New NIH Funding Requirement Jan. 25
Office of Grants and Contracts
Assists University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus faculty in their efforts to secure external support for their instructional, research, public service, and scholarly activities.
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| Common Identification Numbers | |
| Tax ID or 10-Digit EIN | 84-6000555 |
| 12-digit EIN | 1846000555A7 |
| Cage Code | 0P6C1 |
| DUNS | 0410963140000 |
| UEI | MW8JHK6ZYEX8 |
| Congressional District (Anschutz) | CO-006 |
| Congressional District (Denver) | CO-001 |
News & Team Talks
OGC News - October 2022
Financial Services Connection
Oct 25, 2022
CONTRACTING SERVICES
New Team Member
We are excited to announce a new addition to our OGC Contracts team - Khulan Amarsanaa. Khulan has lived in Colorado with her family since 2005. She graduated from Mongolian National University, School of Law with a BA in International Law and obtained her Master of Law from DU in 2014. She is a proud mother of two middle schoolers and volunteers at the Mongolian School of Colorado in Centennial.
Khulan will begin her new role by supporting Yingfei Zhen in our outgoing subcontracts area so you may see some new names coming from our ogc.subcontracts@ucdenver.edu inbox in the near future.
Please join me in welcoming Khulan to OGC. We’re so happy to have you on the team Khulan - welcome!
OGC PREAWARD
What to Look for in a Funding Announcement or Solicitation
Everything you need to know is usually DESCRIBED in the funding announcement or solicitation:
- Duration: How long can the project be?
- Eligibility: Who can apply for this?
- Submission Process: How does it get to the sponsor? Does OGC need to submit it?
- Cost Share: Does the sponsor allow cost share? Does the sponsor require cost share? Please note that CU discourages voluntary cost sharing.
- Required Materials: What does it need?
- Indirect Costs: What indirect cost rate does the sponsor list? Does it match the correct rate per CU's rate grid?
- Budget Limit: Is there a limit to how much we can request? Can I request a salary?
- Exceptions: Does this override any general application requirements?
- Deadlines: When do I need to have everything ready?
- Funding opportunities and solicitations are found on Grants.gov, via the sponsor’s website, or through a search engine. Most foundations and non-federal sponsors will provide application guidelines or FAQ pages to find what you need.
- Use of a browser search function to find key words can help navigate lengthy solicitations to find relevant information.
- If there are questions about the contents of a funding announcement, please reach out to your Pre-award analyst or program officer. Many solicitations also include contacts to ask the sponsor directly— please include any sponsor communications in the routing.
- Remember to include the solicitation — or at least a link to find it easily — in every routing.
TRAINING & COMPLIANCE
Sponsored Project Trainings
We are pleased to announce a new set of advanced sponsored projects training courses offered by OGC. These courses are based on feedback from all of our campus partners over the last several years on what areas are a gap in training. The new courses will have either a pre-award or post-award track focus, with 4 new pre-award courses and 6 new post-award courses to start out.
These courses are intended for grant administrators who have already taken the original sponsored projects courses and have at least 6 months experience in a grant administrator role on campus. The courses build off of the previous trainings and are more hands on to help train on some of the day-to-day activities of a grant administrator. They include the following:
Pre-Award Track
- A60035 – SP: Pre-Award Essentials
- A60036 – SP: Budget Development
- A60037 – SP: InfoEd Routing
- A60038 – SP: RPPRs
Post-Award Track
- A60039 – SP: Postaward Essentials
- A60044 – SP: Accounting Basics
- A60040 – SP: Financial Reports
- A60042 – SP: Closeouts
- A60043 – SP: Cost Transfers
- A60041 – SP: Financial Projections
We have also developed a roadmap for new grant administrators to help provide guidance as to what courses are offered and when it is recommended that someone take those courses.
In addition, these courses will be required for new grant administrators starting in 2023. All of the sponsored projects courses will be required, and the advanced courses will be required based on whether someone is in a pre-award or post-award role.
New and current administrators will have one and half years to complete the requirements, but it is recommended that the courses be taken sooner. Each course will be offered at least two times a year on a fall and spring semester basis. We will track enrollment via Skillsoft.
To enroll in these courses via Skillsoft, visit the Skillsoft Help Page. If you have any questions, please reach out to Shane Jernigan.
OGC POST AWARD
NIH (National Institutes of Health) Award Restrictions and Award Notices
Please pay special attention to your NIH Award Notices “Terms and Conditions” sections. We have seen a recent uptick in spending restrictions being called out in this section.
Why are we seeing this trend? OGC (Office of Grants and Contracts) has been monitoring this increase and we have determined there are a couple of reasons that NIH is issuing restrictions.
- There are late programmatic or technical deliverables. Here is an example of this type of restriction. With this restriction NIH has indicated NO obligations, therefore in this case we are unable to do any spending or drawing of these funds. This type of restriction can affect the status of the speedtype to prevent booking of expenses. While the restriction reasons may vary, we need to make sure we are not incurring expenses for any restriction that indicates we cannot make obligations until a pending item has been completed. In this case we would also expect a subsequent award notice lifting the restriction.
- Spending is specific to one category or purpose and does not have the ability to re-budget within the normal threshold. With this restriction we are seeing amounts called out that must be used for a specific purpose, and any deviation from that requires PRIOR written approval.
Updated Form - High Cash Balance Memo
Please be sure to check out our updated High Cash Balance Memo for retaining residuals on fixed rate/price awards during closeout. The form can be found on the OGC site under A to Z Resources.
The forms questions have been updated to provide more information about the residual and plans to use the funds going forward.
GME (Graduate Medical Education) Benefit Program-Account Code 422850
The Graduate Medical Education (GME) office changed their benefits program in FY22, and the employees are now able to select their benefits through open enrollment which pays through payroll and follow the funding distribution.
A double charge for certain benefits was discovered at the end of FY22 due to a misunderstanding of the process. The Health and Dental benefits were charged through payroll and with a journal entry by GME.
Currently, UIS (University Information Services) is working on correcting the duplicate error and you will see a reversal of these benefits through a Payroll Expense Transfer (PET) by their office to account code 422850. In moving forward, the payroll charges will no longer hit department speed types.
The review and process will be an ongoing collaborative effort. If you have any questions, please contact our office at OGC.Postaward@ucdenver.edu.
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
Office of Grants and Contracts Physical Location Notification
Our 1st floor, west wing location in the Fitzsimons Building is currently under construction. The Office of Grants and Contracts (OGC) is temporarily located in the same building on the 5th floor, west wing in Suite W5130 during construction. While OGC continues to perform most services in a remote capacity, when we are on campus, we are working in this temporary space. We are still available via a variety of methods - refer to the OGC website (about halfway down the page).
No changes are needed to our mailing address as mail is not impacted, and we have posted notices for any FedEx drop off items to come to our temporary space. Thank you for your patience during this time.
OGC Team Talks
SAVE THE DATE - November 22, 10:00am - 11:30am. This session will focus on Audit Hot Topics. Stay tuned for more information and session registration details.
Employment Opportunities
Interested individuals can review the postings in CU Careers.
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