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APPENDIX C
Walking the Walk: Routing Your Proposal
Every institution has an established policy on routing grant proposals through the system before the proposal is submitted to a granting agency. It is up to each of us to learn the correct procedures in our particular situation. The following pages provide some thoughts on grant administration and give a specific example of routing proposals through UNL's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Let us look at this from two perspectives. First, we'll take it from the point of view of day-to-day, off-the-shelf, garden-variety faculty members such as ourselves. We convert one of our many prioritized project ideas into a grant proposal. We write it up, send it in, and—hurray!—we are awarded a big pocket of money. We do the work and write the usual 50 or 60 reports grant agencies seem to enjoy on something close to a weekly basis, plus we write a scientific paper or two.
Unfortunately, just as the process is getting underway, administrators and bureaucrats of all stripes worm their ways out of the woodwork and have us filling out new, virtually incomprehensible forms. We grumble, and get visions of people lying awake in the dark of night, conjuring up new forms.
There is another point of view.
University administrators do not simply set up accounts so we can spend our grant money, then head down to the pub for a well-earned stout (ever wonder why they call it "stout"?).
Universities are charged with accounting for all expenditures associated with our grants. How much money was spent? What was purchased? Who was hired? You think we have to do paperwork!
The University also is charged with protecting granting agencies from cheaters, thieves, embezzlers, strong-armed bandits and other riff-raff. The protections require more accountability and, it goes without saying, more reporting.
* One consequence
The main consequence of the charge to the University is that administrators need our help to keep track of their money. Money we use to do work. All universities, institutes, think-tanks and well-doers are required to establish procedures for grant administration. UNL and IANR have procedures, and we are expected to do our part to observe those procedures. Were the University to fail in its charge to account for funds, we would have a REAL hard time getting grant proposals funded.
Here is a brief sketch of our procedures to help the University keep track of things.
* The proposal route
All grant proposals are routed through the University submission process in the company of a proposal routing form, formally titled the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Request for Proposal Approval and Submission. The form requests a fair amount of information and a series of signatures.
There are spaces for your signature as project director or principal investigator, and for the signatures of the unit administrator and the appropriate deans/directors. You will want to be sure the administrator or appropriate substitute is available to sign the form when you need the signature.
The unit administrator is responsible for assuring that all the wherewithal for conducting the work specified in your proposal is, in fact, available in your unit. The administrator is not able to commit resources in other units to your project.
Resources might include space, equipment, the expertise of a particular member of the unit, the availability of support staff personnel and transportation. Subtle aspects of this assurance may not immediately spring to mind.
For instance—are there sufficient electrical circuits to support any new equipment you may purchase? Is there enough room in your space to install new, grant-funded equipment? Does the unit have appropriate desk and office space for individuals, such as post-doctoral research associates who are hired to conduct the work in the proposal?
By signing the routing form, the unit administrator asserts that all resources necessary to perform the work specified in the grant proposal are available within the unit.
Many grant proposals include cost sharing, in which UNL contributes some of the cost of the project under consideration. Some granting agencies require cost sharing, which can be in the form of funds contributed, or can take the form of "in kind" contributions, such as salaries, secretarial assistance and graduate student stipends. Any commitments to share unit resources need the unit administrator's approval.
Many proposals are technically easy to write and produce in final form—easy enough that we can produce the entire thing on our office computers, and the unit support staff will not be involved in any phase of producing the proposal. Research or other activities specified in the proposals already may be an integral part of our programs, and thereby represent no unusual burden on our units.
It probably isn't necessary to bother the support staff with the news that you will be typing up still another grant proposal, but there are good reasons to make sure your unit administrator is aware that a grant proposal is coming out of your program. The proposal routing form needs all signatures, even on very routine proposals.
Unit administrators are expected to know about the major activities in their units. Preparing grant proposals is a major activity, and it is wise to keep your administrator informed. Your attention to this detail also can be useful during annual staff evaluations, because administrators are asked to comment on how well we communicate within the unit.
After the unit administrator puts what passes for a signature on the routing form, the proposal goes to the proper division for the dean/director's signature. Again, costs that are to be shared at the division level will need approval. Before presenting a proposal to the dean for signature, a clerical assistant on the IANR staff will go through the proposal, check the budget carefully and look for other obvious problems. Here is where running the budget through the appropriate division before finalizing the proposal pays off. You can make any needed corrections and the budget can be rechecked and the proposal signed in less than one day.
* A point of law
Again, grants are awarded to universities, not to individuals. There is a point of law here, because the University of Nebraska enters into a financial relationship with the granting agency. This relationship is formalized by the signature of an individual authorized to commit the University to binding contracts. It is the responsibility of the RGCO in UNL's City Campus Administration Building to review our proposals, and to obtain the appropriate signatures.
The legal connection and the need to account for grant funds help us understand why most of our proposals travel from IANR to the RGCO. Once again, staff in RGCO will review proposals.
1. The budget will be rechecked.
2. Proposals will be checked to be sure all licenses and approvals are in place. These include an IRB clearance if you plan to work with human subjects, IACUC approval if you work with vertebrate animals, an ionizing radiation license if you work with radioactive substances, hazardous material approval if appropriate, and recombinant DNA biosafety approval if you use the tools of molecular biology.
3. The budget will be rechecked.
4. The proposal routing form will be checked for signatures by the project director, unit administrator and dean/director.
5. The budget will be rechecked.
The RGCO also obtains the signature of an authorized University official for the proposal cover page or other appropriate forms. Finally, the proposal is packaged with a routine cover letter and mailed to the funding agency by the RCGO. Grant proposals are routinely sent by overnight express service, the cost of which is billed to your unit.
* The road less traveled
All grant proposals should move from the unit administration to the appropriate IANR division, accompanied by a signed routing form. Some proposals will be sent to granting agencies directly from IANR. These include proposals to commodity boards and some proposals to the USDA.
We are notified when these proposals are approved by the agencies for funding. At that point, we can help keep the whole process on track by filling out an updated proposal routing form. The form takes the usual path, through the unit administrator's office, then to ARD, Extension or College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and then to the RGCO in the Administration Building.
There is a similarity between these routing forms and our federal and state tax forms: sooner or later we all fill them out.
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