California State University Northridge

Transcription

1 California State University Northridge Report Date July 16, 2014 Site Visit Date April 23-25, 2014 National Council of University Research Administrators th Street, NW, Suite 901, Washington, DC T: (503) E:

2 California State University, Northridge 2 About This Report The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) is a national organization of over 7,000 members. NCURA serves its members and advances the field of research administration through education and professional development programs, the sharing of knowledge and experience, and by fostering a professional, collegial, and respected community. This document focuses on sharing knowledge and experience as a result of the recently conducted review of the research administration area of sponsored programs. Our objectives are to provide the institution with feedback on the institution s management in support of research and to share recommendations and national best practices that might be considered at the institution. While the review utilizes the NCURA National Standards, the Reviewers recognize that policies and practices vary at institutions and that not all Standards are applicable to each institution. The NCURA peer review process is based on interviews with various stakeholders involved in research and research administration areas of sponsored programs. However, the NCURA peer review process does not necessarily validate information or data provided by individuals or departments in preparing this report. Further, the NCURA peer review does not evaluate personnel, nor does it perform an audit function. The results of this review, therefore, should not be used to make human resource decisions. It should not be used to evaluate departments outside the scope of the NCURA review (and is thus limited to use in assessments of Research Administration/Office of Sponsored Projects). Nor can the use of the results help assure fiscal, regulatory, or ethical compliance with federal, state, or local regulations. The recommendations offered in this review report should not be construed as an exhaustive list as these recommendations necessarily represent an analysis by a particular set of Reviewers and at a single point in time and based on interviews and procedures and processes of certain stakeholders and Research Administration/Office of Sponsored Projects procedures and processes that are contemporaneous to the issuance of this report. Just as a decision to follow a recommendation cannot ensure regulatory or audit sufficiency, a decision by an institution not to adopt one or more recommendations does not necessarily mean that the institution is failing to meet legal requirements. Rather, the recommendations reflect an opinion of peer research administrators who are active in the field and familiar with structures and approaches at other institutions. There may, however, be elements of the local history, environment, or culture of which they may not have been fully cognizant. This document does not provide legal advice. NCURA does not warrant that the information discussed in this report is legally sufficient. The Executive Summary provides an overview of the report. The Current Environment for Sponsored Programs section discusses the many influences and pressures that have recently impacted research administration and created some of the current stresses. The remaining

3 California State University, Northridge 3 sections provide a detailed discussion of the National Standards as applied to this institution and includes notable practices and recommendations throughout, along with the rationale for each. NCURA will treat the contents of this report as confidential and will not disclose nor distribute the report outside individuals affiliated with the peer review program. There are no such restrictions on how the institution chooses to utilize the report.

4 California State University, Northridge 4 Executive Summary The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) would like to commend the California State University, Northridge for undertaking an open and comprehensive review of the research administration infrastructure. The strong support for administrative efficiencies and accountability is evident with the decision of institutional leadership and the community to engage in a process that allows all members to participate and contribute. The NCURA Peer Review Program is premised on the belief that it is a critical part of this review process to include experienced research administrators who have significant careers and are engaged nationally. This external validation allows California State University, Northridge to incorporate best practices and models into their final action plans. An evaluation of the research administration of sponsored programs at the California State University, Northridge was conducted at the request of Crist Khachikian. The evaluation was performed in April 2014 (site visit on April 23-25, 2014; Appendix C for the Charge Letter and Appendix D for the site visit itinerary) by a Peer Review Team from NCURA (Appendix B for Bios). The evaluation was framed by the National Standards (Appendix A) for the research administration of sponsored project activities. These Standards cover institutional expectations and commitments, policies, procedures and education, the central and unit-level operations supporting research and scholarship, and the relationship and partnerships across all institutional functions. A number of significant areas are summarized in the Executive Summary. NCURA does not prioritize the recommendations, as this is a key part of the institutional process for assessing the recommendations contained in this report.

5 California State University, Northridge 5 California State University, Northridge is a member of the California State University (CSU) system. There are 23 campuses within the system; it is the nation s largest four-year public university system. The CSU system was created in 1960 under the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The CSU draws its students from the top third of the state s high school graduates and is California s primary undergraduate teaching institution. Although, primarily offering bachelor s degrees, the CSUs offer master degree programs and independent doctor of education, doctor of nursing practice, and doctor of physical therapy programs at numerous campuses. California State University, Northridge (CSUN) is a diverse university community of 38,310 students and more than 4,000 faculty and staff. There are nine Colleges at CSUN all offering bachelors and Master s degrees, as well as, a few offering credentials and a Doctoral Program in Education Leadership and a Doctor of Physical Therapy. The current President was formerly President of California State University, Monterey Bay. The President began her tenure at CSUN in June of She is very committed to growing the research enterprise (doubling research in 5 years) and has identified this goal among her top seven priorities as President. While the institution continues on its quest to grow its research portfolio, there are some broad themes identified through the NCURA Peer Review that will add to this discussion. Research Vision and Leadership: The vision to grow the sponsored research volume has been announced to the campus by the President, supported by the Provost, and endorsed by College Deans and Department Chairs. A key issue for CSUN is that senior leadership has not created a clear roadmap on how the institution as a whole will attain this growth in sponsored research volume. Without this planning at the institutional level, the Deans and PIs have managed the research enterprise for their own Colleges, effectively creating a siloed approach to sponsored activities. If the campus is to be successful, the stakeholders and senior management must be involved in a strategic planning exercise. Plans are underway to begin research strategic planning in the fall of There is strong and clear evidence of the importance of growing the research volume from the senior leadership. Four new positions have been created and staffed in the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects; two new Assistant Vice President positions have been created (one in Research and the other in Graduate Studies) and are being activity recruited; and a new Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies has recently been hired.

6 California State University, Northridge 6 The administrative position that has been given the task of carrying out the President s research agenda is the Associate Vice President for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies. Care must be taken that the senior leadership continue to support this position, and create campus-wide visibility, in order to provide a solid foundation so the incumbent can be successful and that the research agenda under his or her auspices is attainable. Communications: Clear, timely, and regular forms of communication are essential for the operation of sponsored programs. Staff in ORSP talk to each other on an as needed basis or when there is a problem; however, it is not clear that staff in ORSP know and understand what the other members of the office do in their roles. There is a general lack of understanding of the big picture, i.e., putting it all together, and this appears to have resulted in a knowledge gap between and among staff. Communication between the campus, TUC, and the CSUN Foundation must be fostered. An understanding of which entity is allowed to submit sponsored project proposals and accept and manage sponsored projects awards for the campus was unclear. It would be a serious risk to the institution and a loss of potential indirect cost revenue if the CSUN Foundation administered sponsored activities. Policies: When institutions accept external funding for sponsored activities that funding comes with a myriad of rules, regulations, and expectations of policies and procedures. It is not uncommon at institutions that are at the initial stages of moving from a primarily teaching mission to a teaching/scholar/research mission need additional attention and understanding about what policies and procedures must be in place to avoid putting the institution at risk and to be responsible stewards of the sponsor s awards. CSUN is in such a position and as such needs to review current policies with attention toward risk assessment and mitigation. In addition, it is critical to have a proscribed method to develop, vet, and approve policies, which is currently lacking in the ORSP at CSUN. Electronic Research Administration: CSUN has little in the way of electronic research administration systems. The Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (ORSP) has a very antiquated FileMaker Pro database used for tracking proposals and awards. The database is located on a single desktop station. While backups are routinely conducted, this situation creates a potential danger for losing all current and historical information on sponsored activities at CSUN. ORSP does not have a systemto-system proposal submission system and they do not communicate electronically when forwarding award setup information to TUC. Although, TUC Sponsored Programs and the campus both use PeopleSoft as their enterprise financial systems, they are not using the same configuration and thus the campus community has to learn different versions of the same system. CSUN needs to

7 California State University, Northridge 7 review the tools available to the research administration community and perform some cost/benefit analysis to determine how best to move forward. Commitments: It is clear that CSUN s senior leadership is dedicated to growing the research enterprise and this is evidenced by articulating a clear vision, sharing the indirect costs with faculty, hiring new faculty from research intensive institutions and adding more administrative staff for research administration. Many of the newer faculty from research-intensive institutions arrive with the expectation that they will continue to receive funding for their research. The heavy teaching load of 8 courses per year is seen as a serious impediment to conducting research at CSUN. CSUN s Corporation collects the indirect costs and returns a portion of it for the use of the campus. After the requisite amount is collected (~54%), the remaining funds are given to the Provost to distribute through several grant programs but most of the IDC recovery goes directly back a very small number of faculty who generate the largest research programs. The formula for the return of IDC is not transparent to the campus, and there is a strong sense on campus that there was inequity in the IDC return program. Greater attention to informing the campus about IDC return will be important. The notable practices and recommendations from the report are listed throughout the report. Each notable practice and recommendation includes a description and rationale. CONTENTS About This Report 2 Executive Summary 4 Current Environment for Sponsored Program Operations 11 I. Institutional Commitments 12 I.A. STANDARD for Institutional and Research Administration Planning. 12 I.B. STANDARD for Research Administration Organization. 19 CSUN Research Leadership 19 Sponsored Programs 22

8 California State University, Northridge 8 I.C. STANDARD for Research Administration Staffing. 26 I.D. STANDARD for Research Administration Resources. 29 II. Institutional Communications 30 II. STANDARD for Institutional Communications. 30 III. Research Administration Policy Development 33 III. STANDARD for Research Administration Policy Development. 33 IV. Program of Education About Sponsored Programs 35 IV. STANDARD for the Program of Education About Sponsored Programs. 35 V. Assessment and Institutional Preparedness 38 V.A. STANDARD for Risk Assessment. 38 V.B. STANDARD for Institutional Preparedness for Research Disasters or Media Exposure. 41 VI. Information Management 42 VI.A. STANDARD for Information Systems Supporting Research Administration. 42 VI.B. STANDARD for Institutional Management of Research Administration Data. 45 VI.C. STANDARD for Research Administration Data Accessible to Constituents. 47 VII. Institutional Affiliations and Relationships 49 VII.A. STANDARD for Research Affiliations with Other Organizations. 49 VII.B. STANDARD for Research Affiliations with Non-Employed Individuals. 51 VIII. Sponsored Program Operations: Funding and Proposal Services 52 VIII.A. STANDARD for Funding Resources. 52 VIII.B STANDARD for Proposal Assistance. 54 IX. Sponsored Program Operations: Proposal Review and Submission 56

9 California State University, Northridge 9 IX.A. STANDARD for Proposal Review. 56 IX.B. STANDARD for Proposal Submission. 58 X. Sponsored Program Operations: Award Acceptance and Initiation 59 X.A. STANDARD for Award Review and Negotiation. 59 X.B. STANDARD for Subawards. 61 X.C. STANDARD for Award Acceptance. 62 X.D. STANDARD for Award Activation and Notification. 63 XI. Sponsored Program Operations: Award Management 65 XI.A. STANDARD for Fiscal Management. 65 XI.B. STANDARD for Administrative Management. 68 XII. Institutional Integration of Obligations Made with Sponsored Programs Activities 70 XII. STANDARD for Institutional Integration of Obligations Made with Sponsored Programs Activities. 70 XIII. Export Controls 71 XIII. STANDARD for Export Controls. 71 XIV. Research Integrity 72 XIV.A. STANDARD for Research Misconduct. 72 XIV.B. STANDARD for Financial Conflict of Interest. 73 XV. PROTECTION AND OVERSIGHT RELATED TO RESEARCH ACTIVITIES Not Included in Review 74 XV.A. STANDARD for Use of Humans in Research. Not Included in Review 74 XV.B. STANDARD for Use of Animals in Research. Not Included in Review 74 XV.C. STANDARD for Biohazards and Select Agents. Not Included in Review 74 XV.D. STANDARD for Radiation and Laser Safety. Not Included in Review 74

10 California State University, Northridge 10 XV.E. STANDARD for Specialized Research Activities. Not Included in Review 74 XV.F. STANDARD for Maintaining Currency in Field. Not Included in Review 74 Appendix A: 76 National Standards for Effective 76 Sponsored Program Operations 76 Appendix B: 77 NCURA Peer Review Team Bios 77 Appendix C: Charge Letter 80 Appendix D: Site Visit Itinerary 81 Appendix E: NCURA Resources 82

11 California State University, Northridge 11 Current Environment for Sponsored Program Operations Any institution that is focused on developing a more research-intensive program faces a number of challenges. On one front is the challenge to embrace the culture of the institution and those existing or emerging priorities as relate to sponsored program activities. On the other front is the challenge to build or sustain an infrastructure that can nurture, facilitate, and support the growing demands of a research enterprise and meet both faculty expectations and institutional accountability. Any research enterprise brings a measure of risk, accountability, and oversight to the institution that has not been previously apparent. These measures are in response to a parallel growth in attention by the federal government that is evidenced by escalating policies, regulations, and oversight. This increased involvement of the federal government in sponsored programs oversight has resulted in the need for higher degrees of specialization and education on the part of institutional sponsored programs staff. Institutions now maintain a delicate balancing act between developing the infrastructure for facilitating and moving forward research activities of their faculty and providing sufficient oversight and internal controls to demonstrate accountability and to mitigate risk. In the last five years, institutions have been especially impacted by the external environment. Reduced funding, increasingly large-scale and multi-disciplinary research, and collaborations with foreign scientists and business have all contributed to complex relationships and issues of ownership. The recent federal attention on institutional operations through audits, whistleblowers, and investigations has not only exposed our institutions to the public but has brought increasing levels of Congressional attention. The resulting attention on how institutions manage their relationships and the use of the public s funds often results in tighter institutional controls and more restrictive policies imposed on both the institution and faculty. Many of our institutions are now recognizing that the growth of infrastructure and specialized expertise has not kept pace with the complexity of the current-day research relationships and the attention to government regulations and policies that are inextricably intertwined with the external funding. Institutions that are transitioning into a greater focus on research will find that external funding is a double-edged sword. At even a relatively low level of funding, the federal awards carry all the rules, regulations, oversight, and accountability found at the top universities whose research enterprise is in excess of $1 billion dollars. It is critical that an institution have adequate staff, with appropriate training and resources, in place to handle the administrative burden imposed by accepting external funding. Mistakes in this area can be damaging to both individual and institutional reputations. In addition, sponsored programs offices are responding to deadlines

