News & Team Talks

CONTRACTS SERVICES

Outgoing Subbing Season is upon us!

Our team experiences significantly higher request volumes in the months of August, September, and October. We ask for your patience while we work through this increased volume.

If you need a refresher on the outgoing subs process, check out our team talks that covers all the ins and outs of the process, plus a few pro-tips for success.

Below are some helpful tips and reminders to make sure we’re able to immediately proceed with your draft request at the time you submit it.

Do you need our outgoing subs team at all?
A reminder that the PSC handles all outgoing money unless you are sending money to a subrecipient of sponsored project funding under a 30, 31, 34, and 35 speedtype. If you are making purchases for equipment, supplies, or acquiring consulting/contractor services, regardless of speedtype, the PSC will handle your request for outgoing funding.

I’m ready to submit my request! 
When you need to engage our team, please make sure to use one of our formstack links to submit your request. Using the wrong form, submitting incorrect information, submitting a request with missing information/attachments will lead to unnecessary delays.

Protip: Please make sure you do not use the incoming funding amendment formstack- this will route to the incorrect area of our team, and you will need to start over with a different formstack for us to proceed with your request.

 

Which formstack request form should I use? 

What attachments should I include?


More on attachments…
Please make sure you are using the latest Contract Packet and Budget templates available on our website. A Contract Packet is required for each new original sub and a Budget Template is required for any cost reimbursable subaward or subcontract.  

Fixed Price, Fixed Rate, and Installment Based cost structures do not require a budget template - please insert these details in Attachment 5 of the Contract Packet.  

• Contract Packet
  
• Cost Reimbursement Budget Templates
• Which CR Budget Template should I use?

When should I select “No Cost Extension”?
A No Cost Extension is not adding a new budget period with no additional funding (i.e., extending time in the middle of an award with no new funding). An NCE is an extension of the overall period of performance for the entire multi-year award. For example, if you have a 5-year NIH award that you are sub-awarding under, a NCE would be requested from the sponsor to extend into the 6th year and flowed to our sites accordingly. If you are simply in year 2 of the award and adding time with no new funding, that is not an NCE.

What happens after you return the sub draft to me?

Follow the instructions included in the draft return email. After you return a partially executed copy, along with the Marketplace requisition number, we will send the draft through to post award for approval before countersigning, uploading the fully executed copy to marketplace, updating the lines of your PO to match any changes advised by post award, and return a fully executed copy to you by email.  

Do I need to contact Change Order to update my PO to reflect the latest changes in the amendment draft?
No! Once post award reviews the partially executed copy, they will advise on any changes needed and we will make them in Marketplace for you.

PREAWARD

Conflict of Interest (COI) Module

The COI module in InfoEd is once again available beginning 8/9/2023. All personnel participating in research proposals during this collection period will need to update their COI disclosures at the time of proposal submission. Below are the instructions for COI completion in InfoEd.

Login to Info Ed

1. Choose “Denver” when logging in
2. Select the tab on the left labeled “Conflict of Interest”
3. Click “Create/Update Disclosure”
4. Click on the new disclosure button as noted below:

• “Recertify or Update Disclosure” if you have submitted disclosure previously.
• “Edit/Submit Current Disclosure” if you started but did not complete a disclosure.
• “Create Initial Disclosure” if you have never submitted a disclosure.

Once inside the Conflict of Interest Disclosure, answer each of the questions. Make sure to mark each page complete before moving to another tab. On the final page, mark complete AND do not forget to click the submit button at the bottom.

If there are any questions with regard to the completion of the disclosure, please contact: coi@ucdenver.edu | coi@cuanschutz.edu | Office of Regulatory Compliance

New Fringe Benefits Rates Effective July 1, 2023

New Fringe Benefits Rates Effective July 1, 2023 have been published on our website.  In order to facilitate easier reading, we have divided the rates up into three tables listing out Job Codes for each: Anschutz Medical Campus, Denver and shared Job Codes. Shared job codes are for Hourly Employee, Post Doctoral Fellows, Students, Residents and Fellows and Predoctoral Candidates.  We hope this allows you to find the data you need faster for your respective campus.  As always, these rates are for budgeting purposes on proposals after July 1^st, 2023 and the rates include all fringe including non-payroll fringe termination pay, worker's comp, unemployment, and retiree health.

Please note that there was a slight error with the rates published earlier in the month, this has been addressed on the website and within InfoEd.  Please do confirm you are using the most up to date values for your budget templates.

New Facilities and Administrative Rates (F&A) Effective July 1, 2023

What about proposals that went out with the old F&A rates?

