes, see this collaboration through for the good of the grant and your career, but unless this proves to be a utterly out of character for this person, make it the last collaboration and find someone more responsive.

[research_prof]

I just got off of the Zoom meeting with my grants manager from our research office. She suggested me to email (and copy her) the Sr. Grants officer of the collaborator's institution and who is the  admin contact in the agreement and explain the situation and seek their input on this.

The email to the Sr. Grants officer in the collaborator's institution did the trick. The collaborator emailed me the next day and suggested that we have a Zoom meeting. I  had Zoom meeting with him earlier this week. The collaborator said sorry that he could not reply because he was very busy with a multi million dollar grant submission last month...  We had a good conversation and we are planning to meet every week starting second week of January and I am hoping to ensure this momentum going...

That's good news! But really, I never buy that someone is too busy to reply to an important email, even if that reply is "I'm so sorry I'm too busy to get to this right now but I will get to it by X date". That literarily takes a minute to do. So, yes, see this collaboration through for the good of the grant and your career, but unless this proves to be a utterly out of character for this person, make it the last collaboration and find someone more responsive.

Sorry to say, but your collaborator's explanation sounds like BS. He basically said that the grant you have together is small money for him (or not enough money for him to care about answering your emails).

[Ruralguy]

The lack of response until you basically brought in "the law" does seem strange, or even if explicable, not entirely appropriate. Its hard to say whether this should be the last of your collaborations. I think it depends on how well your plan for meetings goes and whether the collaboration produces anything you both deem worthwhile to yourselves.
I would say to stay positive yet vigilant.

[Vid]

I had the same issue with one of my Co-PI before (we are in the same institution but he is located on another campus and has a shared (big) lab on the main campus). He never responded to my emails/calls, he never attended the PIs virtual meeting. He wanted to send his Ph.D. student to the meeting to just report to him what is going on in the team. and once I said you should attend the meeting as a Co-PI, not your student, he wasn't happy (he literally said he is not interested in this topics any more!).  We hired an MS student from his department (sponsored by this grant) and he kicked him out of his lab (he said to the student I hired a new grad student and I need your desk ). I talked to his department chair but it didn't get better. Anyway, long story short, the rest of the Co-PIs and I managed the grant without him and we submitted a larger proposal to NSF and replaced him with another Co-PI and we got funded!

It is tough, I had to do his portion with the help of M.S. student. Professional commitment and responsibility are key factors for building research relationships and collaboration.

Congregations on your new grant.