12 California State University, Northridge 12 not of their own making. Decisions and administrative actions must often be undertaken with virtually no advanced notice. The infrastructure supporting sponsored programs is always complex and it requires a periodic review to determine if it efficiently supports the efforts of investigators while also offering an adequate compliance posture with the regulations that underlie federal funding. This general discussion of the current national environment within which all sponsored programs operations exist and the special challenges for transitioning institutions will serve as a foundation for the more specific discussion of this report. I. Institutional Commitments I.A. STANDARD for Institutional and Research Administration Planning. The institutional priorities and strategic plans as relate to research are clearly articulated and tied to action plans and metrics, defined by research administration, that will support and advance the institutional priorities. The relationship of research strategic goal successes and infrastructure commitments in areas that support research (such as seed or bridge funding, shared cores, release time) is understood by the institutional leadership. An institutional commitment to research and sponsored projects is clearly evident at all levels of the organization as appropriate to the culture, mission, and strategic plans. California State University, Northridge is a member of the California State University (CSU) system. There are 23 campuses within the system; it is the nation s largest four-year public university system. The CSU system was created in 1960 under the California Master Plan for Higher Education. The CSU draws its students from the top third of the state s high school graduates and is California s primary undergraduate teaching institution. Although, primarily offering bachelor s degrees, the CSUs offer master degree programs and independent doctor of education, doctor of nursing practice, and doctor of physical therapy programs at numerous campuses. Prior to the State of California creating a state-wide system, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) was first a satellite campus for the Los Angeles State College and then became an independent state college in the 1950 s renamed San Fernando Valley College. Today, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) is a diverse university community of 38,310 students and more than 4,000 faculty and staff. There are nine Colleges at CSUN all offering bachelors and Master s degrees, as well as, a few offering credentials and a Doctoral Program in Education Leadership and a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

13 California State University, Northridge 13 The current President at CSUN was formerly President of California State University, Monterey Bay. The President began her tenure at CSUN in June of Since her appointment, she has identified seven key priorities for CSUN: 1) an unrelenting focus on student success; 2) focus on employees for success; 3) the visibility and reputation of the university; 4) planning for a future less dependent on state funding; 5) increasing research activity and sponsored programs; 6) sustainability; and 7) using athletics as a tool for engagement. These seven key priorities were announced in the campus newsletter CSUN Shines for the Next Decade: Planning and Priorities as an Engaged Institution and are posted on the President s campus website. Priority number 5 Increasing Research Activity and Sponsored Programs reads as follows: Basic and applied research is an essential part of the university s mission. Research engages the expertise of the faculty to address compelling challenges and address problems facing our region, state, and world. When involving students, research activity provides for the highest form of educational experience and mentoring. Funded research is an important source of support for both faculty and students beyond state appropriations. California State University, Northridge will seek to: Substantially increase the volume of grant and contract activity over next 5 years Continue to strengthen administrative support for Principal Investigators Continue to support faculty research through time, space, assistance in pursuing grants, and recognition Continue to engage both undergraduate and graduate students in research Although, the message sent out by the President, and supported by the Provost at CSUN, is clear; the roadmap on how to accomplish this goal had not yet been fully developed or articulated. The Deans at CSUN set their own research agendas and hiring strategies for their Colleges. There is a need to engage the campus community in the dialogue regarding what steps to take to accomplish the growth of the research

14 California State University, Northridge 14 funding for the entire campus and not in a siloed fashion as is currently taking place. Task forces and ad hoc committees are one way to initiate the discussion, but a solid foundation needs to be established that continues to work out the details and steps for realizing the institution s goals. In the fall of 2014, CSUN plans to begin a strategic planning endeavor to increase the research and sponsored project activity based on the President s mission to grow the research volume for the campus. At the current time, information about this activity has not been officially announced to the campus but has been discussed with the appropriate individual Deans. The Associate Vice President (AVP) for Research has been tasked with the development of the research strategic plan to determine the next steps for achieving the institution s goals. This plan must include an infrastructure that is optimized to serve the research community and a clear direction for the entire campus. Prior to implementation of such a plan, the research community should be engaged in order to assure that the plan is workable for the stakeholders and for them to be vested in the goals. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research should engage stakeholders from each College in the conversation about research administration strategic plan. A plan with specific timetables and deliverables for research administrative service is essential. The research community should be consulted and engaged in the plan to maximize success at CSUN. Examples of research administration strategic plans can be found at: The University of Georgia The University of California, Irvine Wayne State University Article on Strategic Planning for Research Administration by Carl Drummond One of the most informative resources for determining research strategies is the publication called Sponsored Research Administration: A Guide to Effective Strategies and Recommended Practices. This 2-volume publication is encyclopedic in its

15 California State University, Northridge 15 coverage of more than 1,800 pages dealing with everything from sample policies and procedures to useful tools, statistics, and supplementary information. Find this publication on the NCURA Many of the newer faculty at CSUN who are hired from research-intensive institutions, have worked on grants and contracts and arrive with the expectation that they will continue to receive funding for their research. The expected teaching load for all faculty regardless of their research and scholarly activity is 8 courses per year. The heavy teaching load was mentioned often by faculty, and administration, as a serious impediment to conducting research at CSUN. As part of the strategic planning initiative, consideration should be given to reassigning time of the teaching load for faculty interested in pursuing research and scholarly activities. Currently, new faculty might be hired with a reduced teaching load but that is the option of the hiring department and college; it is not a policy or practice at the institutional level. There are many ways to address the impediments of a heavy teaching load and to create a program in which there is an equity in the reassignment of time. The AVP for Research has already contacted the other CSU institutions to ascertain what programs they have in place for reassigned time. CSUN, it turns out, is one of the most generous campuses in offering new faculty release time. The Provost will offer two courses of release time to new faculty; however, the execution of the program is managed at the Dean s level and there is no control over what actually takes place. The AVP for Research and the Provost should monitor the program for a couple of years to ascertain how well it is working. Central administration must be able to exercise some control of how the Dean s administer the programs if it is to become successful. Recommendation: The AVP for Research might consider monitoring the program for a couple of years to assure that the impediments of a heavy teaching for faculty who want to obtain sponsored research are removed. A plan for a reduction in the teaching load is critical to the success of the institutional goal of doubling the external funding research volume. Recommendation: CSUN should establish an institutional policy and procedures regarding the reassignment of time for faculty wanting to conduct research and other sponsored activities. The primary mission of the California State Universities as established by the State of California is teaching. In order to create a flow of research dollars to and from the campuses, many of the State Universities have established outside private foundat ions

16 California State University, Northridge 16 to manage the sponsored funding for grants and contracts and a separate foundation to manage private funding for gifts and donations to the campus. At CSUN, there is a 501(c) 3, The University Corporation (TUC), which manages the financial aspects of sponsored activities, and a CSUN Foundation managing funding from private sources including foundations, corporations, and private organizations. CSUN s Corporation collects the indirect costs and returns a portion of it for the use of the campus; however, before any distribution of indirect costs is made, there is a dollar threshold that must be met to support the research enterprise. The approximate amount of return to the campus is 46% of the recovery. Leaving a very large percentage for the use of The Corporation. After the requisite amount is collected, the remaining funds are given to the Provost to distribute through several grant programs but most of the IDC recovery goes directly back a very small number of faculty who generate the largest research programs. It was reported to the Review Team that the formula for the return of IDC is not transparent to the campus. The policy is entitled Large Grant Program which does not speak to how the indirect cost is formulated and how it is returned to the campus for distribution. There was also a strong sense that there was inequity in the IDC return program. While there is a posted document that discusses the return of IDC, it appears to be not well known by the faculty meeting with the Review Team. Increased communication on current practices will be beneficial. Recommendation: CSUN might consider revisiting their F&A return distribution to be more in line with other institutions. An adjustment would signal the Colleges, Departments and faculty who do not generate much IDC recovery that the administration is interested in helping to create a more equitable flow of indirect costs. Examples of other institutions return policies can be found at: Texas A& M Emerson College Texas Women s University %20Recovery%20and%20Distribution.pdf University of New Hampshire

17 California State University, Northridge 17 Along with the return of IDC for specific individuals, also available from the F&A return (and other sources of funding), the institution offers three grant programs. These program currently managed through the ORSP but will be relocated for management under the AVP Research. Research, scholarship and creative activities a program of seed funding at the State level provides mini-grants of up to $5,000 each in all disciplines. Large grant program indirect cost returned directly to the originating PI based on the amount of indirect costs generated by a PI. The indirect cost recovery can be used for grant funds or to buy-out teaching time. Although entitled a grant program, these funds are not competitive. Medtronic-MiniMed program has approximately $1.3 million to distribute every 5 years for biomedical research (funded through a lease agreement with Medtronic). Exploratory projects are offered $50,000; advanced projects can receive $100,000 for a given year and $400, 000 in total for a months duration. The Review Team learned at the site visit that the campus is reconsidering current distribution of these funds. CSUN does not have any metrics to assess the success of the grant programs or of other discretionary funding for seeding research. Creating information about how the money is used should be part of the strategic planning process and readily available for management purposes. The campus, through the Provost, also offers bridge funding for faculty upon request and when funds are available. This is an ad hoc process that will be formalized and transferred to the Associate Vice Provost for Research to coordinate and administer. The California State University system has a unique faculty classification (GRIF Grant Related Instructional Faculty) for those faculty members that bring into the institution at least $500,000 (in constant 2008 dollars) in total costs in one year. At CSUN this program provides up-to 35% increase in the faculty member s salary for the coming year without any expectation of continued sponsored activity. In the past, the GRIF faculty were chosen by their College Dean without any vetting by other members of the institution; however more recently the AVP for Academic Affairs and the AVP for Research reviewed all the applications and the Provost made the final decisions on who would become a GRIF faculty. In the fall of 2014 a new process and a new policy will be proposed. To obtain GRIF funding, even if an individual meets the stated GRIF criteria, a faculty member must apply and be selected. There are 100 slots available to the campuses for this program. Currently only about 50 individuals are in those positions system-wide. In addition to a generous increase in salary, the GRIF faculty also receive the majority of the indirect cost return that they generated. Although, the program was initiated by

18 California State University, Northridge 18 the system-wide Chancellor s Office, each campus decides how to implement it at their campus. There was a strong sentiment by a number of individuals during discussions with the Review Team that the GRIF faculty were being overcompensated for their sponsored activities creating a have and have not research enterprise. Understanding how the other CSUs administer the GRIF program might assist CSUN in revise the ir program. Recommendation: The AVP Research should contact the other CSU campuses that have GRIF faculty to see how those programs are administered in an attempt to make it more equitable at CSUN. Recommendation: The Provost and the AVP Research should include the Deans in the dialogue regarding a revamping of the GRIF program to assure that there is broad discussion about this program as relates to the evolving research emphasis. In an attempt to support the growth of the sponsored research/activities at CSUN there has been an increase in the administrative staff at the institution. Within the last year, CSUN created and hired four new positions for the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects and created two new Assistant Vice Presidents positions under the Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies. It is clear that CSUN s senior leadership is dedicated to growing the research enterprise and this is evidenced by articulating a clear vision, sharing the indirect costs with faculty, hiring new faculty from research intensive institutions and adding more administrative staff for research administration. Notable Practice: CSUN s senior leadership has a clear vision to grow the research enterprise, which is understood and appreciated by the campus research community, The sharing of the indirect costs and the hiring of new administrative staff signals the senior staff commitment. The current NCURA Peer Review represents the first official review of effectiveness that CSUN s has conducted specifically regarding the administration of research activities and its infrastructure. At many institutions, there is increasing attention on critical administrative operations and the need for a regularly occurring review cycle, as is found in academic program reviews to maintain academic accreditation. While the form for such review can be varied (internal or external), the process establishes an expectation for attention to be paid to the operational effectiveness, how well that operation succeeds in a fluid environment, and as a venue for faculty to provide valuable feedback on process.

