Sponsored Projects

The Pediatrics Office of Research Administration provides support with all phases of a sponsored project lifecycle, from proposal submission to award closeout, working closely with Columbia’s Sponsored Projects Administration and Sponsored Projects Finance.

Sponsored projects include research, instruction and training, public service, fellowships and other scholarly and creative activities conducted under the direction of Columbia faculty and staff and funded by an outside source. Funding for sponsored projects is provided to the university through a variety of funding instruments, including:

Grants: Grants may support research or other activities including conferences, symposiums, training, program activities, maintaining a collection of scientific specimens, etc.
Cooperative agreements: Assistance agreements which typically involve a significant level of sponsor participation in the administration of the project. Principal Investigators can expect that there will be ongoing and regular communication with the sponsor’s programmatic personnel often including regular meetings and site visits.
Contracts: Issued by sponsors to procure one or more specific deliverables. They are usually issued in response to detailed requests from sponsors (Requests for Proposals or RFPs) that require that the Principal Investigator undertake a specific course of action and provide data, analysis, devices, or other specified deliverables within a set time frame.

Pre-Award

Contact our office at pedsra@cumc.columbia.edu once you identify a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) that suits your research field. Send us the FOA number and any other pertaining documents that you may have. Our team will:

Assist you with developing a budget
Enter your proposal into the university’s tracking system RASCAL, and obtain department and institutional approvals
Ensure you obtain all necessary approvals and certifications for your research to proceed (IRB, IACUC, FCOI, etc)
Review and assist you with drafting application components
Complete sponsor’s online application forms
Work with the university’s Sponsored Projects Administration Office (SPA) to review and submit your proposal

Please note that applications to all federal agencies are submitted by SPA and not by the principal investigator. It is advisable to submit your proposals for review as early as possible in the process. SPA requires proposals to be submitted to them at least five days before the deadline.

Resources

Just-In-Time

After NIH releases priority scores, NIH sends an email requesting Just-in-Time (JIT) information for grants within the competitive range for possible funding. This notification is NOT a Notice of Award, nor should it be construed as an indicator of possible award.

Our team will work with you to submit to NIH:

Other support documents
Certification of Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval
Certification of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approval
Human subjects training certification for all key personnel
Any other requested information/documentation

Award Set Up

After receipt of Notice of Award, contact our office at pedsra@cumc.columbia.edu. Our team will work with SPA to set up a project account.

Our pre-award team sends the budget to SPA and confirms all investigators have completed Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) training.
SPA obtains FCOI clearance and sets up the account.
Our pre-award team will send all relevant information to the principal investigator, department administrator, and post-award team.
The post-award team allocates salaries to the project account.
If your project involves subawards, the pre-award team will work with SPA to set up the subawards and issue subaward agreements to the subrecipients.
If you are awarded a grant from a non-federal sponsor, the terms of the agreement will be reviewed by the SPA legal team and the agreement will be signed though SPA.
Please note that principal investigators, division administrators and/or coordinators are not authorized signatories and cannot sign or accept agreements on behalf of the university.

Programmatic Management of Awards

The Office of Research Administration provides support through:

Assistance with preparation and submission of Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs)
Writing and submitting prior-approval requests to sponsors (no-cost extensions, carry-over requests, re-budgeting, change of principal investigator, principal investigator absence)
Liaison with sponsors and sub-awardees
Applications for supplemental/additional funding (standard proposal submission procedure applies in these cases.)
Review and processing of any amendments/modifications to original grant agreements

Resources

Financial Management of Awards

The post-award team provides support with financial management of award. The post-award team ensures that the financial management of awards complies with federal and university policies and procedures through assistance with:

Invoicing (including patient care invoicing)
Set up of purchase orders
Allocation/processing salary distributions
Cost transfers
Financial and project expenditure reports
Project account monitoring/review of grant expenditures/reconciliations
Quarterly attestations of grants expenditures
Subaward account monitoring
Payment of subaward invoices
Close out of awards and subawards

Resources

Closeout

Support is available with preparation and submission of required closeout reports:

Sponsored Projects