PrintClick the links below to go directly to a topic or announcement:
Announcements: Supplemental Salary, NIH Salary Cap, OH Calculation Progress, Faculty Effort Reporting, Affirmation of Awareness and Disclosure, Responsible Conduct of Research, Upcoming Overview Workshop, Updated Budget Template, FASSPAR and Equipster Upgrades
A-133 Audit for 2009: Findings and Lessons Learned
Hot Topic of the Month: Charging Stipends to Grants
Announcements:
1. Spring Supplemental Salary Requests went out this past week. Please download the June 2010 Supplemental Compensation Request Email.pdf by clicking here and contact Alan Long or Michael Jackson if you have further questions.
2. New NIH Salary Cap: The 2010 NIH monthly salary cap is now $16,642. This amount reflects 100% of effort in any given month, and no sponsored grant funding (federal or non-federal) may be used to "top up" a month in which NIH funds are used for supplemental salary. The NIH will not provide more funds to modular grant applications or awards, or to previously obligated or anticipated amounts for non-competing grant awards. However, this new salary cap figure should be used for calendar year 2010 supplemental salary requests if applicable to a researcher's salary and if funds are available. For more information, please see NIH Notice: NOT-OD-10-041.
3. Overhead Rate Calculation Process, including Faculty Effort Reporting: Faculty Effort Certifications were due on Thursday, December 24th, and the overhead rate calculation is well on its way to completion. Thank you to all who helped with each of these items.
4. Affirmation of Awareness and Disclosure Process Update: Dean Gallant now has a return rate of over 80% in response to his solicitation in December and will be sending a third round of requests shortly.
5. Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Requirements: The NIH and NSF have new RCR requirements for postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates built into many of their programs. The NSF requires the University to sign assurances saying that an RCR plan is in place, and to provide the plan upon request. The NIH wants language inserted into many proposals. For specific details, please check proposal instructions. A University-wide Research Integrity Working Group (URIWG) was recently convened to come up with suggested language for proposals and a plan to identify and educate the required constituents. Once language has been written, it will be posted to the RAS website and sent via the RAS Friday listserv. For more general information on these requirements, please see the following:
NSF: Federal Register Document
NIH: Update on the Requirement for Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research
6. Overview of Sponsored Projects Administration Workshop: Upcoming dates are 2/10/10 and 4/9/10. To register, please see...
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~research/Overview.html
7. Budget Template Has Been Updated: Download a new version by clicking here. Two cells on the Main worksheet have been corrected. Changes are highlighted in yellow and detailed on the Changes worksheet. Note: If you try to download the budget template and the new file doesn't have today's date at the top, you will need to clear the cache in your web browser. Click here to see Firefox directions for clearing the cache.
8. Harvard Has Purchased a Subscription to NCURA TV for 2010: dates and locations will be sent out via the RAS Friday Listserv (click here to join) and the OSP Blog (click here to join).
9. FASSPAR Updates are Coming Soon: Stay tuned for updates to Report 0: Sponsored Accounts and the Budget Entry page.
10: Equipster Bug Fixed: Duplicate asset links are no longer showing in Equipster.
A-133 Audit for 2009: Findings and Lessons Learned: Nuala McGowan and Judy McSweeney
The federal government requires annual external audits of non-profits receiving federal funds exceeding $500,000. The findings from each of these annual audits are reported to the government, distributed to all federal agencies through a clearing house, and entered into the public record.
This year, 19 awards were selected for testing at Harvard, 6 of which were from the FAS. From these 19 awards, the following areas of concern to departmental grants administrators were tested:
- Direct Costs
- Cost Transfers
- Effort Certification
- Financial and Non-financial Reporting
- Service Centers
- Sub-recipient Monitoring
Overall, the FAS performed well in the FY 2009 audit. We had findings in only two areas, direct costs (1 exception) and financial and non-financial reporting (5 exceptions).
More details on each finding, as well as screenshots of the FASSPAR report for keeping track of sponsor report due dates, are available for download by clicking here. For FY 2008, the FAS had findings for procurement, including suspension and debarment forms, but we are pleased to report that there were no findings in this area for FY 2009. We have submitted a corrective action plan to the auditors in response to this year's findings. Any questions or comments, please call Nuala McGowan at 495-7681 or Judy McSweeney at 496-2513.
Buddy System Pilot Program: Kathryn Coughlin
Kathryn Coughlin is leading RAS efforts to create a pilot program promoting networking among research administrators across the FAS. She would like to get suggestions regarding the structure and gauge the interest in such a program. She'll be sending an email or survey to everyone on the RAS Friday list soon. In the meantime, if you would like to get in touch with her directly, please email her at: coughlin@fas.harvard.edu
Hot Topic of the Month: Charging Stipends to Grants: Alan Long
Alan's "hot topic" for January is a reminder that stipends (object codes 6440, 6450, 6452, and 6455) can only be charged to federal awards that are either fellowships, training grants, or awards that include an explicitly stated training component. For more information, please see the March, 2009, OSP policy statement on charging stipends to federal awards: http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/osp/quick_links/policies/#stipends.