19 California State University, Northridge 19 Institutions should periodically review the effectiveness of administrative operations, to assess processes for areas of improvement and currency, and to review for compliance or risk. Reviews can be conducted on a scheduled basis (i.e. every 3 to 5 years) and some institutions incorporate both external and internal assessments (internal audit or internal committee). Recommendation: CSUN should consider the value of establishing a regular review cycle for the research administration functions and aligned oversight areas. Conducting scheduled reviews would be another indication of the institution s commitment to the research enterprise and it would act as an excellent gauge on how well the reviewed functions are serving the campus and the faculty. I.B. STANDARD for Research Administration Organization. The institution has identified offices and structures that support the overall administration of the research enterprise and, in particular, the management of externally sponsored programs. The institution has defined roles, relationships and authority between offices where institutional functions in different arms of the institution may overlap with research administration. Effective operational processes exist between sponsored program activities and business functions. As appropriate to the organizational structure, senior research leadership is represented in key academic and institutional groups. Where sufficient research volume and activity warrant, the institution has addressed school, college, department, or center needs for the research administration infrastructure that resides in those units. CSUN Research Leadership The CSUN top leadership have a long history of working at institutions of higher education and have had positions in leadership at those institutions. Both the President and the Provost have experience at institutions that have considerable sponsored programs activity. The President of the institution has been at CSUN since She held the Presidency of CSU Monterey Bay for six years prior to taking the reins at CSUN. Prior to CSU Monterey Bay, she worked at Florida State University, where she served for nearly 30 years in various capacities starting as a faculty member, then as dean of social work, associate vice president for academic affairs, dean of graduate studies and vice president for academic quality and external programs. The Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at CSUN is the senior official responsible for the academic issues, graduate studies, and the research enterprise including research administration. He has held this position for 10 years since The Provost served as Dean, and Professor at the College of Liberal Arts at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, as Dean and Professor at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota,

20 California State University, Northridge 20 Duluth, and as Chair and Professor of the English Department at California State University, San Bernardino. He has a wealth of experience in the California State University system and is extremely well networked within the system. The Provost is very supportive of the President s vision for increasing the external funding for sponsored activity and has recently hired a new Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies to carry out this mission. There was a former AVP Research and Graduate Studies who served in that capacity for over 22 years. During the former AVP s term, there was no campus goal to grow the research and thus only the entrepreneurial faculty were often the faculty who were successful in seeking sponsored support for their research. The ORSP tried their best to reach out to all faculty but there was not strong support campus-wide. The position of Associate Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies consists of the responsibilities for graduate studies and the research enterprise which includes the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (ORSP). The Associate Vice President for Research is a member of the Provost s Council where he sits at the table with the Deans and the Provost during their regularly scheduled meetings and some communications are in place between the AVP and the President (he has regularly scheduled meetings with her and the Provost). Although the AVP is visible and well supported by the Provost and the President, consideration should be given as to whether an Associate Vice President s title holds enough weight to carry out the strategic mission of changing the culture from primarily undergraduate institution to a more research intensive one. Care must be taken that the senior leadership continue to support this position, and create campus-wide visibility, in order to provide a solid foundation so the incumbent can be successful and that the research agenda under his auspices is attainable. Senior leadership might want to review the organizational structures of some of the more research-intensive CSUs to see if they have the same or similar structure in the research administration area. The Review Team is not offering a recommendation on this issue but it might be an area for senior leadership to consider. For an institution to change culture from a primarily undergraduate teaching mission to one that includes more concentrated scholarly activities and external funding for such, there needs to be a continuous dialogue and a visible structure in place for tho se conversations to take place. The institution does not have any formalized committee structure in which the primary agenda is the conduct and support of the research enterprise. There is a Research and Grants Committee that has as its main focus the determination of the recipients of the small grants program for the campus, and as told to the Review Team, they also might review research policy from time to time.

21 California State University, Northridge 21 Often institutions will create standing research administration advisory committees to offer guidance to the individual with primary responsibility for the management of the research enterprise. The membership composition may be research faculty, assistant deans with the responsibilities for research, senior members of a finance office and others engaged in university management. At CSUN, a faculty advisory group should be established that would report to the Associate Vice President for Research and be used as sounding board for that position. Advisory committees/groups are often charged with bringing concerns regarding the services provided for research to the attention of the senior administrators. Such a group could also be tasked with the development of a research administration strategic plan to determine the concrete steps to achieving the institution s goals. Since it is very important that the AVP Research select the membership for his advisory group, and since CSUN has very proscribed ways to form a standing committee, this group should be a task force or an ad hoc group. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research should form a faculty advisory group to bring concerns regarding the services provided for research to the attention of that position. This group should be established as an ad hoc or task force group and membership should be determined by the AVP Research. The campus just created two new positions under the auspices of the AVP Research and Graduate Studies of Assistant Vice President for the Graduate Studies and Assistant Vice President for Research. These positions were created to help the Associate Vice President carry out his responsibilities. Neither of these positions had been filled at the time of the NCURA Peer Review but both were being actively recruited. (The Review Team has subsequently learned that only the AVP for Graduate Studies is currently in active recruitment.) The decision of the campus was to fill both positions with internal faculty from CSUN. Having experience as a researcher is not the same as experience as a research administrator. The skill sets are vastly different and so is the knowledge base. The Review Team recommends that the new research position would be more useful to the AVP if filled by an individual with research administration experience from either another California State institution or a research university. Since the AVP does not have prior research administration experience, having an Assistant VP who does would greatly assist him as he moves forward. Also, having this position filled from someone who is outside of CSUN would bring a new, fresh, and experienced approach to research administration. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research and the Provost should look for an Assistant Vice President with extensive research administration experience elsewhere; perhaps conducting a national or state-wide search for this position. Since

22 California State University, Northridge 22 the AVP has not served in the capacity of a research administrator having an Assistant VP who has this experience would greatly assistant him. In the short term, and in order to immediately assist the Associate Vice President, consideration might be given to hiring a retired senior experienced research administrator on a contractual basis. This person could be dedicated to the AVP and help him to review the current roles and responsibilities in research administration, work with the Research and Sponsored Projects office to help train the new staff members, observe and help to redirect the current work flow in the pre and post award offices. This person can also assist the campus to better frame their needs for the type of experience for the Assistant Vice President s position. Having a very experienced individual on site would be of great benefit to this endeavor. Sponsored Programs Recommendation: Consideration should be given to hiring an experienced retired research administrator for a period of time to assist the Associate Vice President until an Assistant Vice President for Research. Having a very experienced individual on site would be of great benefit to the Associate Vice President in this endeavor. The pre-award activities for the campus are handled through the Research and Sponsored Projects office, which is a campus department with state employees. The Director of the office reports directly to the AVP Research. Pre-award activities include submission of proposals to external sponsors, acceptance of awards for the university, and administration of the compliance committees, the IRB for human subjects and the IACUC for animal care and use. There are three new members of the staff whose workflow are not yet clearly defined. The post-award activities are managed through The University Corporation s (TUC or Corp) Sponsored Programs office. This operation administers all the financial records for the sponsored activities that are conducted on campus. The employees are not state employees (like their counter parts on campus) but hired through TUC. The TUC reports to an Executive Director, who is a state employee and reports to the President of the University. The roles and responsibilities between campus Research and Sponsored Projects office and the Sponsored Programs office at TUC are very clear and well defined. There is no confusion about which office handles what work and communications between the two seems to work well. The TUC has created staff members that are assigned to specific colleges referred to as liaisons.

23 California State University, Northridge 23 The campus members interviewed were very complimentary about the services provided by both the pre and post award offices and expressed positive comments about the post award operations especially the liaisons. Notable Practice: The liaisons structure that was established in the TUC Sponsored Programs office was very well received by the faculty working with them. Due to the fact that the liaison program in the TUC is well regarded, and the new members of the ORSP jobs are not yet defined, the Directors of ORSP and the TUC Sponsored Programs might consider a program of having the ORSP new staff members learn about the post award administration and the liaison program as a form of training on post award and to ascertain if such a program could work in ORSP. Recommendation: The Director of Research and Sponsored Projects and the Director of TUC Sponsored Programs might consider having the new members of ORSP shadow the post award liaisons for a week or two to learn about post award administration and to determine whether that structure could work for ORSP as well. In addition to the TUC, which is mandated to handle the business for the campus such as external funding, the bookstore and real estate leases, there is a Vice President for Administration, Finance and CFO for the campus who also reports to the President. This position has some involvement with research administration since he signs off on internal grant date forms but he mainly manages the operating budgets for the campus, which includes the returned indirect cost recovery from the TUC and the federal funding received for student loan programs. Another 501 (c) 3 established at CSUN is the CSUN Foundation. This organization handles funding from all privates sources, such as foundations, corporations, associations and private donors. The CSUN Foundation is responsible for accepting all philanthropic and tax-deductible gifts, managing, investing, and disbursing all funds and endowments raised for the University. The CSUN Foundation is headed by the Vice President for University Advancement and is run by a Board of Directors of which the President of the University is a member. The VP for University Advancement reports to the President of the University and also sits on the Board of Directors for CSUN Foundation. The Review Team learned that there are no employees of the Foundation but there are Directors of Development (DOD) for each college and a central office on campus. The VP of University Advancement is new to the institution and is eager to work alongside of both the AVP Research and the Executive Director for TUC.

24 California State University, Northridge 24 Interactions between, and communications about, the responsibilities of the AVP for Research, Executive Director of TUC, and the VP Development are mostly through mutual understandings. There is a 2004 Executive Order issued by the State-wide Office of the Chancellor regarding the Administration of Grants and Contracts in Support of Sponsored Programs which directs each University on how to establish a sponsored programs administration. There is no directive by the Chancellor s Office for each campus to establish a private foundation to handle the post-award aspects of external funding but if the campus chooses to have a foundation then an MOU between the campus and the Foundation must be in writing and periodically updated. The TUC and CSUN have an established MOU that was updated in Although the Review Team learned subsequent to the site visit that there is also an agreement between the CSUN Foundation and the Research office for the administration of grants from private sources, this MOU appears not be enforced. In discussions with the campus community, the Review Team heard from the senior administrators and pre and post award offices that all grants and contracts to CSUN regardless of source of funding were administered through the campus pre-award and the TUC post award offices. However, in discussions with College Grant Officers and the faculty that information was strongly contradicted. The faculty that received private monies regardless of whether or not they had terms and conditions, and deliverables were emphatic they were managed by Development officers through the CSUN Foundation. All proposals were submitted though the CSUN Foundation and funds management by them as well. Since the Review Team heard two very different responses it would be very important for the campus to ascertain where these funds are being handled. It would be a serious risk to the institution and a loss of potential indirect cost revenue if the CSUN Foundation did administer sponsored activities. The risk to the campus would be that terms and conditions are not know and are not being monitored and managed. Restrictions and delays on publications and ownership of intellectual property can create a deemed export control situation. Recommendation: The AVP Research, the Executive Director of TUC and the VP for Advancement should review the monies being administrated through the Foundation to assure that no sponsored project funding are being administered there. Loss of indirect cost revenue and potential issues with export controls could result. These concerns are common among all institutions with development and sponsored projects activities. Clear definitions of gift verses sponsored program are essential, as well as an agreed upon structure for which office submits the proposal. Definitions of gift versus sponsored project are common at colleges and universities. Many definitions include a range of characteristics of sponsored programs and when any of

25 California State University, Northridge 25 the characteristics exist the proposal or award is treated as a sponsored project and is managed solely by the research administration office. It is general practice to classify the activity when the proposal is submitted, not at the award stage. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research, the Vice President for Advancement, along with the Executive Director of TUC, should develop and implement definitions and written guidelines on gifts, grants and contracts and determine which office is responsible managing what type of award. A review of institutional guidance would provide a number of policies in this endeavor. Eastern Illinois University: Loyola University of Chicago: 20vs.%20Grant%20Determination%20Checklist.pdf Middle Tennessee State University: University of California, Berkeley ResearchGiftOrSponsoredProjectIndicators.pdf Oregon State University Clear definitions and better understanding of the difference between these types of awards at the proposal stage will assure that the award will be classified correctly and the appropriate office will be submitting the proposal. Recommendation: Definitions for gifts, grants, and contracts should be posted on the websites of all units involved to assure that the campus community is clear about which office is best suited to assisting faculty with proposal submissions. With clear definitions and a determination at proposal stage about which office is the appropriate office to manage the proposal process, communication to campus about the responsibilities of each can be clearly articulated.

26 California State University, Northridge 26 CSUN has an Internal Auditor who reports through the VP Administration and CFO. The campus auditor mainly looks are issues that arise and that are of interest to the President of the campus. Many of his audits are reviewing fraud allegations. The system-wide office also has internal auditors. The Chancellor s Office has 11 staff members who review post-award issues and conduct campus audits. The TUC Sponsored Programs office had a post-award audit last year and the pre-award office has not had an audit in about 10 years. The California State University Chancellor s Office employs an attorney who is assigned to assist CSUN in general. Other attorneys who specialize in specific subject areas are also available through the Chancellor s Office. ORSP staff members can request assistance directly from the attorney assigned to CSUN. Depending on the nature of the issue, staff members may also present their issues to attorney specialists in the Chancellor s Office. Additionally, The University Corporation keeps an attorney on retainer; ORSP staff member may request their services through TUC. Four of the Colleges have Grants Officers whose functions are to assist the faculty to development and write proposals, put together budgets, search out potential funding and work as a liaison between the Office of Sponsored Programs, the Development offices, and the CSUN Foundation. There appears to be no redundancy in the work of the College Grant Officers and the central offices. Relationships were reported to be good. I.C. STANDARD for Research Administration Staffing. The institution has invested in sufficient number of staff to support the core functions of the sponsored programs operation and to meet the obligations to sponsors. The institution has an appropriate research administration staffing plan that contains elements of recruitment, retention, and succession for key positions. Clear expectations exist for training appropriate to responsibilities for all level of staff and at central and unit levels. The current volume of activity at CSUN is 244 proposals submitted for a request of approximately $80,300,000. This amount is a sharp decrease from prior years where the high in FY10 was 271 proposals requesting $180,500,00. The number of current awards is 200 with a dollar volume of $33,580,576. This total is slightly up from prior years; it is unclear to the Review Team how much of this funding is for new awards rather than just continuations of current projects. All institutions have some variance in the amount of sponsored programs requested and received especially in the light of the tightening federal government s budget; however, an analysis of this downward trend of proposals would be beneficial to help to identify possible causes. The rule of thumb is that it takes at least 4 proposals to

