grant management questions

[fontainebleau]

I'm working with the research support office in my university to set up a research account for a grant. It's been about two months since the university signed the contract with the sponsor, and the research account is still not set up yet. I was told last week that there are some documents that need to be transferred from the pre-award part of the office to the research accounting office.

This is a relatively small grant (about $50,000), and I'm curious about your experiences of setting up research accounts, how long it takes, and any potential reasons why it may take more than a month. Thanks!

[mamselle]

Go visit your office person daily until they do it.

They get overwhelmed, or just keep pushing the scarab-beetle pile of paperwork forward, day-to-day, and unless something distinguishes your particular bits of paperwork from all the others, they keep doing that.

At least, that was my R1 boss' directive to me as an EA in charge of his grant management...the SRO guy was a sweet doofus, don't know how he kept his job, but I was told to go sit with him until some part of the work got filled in daily, to move it along until it was done.

It did, finally, get done.

M.

[research_prof]

I'm working with the research support office in my university to set up a research account for a grant. It's been about two months since the university signed the contract with the sponsor, and the research account is still not set up yet. I was told last week that there are some documents that need to be transferred from the pre-award part of the office to the research accounting office.

This is a relatively small grant (about $50,000), and I'm curious about your experiences of setting up research accounts, how long it takes, and any potential reasons why it may take more than a month. Thanks!

Let me guess: are you at a public/state university?

[Liquidambar]

The account for my latest grant was just set up, 2 months after the grant start date.  This is frustrating but not atypical here.

You'd be better off talking to people at your own institution to figure out where the delay likely is.  In my case, the delay was in the lead institution issuing a subcontract to my institution.  My assigned contact in our grants office is terrific, and leaning on him would in no way have expedited the process.  Some other people in our grants office aren't as good and can be a source of delays.

[Puget]

Wow, months is really bad! Here I had an account within a couple weeks of the NoA, and they let me start pre-spending before the actual funds arrived.

[fontainebleau]

Go visit your office person daily until they do it.

They get overwhelmed, or just keep pushing the scarab-beetle pile of paperwork forward, day-to-day, and unless something distinguishes your particular bits of paperwork from all the others, they keep doing that.

At least, that was my R1 boss' directive to me as an EA in charge of his grant management...the SRO guy was a sweet doofus, don't know how he kept his job, but I was told to go sit with him until some part of the work got filled in daily, to move it along until it was done.

It did, finally, get done.

M.

I'll start my regular visit to their office tomorrow: ) Still, it's surprising that the research support office doesn't do a good job to support research projects. When I was complaining to my Dean about this, I also got the sense that when they are overwhelmed, the larger grant projects get prioritized. I'll see how many times I need to go there before the account is set up. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[fontainebleau]

I'm working with the research support office in my university to set up a research account for a grant. It's been about two months since the university signed the contract with the sponsor, and the research account is still not set up yet. I was told last week that there are some documents that need to be transferred from the pre-award part of the office to the research accounting office.

This is a relatively small grant (about $50,000), and I'm curious about your experiences of setting up research accounts, how long it takes, and any potential reasons why it may take more than a month. Thanks!

Let me guess: are you at a public/state university?

Yes, I'm at a R2 public/state university.

[fontainebleau]

The account for my latest grant was just set up, 2 months after the grant start date.  This is frustrating but not atypical here.

You'd be better off talking to people at your own institution to figure out where the delay likely is.  In my case, the delay was in the lead institution issuing a subcontract to my institution.  My assigned contact in our grants office is terrific, and leaning on him would in no way have expedited the process.  Some other people in our grants office aren't as good and can be a source of delays.

So true. Some people are fairly responsive and others are not so reliable. After calling different offices today, I figured out that the delay was caused by the pre-award and here I was thinking it's the research accounting's problem...

[fontainebleau]

Wow, months is really bad! Here I had an account within a couple weeks of the NoA, and they let me start pre-spending before the actual funds arrived.

I'm so jealous: )

[research_prof]

Got new grants totaling a bit more than $250K this summer. One of them started on August 1 and I got access to the account last week. Other two started on July 1 and I still do not have access to any accounts. I had to submit a report about these grants without even having access to the money!

That's the situation at R2 public/state universities. They do not do their job right even when they get half of the money you bring in.

[research_prof]

I'm working with the research support office in my university to set up a research account for a grant. It's been about two months since the university signed the contract with the sponsor, and the research account is still not set up yet. I was told last week that there are some documents that need to be transferred from the pre-award part of the office to the research accounting office.

This is a relatively small grant (about $50,000), and I'm curious about your experiences of setting up research accounts, how long it takes, and any potential reasons why it may take more than a month. Thanks!

Let me guess: are you at a public/state university?

Yes, I'm at a R2 public/state university.

Expected...

[doc700]

I'm at a private R1 and things are also super slow here.

My university allows 90 days of "pre-award" spending.  We are able to start to spend if the grant is awarded but not fully set up.  In my case I have been using the "pre-award" spending option, even though nominally my grant started July 1 so it should be during the grant period.  I think this is a rather general thing so perhaps that is an option even if there is a hold up for the grant setup?

[research_prof]

I'm at a private R1 and things are also super slow here.

My university allows 90 days of "pre-award" spending.  We are able to start to spend if the grant is awarded but not fully set up.  In my case I have been using the "pre-award" spending option, even though nominally my grant started July 1 so it should be during the grant period.  I think this is a rather general thing so perhaps that is an option even if there is a hold up for the grant setup?

That's very discouraging to hear.. I was hoping that private institutions are much more efficient than public/state ones...

[Ruralguy]

They probably are in general, but not by enough to notice on any one thing. Also, size matters. I think bigger privates are more bureaucratic than smaller ones.  The problem with smaller ones is that they have less experience dealing with all of the issues that will come up with grants, thus making things slow anyway.

In addition, one limiting factor is the federal bureaucracy. That component of the problem will be the same for everyone, though probably some divisions of government are worse than others.

[fizzycist]

I'd guess median time for a standard NSF/NIH grant here is about 6 weeks. 2 months wouldn't be out of the ordinary. It can likely be sped up with frequent pestering, but I prefer to choose my battles on other things.

Admins in offices of sponsored projects don't usually make much, have a decent workload, and take a long time to train in. If turnover is high (like it was here during COVID), then this is probably an unavoidable problem at typical uni F&A rates.