It’s been a long time since CU Denver has had a change of F&A rates.  Proposals that went out with the old rates will need to be adjusted during the negotiation/JIT stage.  With NIH, this is a simple process, please create a new budget with the updated F&A rates, everything else should remain the same, assuming no budget changes were requested from the NIH.  Save the budget as a PDF then either attach the F&A Budget Memo pdf or ask our Specialist to attach it to the PDF.  No budget review is required by OCG if you are only updating the F&A rates. The Budget Memo will be placed on our website on the A-Z page, “F&A Budget Memo”.  Include the new rate agreement with JIT attachments to NIH.

TRAINING & COMPLIANCE

Financial Services is pleased to announce that registration for the sponsored projects training courses for Fall 2023 is now open in SkillSoft.

The courses will be offered via Zoom and are open to all employees. These courses are particularly recommended for new employees at the University and to employees new to sponsored research. Course information can be found on the OGC Training website.

Registration, course descriptions, and time and date offerings for each course are found in SkillSoft. If you have questions about how register, you can visit the Skillsoft Help Page.

Under the Resource Tab, there are a number of resources and quick reference guides. In particular, the Instructor Led Training (ILT) guide covers how to enroll in an ILT course, how to check your enrollment status, and how to withdraw from an ILT course. The Enrolling in Instructor Led Training document may be helpful as well. Finally, under the Instructor Led Training tab, there is information about where to find instructor led training (ILT) courses.

Additionally, individual or small group trainings are also available upon request. Please feel free to email Shane Jernigan if you have questions about the sponsored training program.

Congratulations to the University’s Newest Certified Research Administrators

The following University employees have recently passed the Certified Research Administrator (CRA) exam:

• Kate Hoch, Department of Bioengineering
• Rochelle Hubbart, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Passing the CRA exam is a significant achievement and demonstrates an individual’s mastery of a wide body of knowledge in research administration. The CRA exam is a national standardized exam that is offered twice a year, generally in May and November. Additional information about the CRA exam can be found on the Research Administrator Certification Council (RACC) website.

The University provides a free 12-week CRA exam prep course available to all employees. The course will begin in August and end shortly before the testing window in November. Since the University began the prep course, all employees who have completed the course and sat for the exam have passed.

 If you are interested in the training course, or have any questions, please feel free to email Shane Jernigan.

POST AWARD

New Indirect (F&A) Cost Rate

Effective July 1, 2023, the University's indirect (F&A) rates are as follows:

• On-Campus Research - 56% (previously was 55.5%)
• On-Campus Instruction - 42% (no change)
• On-Campus Other (Public Service) - 30% (previously was 26%)
• Off-Campus - 26% (no change)

The indirect (F&A) rate for private industry clinical trials remains 28% of total direct costs.

There are no changes to our rates from Non-Profit Associations and Foundations and we will continue to follow sponsor policy for those rates with 10% de-minims in the absence of a policy.

What does this mean? 

• Any awards segments that were awarded before July 1, 2023, and are still active will remain with our previous F&A rate structure (e.g. on-campus research would be 55.5%). 
• Any new awards received will be set up at the new rates as of July 1, 2023. This includes proposals that are in development or submitted and not yet awarded.

The University's F&A Cost Grid has been updated and the 2023 F&A Agreement (NICRA) is available.

Post Award Team Updates

Welcome back Marcy Pacheco! Marcy rejoined the Post Award team as a Senior Post Award Specialist and we're excited to be working closely with her again. We also want to welcome two new members of the Post Award team. Renee and Alexis joined us in June and July and we are thankful to have them working with us. 

Alexis Kimbrough
Alexis has worked in research administration for the last 11 years in various post award finance roles within hospital organizations and higher education. She is excited to begin her role as a Principal Post Award Specialist at the University of Colorado. Alexis is a native of South Carolina, and currently lives in the Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan area. In her spare time, she enjoys vacationing with family and friends. The beach and the mountains are her favorite places. 

Renee Pullara
Renee joined the Post Award team in June. Renee’s background is in finance and operations and has worked in healthcare administration for 8 years (5 years on the Anschutz Medical Campus!). She earned a MBA from Argosy University in Chicago, where she is originally from. Although born in Chicago, Renee’s first language is Polish and didn’t start learning English until beginning school. Her and her husband have 3 kiddos and two small pups – Charles (cavapoo) and Oliver Walter (maltipoo). For fun, she loves to dance, exercise, sew, and practice meditation.

  

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Data Center Move

• Applications affected by Data Center Move
• Information about Data Center Move

Team Talks

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.

There are no changes for physical checks. Those should be taken to the Bursar’s Office with a completed cash receipt and not left in OGC's physical location. The Bursar's Office is located in Ed2 North, 3rd floor.

To subscribe to the GC-Updates list serve, click here.