27 California State University, Northridge 27 receive one award, with a decrease in the number of proposals being submitted the probability is that the amount of funding at CSUN will go down in the near future. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research and the Director of ORSP should conduct an analysis of the downward trend in proposals submitted to try to determine contributing factors. Understanding some of the possible causes may help to reverse the trend. There are two offices that are responsible for the management of sponsored activities at CSUN: the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (ORSP) and the Sponsored Programs office at the Corporation (TUC). ORSP is the pre-award office handling the proposal submissions and award acceptances for the campus, as well as staffing the compliance committees. The office has 10 staff members, including the Director and the Assistant Director; five of the 10 staff members are new to the office being hired within the last year, and four of those positions are new positions. Besides the Director and the Assistant Director, ORSP has a Research Specialist/Grant Writer; two Compliance Officers; three new Grant/Contract Coordinators and an Administrative Support Coordinator. The three new Grant/Contract Coordinators were all hired during the last month and had not yet received any formal training. Although, the Review Team was informed that there was a reorganizational plan for the office, no plan had been offered to the Team for review. Once the reorganizational plan is in place, and the new staff have some formalized training, it would be useful to get feedback from the faculty and Dean s about the service being provided by ORSP. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research should solicit feedback from the faculty and Deans to ascertain whether the new organizational model is on target with providing better service to the research community. It seemed to the Review Team that many of the processes in ORSP from proposal review, proposal submission and award acceptance are cumbersome and somewhat obsolete. There is a very antiquated File Maker Pro database that sits on the Director s computer in which information about proposals and awards are entered and tracked. There are procedures for filing proposal and award documents that involve many steps and the creation of many forms for the office staff. In order to ascertain whether or not the staffing for this operation is adequate or generous, a review of the daily operations must take place. The new Assistant VP Research (or the consultant) and the Director of ORSP should review all the processes and actions with regard to proposal review, submission, and award acceptance. Processes should be streamlined

28 California State University, Northridge 28 and those that are not necessary should be eliminated. Reducing the administrative burdens in ORSP would give the AVPR a better understanding of whether or not the amount of staffing is adequate. Recommendation: The new Assistant VP Research and the Director of ORSP should review all the processes and actions with regard to proposal review, submission, and award acceptance. Processes should be streamlined and those that are not necessary should be eliminated. Reducing the administrative burdens in ORSP would give the Associate VP Research a better understanding of whether or not the amount of staffing is adequate or generous. The Sponsored Programs office at TUC is the financial or post award office that manages the funding received by the campus. This office has 5.5 FTE including a Director and a Supervisor of the three Sponsored Programs Analysts. One FTE is shared with the Real Estate Department; this position is responsible for Effort Reporting, Cost Sharing and Subrecipient Monitoring. Neither the ORSP nor the TUC Sponsored Programs appears to have any succession planning or career ladder opportunities for their staffs. There appears to be very little professional development opportunities offered for either the ORSP or TUC Sponsored Projects staffs. And no training is offered to the Grants Officers in the Colleges. Training and professional development is essential for all research administrators; the field is constantly changing with the ever-increasing regulations from the funding agencies and as well as the federal and state governments. Professional development creates networks of colleagues who share best practices, policies, and different models of operation. The University needs to extend significant training to the ORSP and TUC staffs, which might be accomplished through a variety of professional development offerings. Recommendation: CSUN should consider investing in ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs staffs professional development training to assist them in increasing their proficiency in their fields. Such training can be obtained from professional organizations such as NCURA. The NCURA Fundamentals of Sponsored Projects Administration workshop offers a professional development program that can be tailored to a specific campus if the need is there. In addition, attendance at targeted subject matter meetings, such as the NCURA Financial Research Administration (FRA) annual conference, might be beneficial as well. Notable Practice: The Associate Vice President of Research has provided support for professional development activities for ORSP staff.

29 California State University, Northridge 29 When the research volume has grown at CSUN, the institution should consider creating more Grants Officer/research administration positions in the Colleges to work directly with faculty on proposal creation and award management. These positions are very common at the large to moderate research volume institutions and can be critical to the success of the research program. There are many models for these type positions, sometimes they are funded by the central administration or are members of the central sponsored programs office that are placed in the Dean s units. Recommendation: CSUN might consider creating positions for the Colleges dedicated specially to research administration if the research volume is to grow. Having dedicated staff work directly with the faculty can be critical to the success of the research program. These position can be centrally funded or created by placing the ORSP grants officer staff in the Dean s units. I.D. STANDARD for Research Administration Resources. The institution has in place a process to identify changing resource needs for research administration as relates to changes in the institutional priorities and the external environment. Such resources encompass staffing, space, information technology, and financial resources to support the staff in carrying out their sponsor program functions. It is clear that CSUN has made substantial financial and space resources available in the last year for research administration. ORSP has experienced almost a complete doubling in staffing with the principal objective to hire more individuals. The state funded operating budgeting for CSUN is $370 million, which is made up mainly from student tuition and fees, and approximately 32% from state appropriated funds. The budget process currently takes place annually for the campus; however the campus was just beginning to develop five-year budget planning cycle. The process includes a budget for Academic Affairs with both the AVP and the ORSP offices. In addition, some of the indirect cost recovery is used to cover costs of running ORSP. Although the Review Team learned that the appropriation from the state was flat, there had been no hiring freezes or furloughs and none planned for the future. On the downside of resources is the lack of IT support from the campus for O RSP. ORSP had a homegrown proposal and award tracking system in File Maker Pro; no system-to-system proposal submission system; and no electronic connectivity between pre and post award systems. There will be further discussion of IT systems in a separate section of the report. Recommendation: None

30 California State University, Northridge 30 II. Institutional Communications II. STANDARD for Institutional Communications. The institution recognizes the importance of establishing mechanisms for timely, regular communication regarding sponsored programs trends and activity levels, policies and procedures, expectations, roles and responsibilities, changes in policies, and risk areas. Appropriate lines of communication exist between the institution's senior research administrator and the institution s overall senior leadership team. The institution has defined mechanisms that make available information about research activities and successes to the public. Research administration provides regular communication to faculty and staff as well as opportunities to provide feedback. Current policies and procedures are readily accessible via websites and other means. Strong communications exist between central offices and unit-level staff, where such exists. Research administration periodically assesses the effectiveness of their communication practices. Most of the communications about research administration issues at CSUN is informal and takes place via , telephone or face-to-face meetings. Both the President and the Provost have Council s to discuss institutional issues and issues that are of importance to the senior management, however, the Review Team learned that research issues are not often discussed at either of those meetings As mentioned already in this report, each Dean works very independently in setting research agendas for their Colleges which has the effect of creating a siloed research agenda at the institution. Communications with the administration are mostly casual and informal. Information is provided to the Colleges and Departments when their faculty receive awards and when there are funding opportunities that might be applicable to their School faculty. The Deans whose Schools have productive research faculty were satisfied with what the campus was providing and communicating. Other School Deans were struggling with trying to balance the heavy teaching with the increased pressure of obtaining sponsored funding and expressed concern that scholarship was being lost in the equation. The Deans interviewed were concerned about issues such as space for research, reassigned time for teaching, increasing the number of faculty being hired, and the competition nationally for graduate students. They indicated that there was no forum in which to voice these concerns and to have a dialogue about them. The Provost and the Associate Vice President Research should solicit research agenda items for the Provost s Council meetings in which these topic can be discussed and concerns voiced. Recommendation: The Provost should add research related issues to the Provost s Council agenda in order for the Deans to be able to discuss research related issues in that forum.

31 California State University, Northridge 31 The Associate Vice President for Research meets bi-weekly with the Provost and his staff and sits on the Provost s Council along with the College Deans. He also attends meetings with the President and the Provost on a semi-regular scheduled basis. Information regarding the progress of research administration is mostly discussed directly with the Provost. Members of the ORSP senior staff will attend new faculty orientation and have a booth at the faculty retreat to introduce them and their office functions to the new faculty. There are no scheduled faculty open houses, brown bag lunches or other meetings with faculty and research administration staff. ORSP currently does not hold meetings designed to reach out to faculty members, either individually or in groups, in order to obtain insights into faculty interests or to request feedback about ORSP services. Recommendation: The AVP for Research should consider holding small focus groups with faculty to gather feedback about services. It may be valuable to initially identify 3-4 primary groups of faculty by reaching out to schedule meetings to discuss ORSP services, identify faculty scientific interests, and provide hands-on sign-up and training for funding opportunity resources. Included in this outreach should be the three to four Grants Officers in the College. The AVP Research has begun to hold staff meetings with the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects; however, those are mainly to discuss office structure and workflow and not to develop policies or strategic plans for the research enterprise. The ORSP holds biweekly staff meetings. Most meetings begin with the Director soliciting topics for discussion from the staff; the staff does not appear to know what the senior members of the office do on a daily basis. When asked by the Review Team to describe how the Director and the Assistant Director review proposals, the staff could not do so. The two compliance officers in the office did not appear to, or gave any indication, that they knew what the other person did or what their counter-parts role was. It is critically important for the entire office to understand what the work is i n the office and to discuss what everyone does and how the jobs are performed. Clear, timely, and regular forms of communication are essential for the operation of sponsored programs. Staff in ORSP talk to each other on an as needed basis when there is a problem; it is clear that no one understands what anyone else does. There is a general lack of understanding of the big picture, i.e., putting it all together, and there seems to be a knowledge gap between and among staff. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP should invite all staff in ORSP to participate in the development of the agendas so that their concerns and issues are brought to light. Agendas should be developed in advance of the meeting to allow everyone to have a chance

32 California State University, Northridge 32 to have input into the meetings. Staff meeting might be used as training time for the new members of the office. At these meetings the discussion should be about the nuts and bolts of the everyday operations of the office, in order for everyone to under the total function of the office. Recommendation: The AVP Research and with the Executive Director of TUC should hold monthly or quarterly meetings with joint staff of ORSP and Sponsored Programs to impart the institutional vision to the both groups and to have discussion about issues in common. ORSP has a website that lists policies, procedures, forms, funding opportunities and highlights that include some of the awards received by the institution. It is the main vehicle for the office to post announcements such as changes in policies, procedures and guidelines. The Review Team learned while onsite that the campus was changing the design of their website and ORSP was asked to quickly put a new site together. There is a need to enhance the ORSP website and to make it more useful tool for the faculty. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP might want to review the websites of some other institutions to get an idea of best practices in communication with faculty with an eye to enhance of what would be useful tools for faculty. Examples of website can be found at: James Mason University Stockton: San Francisco State University Cal Tech: The Sponsored Programs office in TUC also maintains a website which offers policies, procedures and guidelines. Although most of the information in this site is valid and useful to the researcher, some of the information is out-of-date. This site is also in need of enhancing the content and the Director of the office might want to review other post award websites for some useful ideas and tools. Examples can be found at:

33 California State University, Northridge 33 Rutgers Duke: III. Research Administration Policy Development III. STANDARD for Research Administration Policy Development. The institution demonstrates a process for policy development that is transparent; for those policies not proscribed externally (such as by specific federal regulation). Policy ownership and the associated approval process are clearly established. Where sufficient research volume and activity warrant unit-level research administration support, the institution has established the relationship of central policy to college, department, or center policy and practice. CSUN has a website entitled University Policies and Procedure Index. Housed on this site are policies listed by title within the organization that developed the policies and is the policy owner. There are no policies listed under this site for Academic Affairs, Research and Graduate Studies, or the TUC post award policies. There is a separate page on Academic Policies but they contain information on student policies and procedures. Posted on the Academic Affairs site is an academic personnel policies and procedures manual that can be accessed. Trying to find out information about policy development and procedures for CSUN is very difficult. The user must know which website to access in order to find the information, policy or procedure needed. There does not seem to be any institutional policy committee or a proscribed procedure for policy development. The background material given to the Review Team identified a process for drafting and developing new research administration policies. New policies are drafted in ORSP in response to federal, state or university (system-wide) requirements. The policies that need institutional approval are first passed to the Research and Grants Committee for review. Once reviewed by that Committee they go to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, and then the whole Faculty Senate for review, with final approval by the President. There is no vetting of the policies by the faculty or the front-line stakeholders. Policies pertaining to the research compliance area under the egis of ORSP have the same vetting structure as the other ORSP s policies. The staff drafts the policies for the compliance committee s review and approval first before the campus vetting process takes place.. The Sponsored Programs Office in TUC also establishes policy for research administration other than just financial issues. Listed on their website are policies

34 California State University, Northridge 34 pertaining to Export Controls and Intellectual Property ownership rights. These policies would be more likely seen on a pre-award site rather than a post-award site and are not cross-referenced on the ORSP site. It is unclear whether or not the preaward office had any hand in the authorship of these policies. The TUC Sponsored Programs Office and the campus ORSP should work together on policy development that crosses organizational lines and should at least have these policies, and ones like it, linked to both sites. Recommendation: TUC Sponsored Programs and ORSP should work on drafting and developing policies together that crosses organizational lines. In addition, there should be a link on both sites for these type policies. In policy development, it is important that stakeholders are provided an opportunity for comment on drafts. It is also important that the development of policies include significant stakeholders so that their perspective can be taken into account when developing the policy. Once a policy is developed and approved, sufficient time needs to be given to the community to avoid unnecessary hardship during implementation. Recommendation: CSUN needs to establish procedures on how policies for sponsored programs are approved and disseminated. Such a procedure should include provisions for how stakeholders will have the opportunity to comment on policies and how policy information will be disseminated to the campus community. The establishment of the procedures on how policies are vetted will help assure that all impacted units will be able to raise issues of concern about policies and help them understand the rationale for a policy. Policy development, in and of itself, can be a daunting task for those involved in managing a growing sponsored programs enterprise. All too often, institutions find themselves in a position of having to defend actions taken either in the absence of needed policies or with policies that are not supported by adequate procedural controls and compliance within the community. To assure that CSUN has no gaps in their policies in keeping with current federal regulations and guidelines, consideration should be given to conducting a survey of policies and procedures at institutions of similar volume. It is a risk to the institution to not have current and appropriate policies, which could result in fines and penalties from the federal agencies. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP and the Director of TUC Sponsored Programs should consider conducting a survey of the policies and supporting procedures at institutions of similar research volume and compare those to CSUN s to assure that there are no gaps in their policies and procedures and that University s are current and up-to-date. An assessment might be taken of which

35 California State University, Northridge 35 policies and supporting procedures are most critical for immediate review and revisions. Another very useful publication is Managing Externally Funded Research Programs: A Guide to Effective Management Practices which is available for free downloading at the Council on Governmental Research website at An additional resource that contains much recommended reading is Regulation and Compliance 2014, which offers a compendium of regulations, certifications, and other useful background information for sponsored programs offices. This resource can be found on the NCURA publications website at Finally, the Research Management Review (RMR) is a great NCURA publication that is available online at no cost to all NCURA members. RMR contains informative articles on a wide variety of topics, as written by experts in the field and outside contributors. The link is at Recommendation: ORSP and Sponsored Programs together should consider comparing the results of their survey to the best practices that can be found by reviewing several resources located at NCURA and Council of Government Relations (COGR). Then, an assessment might be taken of which policies and supporting procedures are most critical for immediate development and timely implementation. IV. Program of Education About Sponsored Programs IV. STANDARD for the Program of Education About Sponsored Programs. The institution has established programs of education for staff, teaching and research faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students, as appropriate, regarding institutional and sponsor expectations for the conduct of sponsored programs and research. The institution has on-going educational programs for unit-level (department, college, center, other) research administrators where such exist. Research administration recognizes the importance of introducing new faculty, staff, senior administrators, and unit-level research administrators to appropriate research resources and information. Mechanisms are in place to identify such individuals. To remain current and compliant in an ever changing and dynamic climate of sponsored research, the need for education in regulatory areas, and in responsible

36 California State University, Northridge 36 conduct and administration of research is critical for research faculty and staff across the university and its colleges. Such education must cover institutional policies and procedures, technology systems and tools, compliance issues, special risk areas, and other research resources. The Review Team recognizes that the staffs in ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs offer some educational opportunities for the faculty and research staff, however, there is a need to provide more formal mechanisms of training on regulatory and research administrative issues and a more organized orientation, and mentoring of new research faculty and staff. Recommendation: As research volume grows in the future, ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs should consider developing and implementing several education programs for PIs and College administrators. Examples of training programs in research administration offered by other institutions can be found at: Stanford s Cardinal Curriculum University of California, Santa Barbara s STAR Certificate in Research Administration Program Florida University s The Compliance and Research Administration Training and Education (CReATE) Program Currently, ORSP hosts a booth/table at the Annual Faculty Retreat sponsored by the Faculty Senate. During this time they distribute information about ORSP operations and grant writing services. The information provided at the new faculty orientation seems minimal for the needs of new faculty. ORSP only distributes information about the office and offers handouts on grants research and grant writing. ORSP also offers brown bag sessions for faculty. These sessions are informational only. ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs staffs might consider jointly offering new faculty a lunch time seminar series on grantsmanship, proposal development, and award management. Offering a series of lunch time seminars could provide a venue for key senior administrators, e.g. directors of ORSP, TUC Sponsored Programs to build a better communication path, access and enhance critical relationships with university faculty and staff. ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs staff are expected to make

37 California State University, Northridge 37 decisions and give advice in all areas of research compliance. Since TUC Sponsored Programs can override ORSP decisions on various financial issues compliance, it is important that ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs have similar decision-making views. Providing consistent training to the colleges and research partners can only enhance the service ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs provides to the campus. Training resources and opportunities for college level faculty and administrators are an important step. During the interviews, faculty and college grants officer s commented on their need for a consistent level of training and understanding in all aspects of grants and contracts management. In addition, faculty and college administrators indicated that there could be different interpretations of grant and contract issues around policies. Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Program should jointly develop and offer new faculty lunch and learn gatherings that focus on particular areas of research administration (e.g. management and research plans, needs assessment, budget and etc.); focused sessions for new faculty and junior faculty opportunities such as NSF Career Awards. These one-hour sessions could be offered over the course of the academic year and advertised as a series. Although there is little in the way of formalized training provided by the staffs of ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs, CSUN does offer the faculty the opportunity for training on research compliance issues via Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative Program (CITI) Notable Practice: CITI is the leading provider of research education content. It was recognized, CSUN utilizes the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) for its Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training. As mention previously, ORSP participates and makes presentations to new faculty at the new faculty orientation. However there was not a mechanism to identify new grants officers when they are hired. The grants development officers in the colleges are not focused on research administration areas or functions related to research administration; however they do intersect with the Foundation and thus should receive some grants training.. Recommendation: ORSP should develop a mechanism for identifying new college grants officers. This would ensure new college administrators are appropriately educated on institutional and sponsor policies and procedures for research administration.

38 California State University, Northridge 38 The Review Team learned that TUC Sponsored Programs conducts training for faculty when they received new awards. TUC Sponsored Programs liaisons offer trainings to faculty who receive awards that are administered through TUC Sponsored Programs. The trainings consist of policy review, forms and documents, website review of location of forms and documents. The initial trainings primarily take place in person. The institution has no formalized mechanisms in place to mentor new faculty on research and programs related to sponsored research. Faculty mentoring is accomplished through one-on-one consultation with ORSP staff via the Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions (RIMI) grant which CSUN was awarded in ORSP s role was to inform faculty of grants and contracts process. At the meeting with Junior Faculty and Center Directors, the Review Team learned that there was not an active program of mentorship available. Faculty interviewed indicated some colleges and departments informally mentor their faculty but that is independent of central administration. The AVP Research has just developed and is offering in the summer of 2014 a program entitled the Faculty Scholars Academy. The Faculty Scholars Academy is designed to increase the quantity and strengthen the quality of extramural proposals and to encourage the infusion of research into curricula. Senior faculty commit to serve as mentors and coaches in this program and to attend regular meetings to discuss various aspects of grantsmanship and research-intensive curricula and to work with new faculty on developing proposals or modifying programs. Faculty participants will be given a stipend or receive three units of reassigned time. The Review Team was impressed with the concept of this program and when the Academy was discussed with faculty, they were very excited about the potential opportunity for mentorship and training. However, most stated that the announcement for this program came very late and too late for some to participate in the coming summer. The Review Team understands that planning a new initiative may not have allowed sufficient time for advertising. Recommendation: In future years, the AVP of Research, should develop a timeline that allows sufficient time to announce the Faculty Scholars Program in order for faculty to participate. V. Assessment and Institutional Preparedness V.A. STANDARD for Risk Assessment.

39 California State University, Northridge 39 The institution periodically assesses risk tolerance of research activities and emerging risk areas. The institution periodically reviews sponsored program policies and performs appropriate audit and assessment activities. There is an expectation for a regular and thorough assessment of the effectiveness of the sponsored programs operation. The institution has mechanisms to monitor the national landscape for emerging areas of risk. In 2001 the Chancellor s Office conducted an extensive review of grants and contracts which included both pre and post award administration. The focus of the review was on the existence of and the adherence to research administration policies and procedures. However, it has been over 10 years since the last full review of the sponsored program occurred at CSUN. The institution needs to establish a regular review cycle for sponsored programs and for the ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs activities. Just as there are regular review cycles for academic programs, there should be a similar review for ORSP in order to assess and re-evaluate the operational effectiveness of the office and the efficacy of its support for faculty, as well as to continue to look at exposure and risk areas. Reviews should be conducted regularly, following at a minimum an academic program review cycle and possibly more frequently to assist in risk management. Recommendation: CSUN should establish a regular review cycle for research administration functions and oversight areas. There are a number of techniques used by institutions to review the operation of research administration that include external review, faculty surveys, internal audits, and administrative and faculty review committees. Such reviews of sponsored programs will help CSUN assess its progress toward meeting its strategic goals as well as help the University ensure compliance with the ever-changing regulatory environment. At many institutions, there is increasing attention on critical administrative operations and the need for a regularly occurring review cycle. While the form for such review can be varied (internal or external), the process establishes an expectation for attention to the operational effectiveness, how well that operation succeeds in a fluid environment, and often institutions allow for faculty to comment on process. There are a number of techniques used by institutions of higher education to periodically review the effectiveness of sponsored programs, to assess operations for areas of improvement and currency, and to review for compliance or risk. Internal Audit conducts audits on individual grants but mostly regarding issues of fraud. The system-wide auditors will do a fiscal review every three years and assist in the OMB A-133 audits. However, ORSP is not incorporated into the management reviews for the internal or system-wide auditors.

40 California State University, Northridge 40 CSUN would benefit from the establishment of an ongoing campus-wide committee to serve in an oversight capacity regarding all aspects of research-related compliance. Issues ranging from pre-award, financial, legal, compliance with federal regulation, and other areas of risk in the research arena should be the responsibility of the committee. The committee could be charged initially with developing a compliance matrix tool, which is used by many institutions. Recommendation: The Provost and Associate Vice President for Research, along with the Executive Director of TUC should appoint a campus-wide compliance committee to serve as oversight regarding all aspects of research-related compliance issues. The committee should be composed of individuals who are responsible for the management of risk assessment in their areas. The committee should be charged with compiling a compliance matrix tool. A compliance matrix identifies the compliance areas throughout the university and the unit that is responsible for ensuring compliance. A compliance matrix could be as simple as a chart that includes some of the following elements. areas involved (e.g., use of humans, monitoring of expenditures, proposals reviewed for university commitments, Federal or state policies referenced in proposal/award terms and conditions that, as such, are committed to being in place by the institution i.e., Drug Free Workplace) responsible university office and individual monitoring process (e.g., committee, individual, or other) location of University policies/procedures guiding principles (e.g., applicable Federal or State regulation, OMB, ethical codes) reporting requirements (e.g., filing of assurance/certification/non-compliance/other); frequency of reporting; recipient of reports fines, findings, audit results training requirements (who, frequency, oversight) Such a matrix enables various units e.g. TUC Sponsored Programs, ORSP, Internal Audit, and CFO, to come together to discuss and understand the compliance areas and their role and responsibilities in mitigating risk. Information from a compliance matrix may additionally be useful to ensure compliance risks are addressed during proposal development, award set-up, and fiscal management. There are numerous varieties and approaches that can be used for such a matrix, with some focused on identifying responsible units for an area and others focused on providing a risk assessment of

41 California State University, Northridge 41 the area. Development of a matrix specifically related to the research/scholarly functions would also be desirable. Some examples of compliance matrices follow: s.aspx The following NCURA publications could serve as additional references and best practices: Regulation and Compliance: A Compendium of Regulations and Certifications Applicable to Sponsored Programs (NCURA) Council on Governmental Relations (COGR): V.B. STANDARD for Institutional Preparedness for Research Disasters or Media Exposure. The institution has a disaster recovery and emergency preparedness plan. Research activities are included in the plan. The institution periodically assesses its preparedness for disasters and insures that appropriate areas are informed. As appropriate to the breadth of activity, the institution has a written and communicated media-response plan. In 1994, Northridge was hit by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake that almost totally destroyed the campus. The campus has spent almost 20 years rebuilding and putting back the basic infrastructure it had prior to the earthquake. CSUN is thus remarkabl y sensitive to emergency management and preparedness. There is a website under the Department of Police Service for Emergency Operations and Resources. The site is divided in sections for faculty, staff, and students and carries information for all stakeholders on what to do in an emergency such as an earthquake or a shooting. There is also a link to contact information in case of hazardous spills. On the Environmental Health and Safety website are the emergency plans for accidents with hazardous materials, radiation safety, blood-borne pathogens, bio safety and a various of other health and safety concerns. Also, found on this site are training manuals for working with all types of chemicals, radiation safety and waste materials. The site is easy to navigate and well designed for the user.

42 California State University, Northridge 42 Notable Practice: CSUN has two very well designed and easy to navigate websites that pertain to emergency preparedness, laboratory safety and training manuals. Missing from both sites are emergency plans when working for animal subjects. Included in the briefing materials given to the Review Team is a Vivarium Emergency and Disaster Plan, which is very well written and includes precise information on what to do in an emergency with animals. This plan should be incorporated in the overall campus emergency plans as well as posted on the ORSP compliance website. Recommendation: The Vivarium Emergency and Disaster Plan should be included on the campus Emergency sits as well as the ORSP compliance website for the use of all animal users and the knowledge of individuals who might wish to work with animals, either in teaching or research. The issue of the protection of research and scholarly data is not addressed at CSUN at the present time. The loss of research/scholarly data can destroy a project, thus CSUN should consider plans to back-up data and protect the research endeavor. An emergency plan for data back should be prepared for the IRB and vetted by the AVP Research. Also emergency plans for research related areas should periodically be sent to the AVP Research to review research-related areas that should be addressed. Recommendation: CSUN should address and write plans for backing up research data in a campus emergency. It is a considerable risk to a research project if research/scholarly data is a lost. A data protection plan should be developed for the institution. VI. Information Management VI.A. STANDARD for Information Systems Supporting Research Administration. The institution has in place appropriate information systems for research administration and sponsored programs and has processes that integrate proposals, awards, financial management, and compliance reviews. Appropriate to the volume of activity, the institution has implemented electronic systems that are integrated. The institution periodically assesses research administration technology needs. Information systems to help manage the business operations of research administration and sponsored programs should be the foundation of an integrated structure. An information management system to support research administration ideally should provide process improvement assistance for research administration and

43 California State University, Northridge 43 related areas; capture process and information requirements from end-users and stakeholders; and should maintain quality assurance and integrity data. An information system should at a minimum simplify the administrative processes involved from proposal creation to award closeout. CSUN has several systems that support the research enterprise on campus; however, none of the systems are integrated and thus all data is manually entered in a variety of computer databases. ORSP uses FileMaker Pro as their database for tracking proposal and award information; TUC Sponsored Programs uses PeopleSoft for sponsored projects financial transactions; CSUN campus also utilizes PeopleSoft for managing the financial transaction of the University, however, it is a different configuration from the one employed by TUC. The CSUN Foundation has its own financial system. At the current volume of research activity at CSUN, and the proposed growth, the institution needs to immediately address appropriate technology for research administration and sponsored programs. The systems are not integrated to process transactions, review and track activities, or provide required reports. ORSP uses a very antiquated FileMaker Pro database and Excel spreadsheets to track proposal submissions, awards, contracts, subawards, sponsors, and success rates. Currently in ORSP, there are no electronic systems in place for tracking proposals in progress. ORSP staff handwrites information about potential proposals on a white board which hangs centrally in the office. Once proposals have been submitted to the sponsor, ORSP staff then will enter information about the proposal into the FileMaker Pro records. The proposal and award information using FileMaker Pro is stored on the Director s computer for which only he, and a few other staff members, have access. There are no checks in place to confirm the data integrity of FileMaker Pro information nor is there any reconciliation done with TUC. Without having checks in place for confirming data integrity, this could lead to occasional data inaccuracies. In addition, the FileMaker system is so antiquated that it creates a serious danger for losing all current and historical information on sponsored activities at CSUN. Critical institutional records that are housed on the personal computers of ORSP staff are: Contracts Subawards IRB IACUC

44 California State University, Northridge 44 Recommendation: The proposals and awards, subawards and other compliance data residing on the computers of the ORSP individual staff workstations should be placed on a centrally located server housed on ORSP. This would ensure relevant data for proposals, awards, subawards and compliance could be easily accessible by all ORSP staff. ORSP recently arranged for central IT to assign one of their staff part-time to strategize and develop new research administration technologies. Although the IT person has been assigned, no plans have yet been developed for designing new ORSP systems. Serious attention should be paid to the development of a new ORSP system. The institution is in some danger of losing all of historical data. Recommendation: ORSP should develop a plan of action for the utilization of the central IT support to assure that the current FileMaker Pro can continue to function until other solutions have been developed. TUC Sponsored Programs uses PeopleSoft for post award financial management. Once an award has been made, ORSP notifies via TUC Sponsored Programs and forwards them all the requisite information. TUC enters information manually into their version of PeopleSoft. The financial information is tracked by TUC Sponsored Programs. Report available for faculty and department administrators are the following: Project Budget Status (BBA) Report. The BBA provides information on the budgeted, committed, spent and available funds of a project on an account level. The Detail Trail Balance (DTB) Report, there are the most detailed project reports showing individual accounting entry made in a project The Review Team observed that CSUN did not currently employ technology to ease the administrative burdens. There was not an electronic proposal routing system for ease of system to system proposal submission to the sponsors. NCURA does not recommend any particular vendor but does strongly recommend that consideration should be given at this time for a review of available commercial systems, especially in the light of the antiquated systems now employed in ORSP. Recommendation: The Institution should consider investing in a commercial vendor for the management of grants and contracts data. There are a number of Electronic Research Administration (era) solutions available on the market. The following is not a comprehensive list and NCURA does not endorse any particular product. o RAMS grantsera:

45 California State University, Northridge 45 o InfoEd Global: o Key Solutions: o Click Commerce: o Kuali Coeus: VI.B. STANDARD for Institutional Management of Research Administration Data. Accurate and accessible data on sponsored programs activity and management is maintained and protected and the data covers areas of sponsored projects activity that relate to efficiency and research management metrics.. Trends in activity over time is tracked and appropriately reported. Policies and processes are in place for data security and data related to classified research. As appropriate to the institution, research administrative data also includes clinical trials, clinical research, and other externally sponsored activities. In today s environment, there is a constant need to measure and qualify activities and performance of sponsored projects. Institutions need to comply with government mandates and compete for research dollars. Having metrics available to make strategic decisions about whether to build on existing research strengths or to develop new research areas becomes increasing important to academic leadership. Equally important is using metrics to assess quality of services provided to faculty and timeliness of managing information. Many institutions are pursuing development of data points, or metrics, in the pre-award perspective to inform themselves and senior administrators on the status of the sponsored projects base. As such, these data points are very specific to the institution, but may include a collection of historical data on submissions and awards to determine trends in: Submission cycles are there times throughout the year when there are more proposals submitted than others? Identification of success, or hit rates overall, with specific agencies, specific faculty? Award cycles are there times throughout the year when more awards are received than others, accounting for both state and federal cycles? Once data is available, decisions can be made about the level of service, identification of new services needed, and scheduling of proposal development workshops to occur just in time before critical cycles. Recommendation: The ORSP Director, in consultation with the AVP Research, should explore the value of developing metrics that will inform them of both historical and future projection of proposal

46 California State University, Northridge 46 submission data. It will be important for the Director to develop reporting metrics that allow monitoring of growth in volume and the ability to predict that growth into the future and to determine trends in proposal development. FileMaker Pro and spreadsheets are stopgap measures and will not serve the best interest of the institution in the future years as sponsored program volume increases. It is not unusual for institutions that are growing their extramural funding to have data definition and tracking a somewhat lower priority given other pressing needs. Recommendation: ORSP should look into the development a more robust data system that will track and provide information on sponsored programs. FileMaker Pro and Excel spreadsheets cannot meet the demands for data information and ORSP should consider an Access database or some other similar system for the short term. At a minimum the system should track proposal submissions, awards (by category, e.g. sponsor and type of award), FFATA, PIs, sponsors, F&A return, and compliance review and approval. At present, the technology used in ORSP does not have the capability for collecting enough metrics in research administration to provide the senior leadership with important tools for assessing the research environment. Currently, the only data collected in FileMaker Pro are the following: Proposals submitted Awards received Principal Investigator information (name, college) Sponsors The following metrics are not being collected: Turnaround times for receipt of proposals to submission Turnaround times for receipt of award to set-up Volume of activity by staff Compliance review requirements for approvals Personnel training requirements Technical Reporting and PI closeout requirements Collecting office performance data or sponsor data is also necessary to gage relevant benchmarks for an institution. The data collected helps measure indicators that will

47 California State University, Northridge 47 allow for meaningful information as the campus moves forward on the quest to double the research volume.. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP should conduct an analysis of what metrics would be useful to assess office workload and performance and should put a data collection system in place. TUC Sponsored Programs collects data on the post-award financial information. Data can be extracted and complied by TUC Sponsored Programs covering financial research award management. TUC Sponsored Programs does not collect information on turnaround times from received award to establishment of an account or on the current activity of volume per staff member. Consideration should be given to collect office management statistics. The capabilities for collecting data in PeopleSoft are the following: Awards FFATA Sponsors F&A return Financial status of a Principal Investigator ORSP did not have a process to manage confidential data coming into CSUN. The Review Team understood that there were no sponsored programs (at the present time) that involved data security and/or data related to classified research. Should a situation arise that involves data security issues, ORSP Director and Assistant Director should work with General Counsel to establish the appropriate processes for handling such information. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP along with General Counsel should consider establishing appropriate processes for handling confidential information in the event a situation arises that involves data security issues. VI.C. STANDARD for Research Administration Data Accessible to Constituents. Institutional data can be manipulated to respond to internal and external constituent needs. Data and reports are presented in a manner that is easily understood by faculty. Appropriate to the size and volume, institutions make accessible real-time financial data.

48 California State University, Northridge 48 An important consideration of any university research enterprise is the availability of data to PI, administrators, and campus leadership. To be useful the data must be timely, accurate and easy to obtain. CSUN and TUC Sponsored Programs possesses two entirely separate systems for maintaining and reporting on data essential for efficient research administration and compliance: as noted earlier in the Section VI. Information Management. The Review Team noted accurate proposal and award data was not easily available or shared with constituents. If reports are needed by campus leadership they are completed by the Administrative Analyst on an ad hoc basis and filed in a binder. Reports generated through FileMaker Pro on a regular basis were minimal. Information was provided to the President on a quarterly report. Financial information once awarded is tracked by TUC Sponsored Programs. Several reports for faculty and department administrators are available and can be accessed on the TUC Sponsored Programs website. The reports assist the faculty and college administrators with monitoring their expenses during the life of the project. TUC Sponsored Programs also provides informal training on how to access reports. ORSP has not identified institutional data on research operations that can be complied and distributed to the College Deans. All reports distributed to the Colleges are done so upon request and on an ad hoc basis. Recommendation: ORSP should prioritize a set of reports that would be useful information about sponsored programs activity. While some of these reports would only be used within ORSP, other reports can be shared with the campus leadership. An example of institutional data and information being accessed and shared with constituents: Emory University There was evidence of TUC Sponsored Programs being able to identify institutional data on research operations. They provide annual reports of the sponsored project activities under fact and figure page on their website. Notable Practice: TUC Sponsored Programs have available on their website facts and figures on sponsored programs activities.

49 California State University, Northridge 49 VII. Institutional Affiliations and Relationships VII.A. STANDARD for Research Affiliations with Other Organizations. The institution has clearly defined all relationships with hospitals or other organizations that are participating or collaborating in research activities. These relationships apply to research activities flowing in through the affiliate as well as flowing out to the affiliate. Defined relationships additionally includes research-related institutional services (such as oversight for regulatory compliance areas such as human or animal research) provided to other organizations. According to the materials provided to the Review Team by CSUN, there are no established individual or master agreements with other institutions for the conduct of research or other activities. However, it is possible that these agreements are not managed through the campus but instead through the University Corporation. TUC is responsible for entering into business and lease agreements for CSUN and thus might handle research affiliation agreements without ORSP s knowledge. The AVP Research along with the Executive Director of the TUC should review the agreements managed by the TUC to ascertain if any are affiliation agreements for research or other scholarly activities. If there are such agreements found in TUC, then the AVP should review those for appropriateness of activity and oversight management and determine which organization is the most appropriate to administer those in the future. Affiliation agreements with outside institutions can often involve work with human subjects, the use of animals or have terms and conditions which the campus might have to honor. Without a clear idea if there are any such agreements for CSUN, the institution might be putting itself at risk by not being compliant with federal or state regulations, Recommendation: The AVP Research and the Executive Director of the TUC should review the affiliation agreements that are entered into by the TUC to assure that research related activities are appropriately managed and a program of oversight is in place. As the research volume grows, especially in the College of Health and Human Development, given the Nursing and Occupational Health programs, expectations would be that these programs will have affiliations with other institutions. The AVP Research should discuss with the Dean of the College (and other Deans as well) to ascertain whether or not there is research and other sponsored program activities currently conducted at other institutions or in lease space that involve CSUN faculty. If so, appropriate Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) should be drafted to safeguard the institution from potential risk.

50 California State University, Northridge 50 Recommendation: The AVP Research should determine, in conversations with the Deans, if any of the colleges have affiliation agreements with outside entities. If so, appropriate Memorandum of Understandings (MOU) should be drafted to safeguard the institution from potential risk. The Academic Personnel Policies and Procedures of is posted on the institution s website. Section 600 is for tenure or tenure tack faculty. A search of both the California State University system-wide website and the CSUN website did not bring up any policy on consulting and on outside employment. However, the Review Team learned that there was a system-wide policy on Additional Employment Policy which allows for employees to earn 25% in outside employment above their base salary. This policy offers guidance to faculty and staff about allowable compensation for outside work. The Additional Employment Policy is a system-wide policy which needs to be reviewed and governed at the campus level. The policy does not speak to research related consulting or use of campus facilities when doing work for others. The lack of such an internal policy can cause confusion for the faculty and for sponsored programs. Typically, consulting activities of faculty flow from the faculty member s research and scholarship interests, but are separate from the institution in that no institutional resources are used and the individual performs the work on his/her own time and accepts all liability for the work. Consulting is a common practice and generally allowed by colleges and universities as long as the time does not exceed the equivalent of one day per week. Consulting should not use university resources. In fact, one of the core expectations with consulting is that the faculty member conduct consulting activities independent of the institution (does not utilize any institutional resources or personnel or work done under the auspices of the institution) and that funds from consulting do not flow through the institution. "Work for hire" may be done by faculty through testing agreements and these arrangements often do use university equipment. Generally there are established user fees and the agreements would be processed through the institution. Recommendation: CSUN should develop and implement an internal policy governing faculty consulting and outside employment as it relates to research interests. Institutions typically have consulting activities reported annually to the Provost. The policy should distinguish outside consulting from work of hire and clearly state the acceptable amount of time devoted to these efforts for academic employees. CSUN has clear guidelines and policies regarding collaborations with other institutions for subcontracts and subawards. This will be discussed in the Standard X.B. regarding Subawards further on in the report.

51 California State University, Northridge 51 VII.B. STANDARD for Research Affiliations with Non-Employed Individuals. The institution has clearly defined relationships with individuals who are engaged in conducting research, but who are not employees. Such individuals include visiting scholars, courtesy faculty, or other zero percent appointment individuals who are afforded space and responsibilities associated with research activities. The information provided to the Review Team states that there are no categories of non-employed staff or faculty that may conduct research at CSUN. A review of the Academic Personnel Policies and Procedures of that is posted on the institution s website, (Section 700 for temporary academic staff) does not speak to temporary academic staff and research related activities. The Academic manual for tenure and tenure track faculty only discusses the category of GRIF faculty as it relates to conducting research and no other category. A review of the ORSP and Academic Affairs websites do not identify who may serve as a Principal Investigator (PI) on sponsored projects Institutions often allow affiliated individuals to conduct or work on research projects with campus faculty. A number of CSUs, as well as other research institutions, have clearly defined who can serve as PI and/or who can participate in extramural funded activities. ORSP provided the Review Team with information about academic personnel not being eligible to serve as a PI but there are no written guidance on the topic. CSUN should consider writing such guidance to clarify that GRIF were not the only faculty allowed to be Principal Investigators at CSUN. A sampling of policies is listed here and a web search will provide additional model policies. In particular, the Oregon State University link below illustrates one institution that has courtesy and adjunct faculty appointments and their policy as relates to this appointment type. Although the OSU policy does not specify this, if a courtesy faculty member includes their salary on the proposal, they no longer can retain the appointment category for courtesy and become an employee. If they do not request salary, they can retain the courtesy appointment. CSU Channel Islands: San Francisco State University California State University Los Angeles

52 California State University, Northridge 52 Recommendation: The Provost and the AVP Research should clearly define and broadly communicate who is eligible to serve as a principal investigator on sponsored projects and who is eligible to participate in research activities. Such a definition is likely to require broad institutional discussion due to commitments made with appointments. VIII. Sponsored Program Operations: Funding and Proposal Services VIII.A. STANDARD for Funding Resources. The institution provides faculty, staff, and students access to information on prospective sponsors (such as federal, state, local, private foundations). These constituents are provided tools and assistance as appropriate to the culture of the institution, the level of activity, and the relative importance of research in strategic goals. ORSP subscribes to InfoEd SPIN for searching for funding opportunities and has included the GENUIS/SMART service as part of their subscription. SPIN and GENUIS/SMART can be accessed through the ORPS website. SPIN is a keyword search database, which will generate lists of funding opportunities directed specifically to discipline specific and/or agency specific searches. GENUIS/SMART is a functionality of the InfoEd system that allows individuals to set up a profile and have automatic funding opportunities sent by the system directly to their mailboxes. Along with the SPIN and GENUIS/SMART options, ORSP also has a page on their site that links to Grants.gov, to the federal by agency, to state opportunity sites and Foundations on-line sites for foundation and corporation funding searches. Also available on the funding opportunities page is information on the internal grant competition and student grant opportunities. This is a very clear and easy to negotiate site and useful for the faculty and students. Notable Practice: The Funding Opportunities page on the ORSP site is very easy to negotiate and useful for both faculty and students seeking sponsored opportunities. The only downside on the page is that there are no instructions on how to use any of the funding databases and the SPIN site is password protected requiring an intern al campus ID and password. The site should also offer instructions on how to search for funding and well as just listing the links to the agencies. Consideration should be

53 California State University, Northridge 53 given to developing instructions and placing them on the Funding Opportunities sit e on how to conduct a search. Having instructions posted would be a great service to those who are trying to identify opportunities on their own. The results of these searches may also be difficult for faculty to interpret, ORSP should also post instruct ions on how to understand the results of the search. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP should consider developing instructions on how to access the funding opportunities databases and post them on the opportunities website. In addition, instructions could also include how to understand and interpret the search results. Having instructions posted would be a great service to those who are trying to identify opportunities on their own. On the same site are Grant Announcements which lists specific announcements for a variety of funding agencies. It was unclear whether or not those were current announcement or announcements for on-going programs. On site visit the Review Team learned that the office maintains listservs of faculty by department and will distribute grants announcements once a month to faculty, chairs deans, directors and staff on upcoming opportunities. However, the lists might not be kept up-to-date and announcements might not be sent out as systematically as the Team was first informed. Training workshops are offered to faculty throughout the year, but there were no published dates on the ORSP site for these events. There was no information provided on whether or not these sessions were well attended. The office did not keep statistics on who used the funding opportunities services and how well they served the needs of those seeking funding. Having such statistics is a way of providing better service to those using the tools by getting knowledge of those who might conducting their own searches. By understanding how many people have registered, and how many searches have been conducted in a given period of time will help the office determine if more tools are needed and services might be needs. The SPIN and GENUIS systems are capable of providing a variety of information on the products activity. The ORSP Development/Grants Writer should conduct the vendor for instructions how to access the statistics from their databases. This information should be maintained and offered to the senior management (Deans, Department Chairs, ORSP Director, and AVP Research) in quarterly reports. Recommendation: The ORSP Research Specialist/Grants Writer should contact InfoEd to obtain information on how to access the usage of the two databases SPIN and GENUIS. Having this information and reporting on it will help determine if these tools are being utilized by the campus.

54 California State University, Northridge 54 The Review Team only heard positive comments about this service; however, more can be done to pro-actively reach out to the new faculty The Director of ORSP might consider reaching out to new faculty prior to their arrival to set up appointments with them and not wait until new faculty orientation for faculty to learn about the services offered by ORSP. New faculty are often overwhelmed when they first start at a new institution and getting them into the office for a one-on-one meeting or visiting them in their departments would be excellent outreach. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP might consider reaching out to new faculty before they arrive at CSUN. The Deans or the Provost might be able to provide the names of those who are coming and are interested in learning about obtaining sponsored agreements. This would allow the faculty to get a head start on their research and be excellent outreach for ORS. VIII.B STANDARD for Proposal Assistance. Appropriate to the size and needs of the institution, assistance is extended to assist faculty and research personnel in responding to funding opportunities and preparing proposals. In addition to the availability of the Funding Opportunities site, SPIN and GENUIS/SMART, individualized funding searches are conducted in ORSP by the Research Specialist/Grant Writer. This position also helps the faculty identify opportunities, assists with the development of the potential ideas, and helps to edit proposals for individual faculty. ORSP has several pages on their website for guidance on Grant Application Procedures and Proposal Development and Procedures. The information provide on the website is useful for the potential investigator and provides the type of tools that are important when writing proposals. The site offers grant writing samples, links to information about how to write proposals, a page on all the administrative informa tion need to fill in on applications face pages, and other important tools. The proposal development information is well done and offers the appropriate amount of information to faculty. The site is easy to find and navigate. Notable Practice: ORSP has excellent Proposal Development and Grant Application procedures pages on their website. The information is valuable to the potential investigator when trying to put a proposal together. The office asks the investigators to notify them if the intend to submit a proposal by completing a short online form and submitting that form to the office. The form is found on the proposal development page. Once this form is submitted the grant writer might

55 California State University, Northridge 55 contact the faculty to offer her services on proposal development and help seek collaborators for the project. It was unclear to the Review Team when the grant writing assistance was offered to the faculty. The on-line form intent to submit a proposal might include a question asking whether writing help would be desired. Having a notification on the form that assistance was requested would not leave the decision up to the grant writer. Recommendation: ORSP should add a question on the on-line form for the intention to submit a proposal about whether or not grant writing assistance is required/requested. Having the faculty identify whether they need assistance is preferable. Budget development help is also offered through the ORSP. The Director and the Assistant Director both offer to help the faculty work through the budgets for particular projects. They will work with the faculty to develop a budget spreadsheet, ensuring that faculty and staff pay rates, student assistant pay rates, fringe benefit rates, indirect cost rates (IDC)/facilities & administrative cost rates (F&A), travel/per diem/mileage rates, foreign travel insurance costs, and cost of living increases are accurately calculated. CSUN prides itself on being primarily an undergraduate institution with a diverse population. CSUN is a member of the Council for Undergraduate Research (CUR). CUR is a national organization focused on enhancing opportunities for engaging undergraduate students in research. As a member of CUR, CSUN should actively recruit students to attend the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). CUR has conferences that are especially valuable for identifying opportunities to support undergraduates in research. The Dialogues Conference is designed to bring faculty and administrators to Washington, DC to interact with federal and private program officers who have programs focused on engaging undergraduates in research. Although, the AVP Research stated that he has sent several faculty members to attend the CUR conferences, the faculty interviewed had not heard of the organization. The faculty attending the conference should be required to conduct a workshop or a brown bag lunchtime seminar regarding the content of the conference for those who are interested in actively engaging undergraduates in their research. Given the primary concentration of undergraduates at CSUN, the administration should assure that these conferences are attended annually and that the information is shared with other faculty. Recommendation: CSUN should continue to support 1 to 2 faculty members to attend the CUR conferences. There should be an expectation placed upon the faculty who attend that they bring back

56 California State University, Northridge 56 notes and information to share with others at CSUN. Offering a workshop or a brown bag lunchtime seminar should be a requirement for the attendees. Staff members from ORSP should also be encouraged to attend these conferences to gain ideas about potential funding opportunities. Engaging undergraduates in active research programs is a very good way to prepare students to go on to graduate education, and is currently a priority with the federal funding agencies. A potential way to increase the funding in sponsored activities is to require that all proposals for external funding include undergraduate or graduate students on the project. Funding agencies are interested in using research programs to education students. Recommendation: The AVP Research and the Provost should work with the Deans and Department Chairs to encourage faculty to include students, undergraduate and graduate, in the project proposals. This might be a way to increase the federal funding to CSUN. IX. Sponsored Program Operations: Proposal Review and Submission IX.A. STANDARD for Proposal Review. The institution has a consistent approach for reviewing and processing proposals that is in compliance with institutional and sponsor guidelines and requirements. The roles and responsibilities associated with the proposal review and submission activities are clear. Appropriate management systems are in place and the proposal review process interfaces smoothly with regulatory process/systems and the systems/processes for accepting and managing any subsequent awards. All federal, state, and other government proposals are clearly submitted through the ORSP but as mentioned in a prior section of this report, there seems to be some confusion regarding the submission of proposals to foundations and corporations. As recommended, this activity needs to be clarified for the campus. Faculty are asked to inform the office of an intent to submit a proposal by submission of an online form. These intentions are listed on a white board in the office in order to get an understanding of the potential workflow for the staff. Proposal are generated by the faculty or the grants officer working with the faculty and submitted through their departments and deans offices for approval. A proposal Grant Data Form (found on the ORSP website) must be submitted along with the proposal. This form is a typical proposal approval form and provides questions for the PI to

57 California State University, Northridge 57 answer in order for the appropriate reviews to take place. Questions on the form are yes/no asking about: the use of human or animals; requirements for matching or cost sharing; F&A recovery at the university rate, and other pertinent information about the project. If there is an affirmative answer to any one of the questions, the PI is required to write an explanation in space provided on the form. The PI must obtain the approvals from department chair, school dean and the CFO of the campus prior to submitting the proposal to the ORSP. It is unclear when the CFO needs to review the proposal but a signature line is found on the form for his approval. Provided in the materials distributed to the Review Team was a considerable lengthy proposal checklist, a proposal checklist specifically for NIH proposals, a very detailed budget worksheet, and a budget worksheet when cost sharing was required. This information was not obtainable by a search of the ORSP website and it was unclear how the investigators received copies of these documents. Although, all the documents provided were extremely lengthy and need considerable editing, they are very useful tools for someone putting together a proposal and should be provided somewhere on the ORSP website. The Director of ORSP should assign one of his staff to a review proposal development tools provided at similar sized research volume, and try to edit the proposal checklist and budget forms to be useful tools to the faculty. These revised tools should then be posted on the ORSP website. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP should assign one of his staff to review the current materials provided as proposal checklists and budget development with an eye to revising them. Once edited and shortened these materials should be posted on the ORSP website as guidance for faculty. Samples of other institution s proposal development checklists and guidance are provided below: Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of Buffalo lates.html The campus just developed guidelines and procedures for applying to a limited submissions opportunity. They seem to be well developed and can be found by a search of the CSUN website.

58 California State University, Northridge 58 Waivers of indirect costs are given to faculty but the procedure is ad hoc and at the discretion of the AVP Research. There are currently no statistics collected regarding IDC waivers thus CSUN is losing a valuable source of information about how effective providing IDC waivers are to winning awards. Consideration should be given to developing a clear and transparent waiver policy and procedure and to keeping statistics on those that have been granted. This policy should be vetted by a group of stakeholders and once approved posted on the ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs websites. Recommendation: The AVP Research should use the research advisory committee (when formed) to develop a clear and transparent policy on indirect cost waivers. Indirect cost waivers should not be ad hoc and left up to the discretion of one individual. Also statistics should be gathered on the effective use of waivers. Samples of such indirect cost waivers policies can be found at the follow: Emory University University of Massachusetts University of Arkansas California State University Fullerton Currently only two individuals in ORSP review and submit proposals, these are the Director and the Assistant Director of the office. At the time of the Peer Review, the campus had just hired three new staff members in ORSP to evidentially be part of the proposal review team. The new staff members were just observing the operations and it was not clear what roles and responsibilities they would have in the future. Recommendation: The Director of ORSP should develop clear roles and guidance for the new members in the staff in the proposal review process. IX.B. STANDARD for Proposal Submission. The institution has adequate understanding of submission requirements for electronic and nonelectronic proposal submissions. ORSP has not implemented a system-to-system solution for proposal submissions. Such systems take information from the institution s proposal routing and tracking

59 California State University, Northridge 59 systems and feed that information directly to the funding sponsor without going through additional steps. Currently, ORSP responds to each sponsor s unique requirement for how proposals are to be transmitted to the agency (e.g. Grants.gov or NSF Fastlane). Only the Director and Assistant Director of ORSP are currently responsible for finalizing the proposals and uploading documents into the proscribed systems for submission purposes. The level of direct involvement by ORSP in the proposal preparation and submission process assures they are knowledgeable about new developments in electronic proposal submission however it is a burden on both of them. It is common at the smaller research institutions to have the staff enter proposals into a variety of different electronic submission option; this activity will become very difficult as the volume of activity grows. CSUN may need to consider a system-to-system solution in the future. Recommendation: As sponsored programs volume increases, CSUN may need to consider an electronic system-to-system solution. There are a number of options available among existing vendors that would assist with this perspective. Some provide electronic routing, communications, and archival functionality along with those afforded by the system-to-system solution. Costs are not all that prohibitive when based on institutional proposal volume. In the meantime, consideration must be given to allowing other members of the office to enter proposals into Grants.gov and NSF Fastlane to unburden the senior members of the office. X. Sponsored Program Operations: Award Acceptance and Initiation X.A. STANDARD for Award Review and Negotiation. The institution has a consistent process to review terms and conditions of grant, contract, and agreement awards. Incoming subawards are reviewed for the terms of the subaward and the flowthrough terms of the prime award. The institution evaluates all awards for sponsor restrictions on such items as the use of funds, appropriate project personnel, publication rights, or intellectual property to assure compliance with institutional policies that govern the research activities of the campus. ORSP reviews on average contracts per year primarily from other universities and flow downs from federal agencies. The rest of the contracts reviewed are from local government agencies such as the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los

60 California State University, Northridge 60 Angeles. Contracts from corporate and non-profit sources are included in those numbers. The award review and negotiation processes are designed to help facilitate the grant process for the PIs while at the same time balancing the need to be in compliance with both institutional and sponsor regulations. Award documents take many forms depending upon the type of sponsor and project. Some awards (mainly contracts) require the review and signature of the Director of ORSP. The Director is CSUN s official institutional representative authorized to sign on behalf of the institution. Award processing and review includes negotiation (if needed), acceptance of the terms, and obtaining the necessary signatures. If a sponsor needs additional information, ORSP s Director and Assistant Director act as the point of contact, coordinating the communication between the sponsor and the Principal Investigator. The Principal Investigator is involved with the award acceptance procedures if there are changes in the scope of work, increases and decreases to the budget, and/or complex terms and conditions which needs the PI s knowledge and attention. The Principal Investigator working with ORSP determines whether the originally proposed scope of work and objectives of the project can be met under a revision to the budget. Each sponsored project award comes with a unique set of terms and conditions, which may range from entirely flexible to quite restrictive. The goals in negotiation are to protect the investigator's publication and intellectual property rights; to protect the institution against harm from unmanageable stipulations; and to ensure an agreement is in keeping with state and federal regulations as well as CSUN requirements. If there are complex terms and conditions that need legal advice, ORSP leadership has access to CSUN General Counsel for the campus. If there are any potential issues with the proposed award, ORSP contacts the faculty and discusses the issue with the faculty member. While CSUN is the legal recipient of sponsored agreements and ultimately responsible for the performance of the activities and the proper use of sponsor funds, CSUN cannot meet its responsibilities to the sponsor unless the Principal Investigator meets his/her obligations. Therefore, it is essential that the Principal Investigator be kept informed during the award review and negotiations process; this must be a collaborative effort. The faculty stated they were only notified of the receipt of an award in ORSP if there was an issue with the award that needed their attention. It is important that faculty and college administrators be notified of all incoming awards regardless of issue. This ensures better communication between PIs, College Grants Officers, and ORSP.

61 California State University, Northridge 61 Recommendation: ORSP should set up a system to regularly notify a Principal Investigator of the immediate receipt of an award. This would ensure college administrators are keep abreast of the incoming awards. Currently, only the ORSP Director and Assistant Director negotiate awards. It was unclear if other staff in ORSP had the knowledge base or the experience to negotiate the award; however, with the new staff it is expected that there would be training in contract negotiations and award acceptance procedures. It would greatly benefit the entire office if a checklist of award review procedures was developed. Recommendation: ORSP should develop a checklist of all the items that are needed to assess whether an award meets with CSUN s policies and procedures and sponsor guidelines. A review checklist for awards would be useful to new staff and serve to document staff review The following are examples of award review checklists: West Virginia University University of San Francisco X.B. STANDARD for Subawards. Outgoing subawards are reviewed and negotiated to reflect sponsor flow through requirements and institutional policy. TUC Sponsored Programs and ORSP have documented procedures on subawards and monitoring. The procedures include sections on the management of subawards including review, approval, and processing of subrecipient invoices. There is also guidance provided on subrecipient monitoring and risk assessment including the review of the A-133 audit reports. There are procedures in place for reviewing the A-133 audit findings. The subaward invoicing process between ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs is documented. An example of the process is as follows: Invoicing by the subrecipient/payment for services: Subrecipient sends invoice to PI. PI reviews and approves invoices (TUC Sponsored Programs assists the PI with questions regarding

62 California State University, Northridge 62 allowability, allocability and timeliness); PI generates a check request along with subrecipient invoice. TUC Sponsored Programs processes the check request and pays subrecipient. ORSP conducts a risk assessment within 30 days after the final execution of subaward. Determines the monitoring activities according to the level risk assessed. Notifies the PI and TUC Sponsored Programs by sending a copy of the risk assessment. PI monitors the subrecipient s activities on an ongoing basis during the course of the project. PI notifies ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs of any findings during the monitoring of activities. Incoming subawards are reviewed and managed by ORSP in the same manner as other incoming awards. As the subrecipient of federal funds, ORSP might be required to provide additional information to a sponsor regarding the institution and any previous audit findings related to a particular award. The ORSP has the overall responsibility for generating and executing outgoing subaward including monitoring. An internal procedure was documented by TUC Sponsored Programs on their website entitled Subaward and Subaward Monitoring, the procedure provided information and step by step instructions leading up to the issuance of an approved an agreement. The ultimate oversight responsibility for sub-recipients remains with the Principal Investigator (PI). The University Corporation Sponsored Programs (TUC SP) and the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects (OSRP) assist the Principal Investigator (PI) in conducting an effective monitoring process during the proposal submission to the closeout including reporting. Notable Practice: The Subaward Process including Subrecipient Monitoring between the ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs was well documented and listed on the TUC Sponsored Programs website. ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs utilizes the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) subaward templates for federal funds going to other universities. The FDP created and tested subaward agreement forms are considered the national standard for creating consistency in the administration of Federal research awards. Notable Practice: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs utilize the FDP subaward template and use FDP guidance for subawards. X.C. STANDARD for Award Acceptance.

63 California State University, Northridge 63 The institution has a process in place that allows the formal acceptance of a sponsored award by designated individuals or offices. The award acceptance process interfaces smoothly with processes for proposal submission and award management. The award represents a formal obligation by the University. Based on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between The University Corporation and CSUN, The University Corporation authorizes CSUN to submit proposals, accept awards on TUC's behalf, and approve subsequent amendments and budget revision. Because ORSP is CSUN s central office for the receipt of notifications of sponsor or rej ection of awards, the Associate Vice President of Research and ORSP are responsible to administer the acceptance of awards according to all policies and procedures applicable. After the review and negotiation process, and the acceptance of the award, ORSP initiates an Award Authorization and copies of the corresponding award materials for TUC Sponsored Programs. Upon receipt of fully executed award documents, or other proof of award, the ORSP forwards information to the TUC Sponsored Programs for assignment of project number and setup of the account in PeopleSoft. Compliance with regulatory requirements is a pivotal part of conducting research. The University Corporation Office of Sponsored Programs (TUC Sponsored Programs) acts as the fiscal agent and provides specialized services to CSUN faculty with a high level of support and assistance in managing all sponsored projects. TUC Sponsored Programs provides post-award administration and support for externally funded grants, contracts and cooperative agreements in areas of research, training and other scholarly activities awarded to CSUN. TUC Sponsored Programs indicated no charges were allowed against a sponsored project account until ORSP formally accepted the award and all compliance requirements were satisfied. Although, it was stated as practice that funds were not spent until there is a notification from ORSP that all compliance issues were met, there is no formal verification process in place with TUC Sponsored Projects. Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs staffs need to work together to develop a consistent system in which funds are not established or released by TUC Sponsored Programs until regulatory reviews are verified and completed. The Project Data sheet should be revised to include compliance review verification such as IRB, IACUC, COI and RCR. X.D. STANDARD for Award Activation and Notification. The institution has a defined process to place a sponsored award in the accounting system and to make funds available to the principal investigator for expenditures. The institutional notification

64 California State University, Northridge 64 process for award activation is timely and clearly conveyed to appropriate positions, such as investigator and unit-level staff. Once an award is formally executed by both the University and the sponsor, ORSP officially notifies TUC Sponsored Programs of the award, by sending relevant documents via campus mail or fax. This is the first step for award activation and notification. TUC Sponsored Programs reviews the documentation from ORSP for completeness of all documents and of all necessary data. The required documents include: the award memo; the award notice; grant data form; copy of the proposal or continuation application, and the budget. With the information sent by ORSP a Project Control File is set up by TUC Sponsored Programs staff. TUC Sponsored Programs assigns a project number; however before an account can be opened in PeopleSoft, TUC Sponsored Programs must contact the campus s Information Technology (IT) unit via a ticket to add a project number in PeopleSoft. The turnaround on obtaining a project number from campus is about 24 to 48 hours. After the IT staff opens a project number in PeopleSoft the award information is then manually entered into PeopleSoft by TUC Sponsored Programs and a Notice of Grant/Contract Award is then generated. Recommendation: TUC Sponsored Programs or someone in TUC should be authorized and delegated authority to add project numbers in PeopleSoft and not have to wait for the campus IT unit to do so. This would ensure awards are set-up in timely manner and eliminate the need to add an addition step in the award set up process. Copies of the Notice of Grant/Contract Award are then sent to ORSP, the Principal Investigator, and the Manager of Academic Resources for the College of the Principal Investigator. It would save effort if ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs were to consider obtaining a shared server to post materials in order for less paper to be passed back and forth from department to department. Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs should consider coordinating efforts on the completed award notifications documents, perhaps setting up a shared drive. A shared drive will ensure the documents can be accessed by both departments and less duplicate documents going back and forth. TUC Sponsored Programs has documented the procedures for establishing an award in the accounting system and those procedures are posted on TUC website for Project- Set-Up. The Review Team was unable to establish how long it took TUC to set up an

65 California State University, Northridge 65 account and there was no documentation of any metric that indicated if awards were being set up in a timely manner. The TUC Sponsored Programs liaisons are the financial post-award interface for the sponsored projects. The liaisons are assigned by College and within the College to individual PIs. They also provide training to the PI and administrators on the use of reports and are considered a valuable resource to the faculty. TUC Sponsored Programs has a customer service initiative in sponsored programs called PRO-PI (Professional, Resourceful and Organized for the Principal Investigator) This initiative has created approaches to easing administrative burdens for faculty and investigators including reports to constituents. The PRO-PI initiative provides an assigned liaison as a central point of contact to the faculty, The PRO-PI initiative was launched in 2010 with the objective of providing better customer service and easing of administrative processes for the Principal Investigators and Research Administrators in the colleges. Notable Practice: Faculty noted TUC Sponsored Programs liaisons were committed to maintaining open communications with regarding every aspect of the financial management of the sponsored projects. Some examples of providing assistance were one-one trainings, online trainings and office visits with Principal Investigators. Notable Practice: The PRO-PI Initiative has been well received by the CSUN campus. As a result, there has been a focus on being proactive and guiding Principal Investigators through the administrative process. XI. Sponsored Program Operations: Award Management XI.A. STANDARD for Fiscal Management. The institution s control environment provides reasonable assurance regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of operations; reliability of financial reporting, and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The institution maintains internal controls through processes, systems, and tools to ensure compliance with institutional and sponsor guidelines and requirements. Fiscal data is readily available through published reports, queries, or integrated systems for transaction processing, review and tracking of activities and reporting. Extramural policies are often broad and written in a manner that leaves room for interpretation. Sponsors expect their funds to be treated in a manner that recognizes

66 California State University, Northridge 66 specific terms and conditions; however, sponsors also recognize that institutions are able to accomplish their research in a variety of methods under a range of administrative structures. In many areas, both federal and non-federal sponsors rely on the recipient s own policies and procedures. Within this framework, an institution has the ability to establish its operations, including policies and procedures, to opti mize its research enterprise and appropriately allocate resources. TUC Sponsored Programs utilizes PeopleSoft to track awards and expenditures and other financial data related to the award. Fiscal and administrative duties related to sponsored projects by ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs includes a variety of accounting and management responsibilities. These include financial transaction audit, financial reporting, invoicing, rebudgeting and closeout primarily done by TUC Sponsored Programs. Equally important to these responsibilities are those duties involving the facilitation of activities for faculty and CSUN administrative units such as the Colleges. These facilitations are accomplished by clear communications between ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs and the campus community. As the demands for sponsored administration grow, it will be important to continue to assess and review the roles and responsibilities of ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs. The documents that interface between the proposal and the award acceptance include: Award Memo, Award Notice, Grant Data form, Copy of Proposal, Budget. TUC Sponsored Programs assigns a project number to the award. TUC Sponsored Programs (liaisons) then s a central IT person on the CSUN to set up a project number in PeopleSoft. Once project number has been set up in PeopleSoft grants and contracts module the TUC Sponsored Programs (liaisons) can enter and set up the budget. The Review Team was informed rebudgeting (budget revisions) awards in PeopleSoft is required for every award. CSUN is not taking advantage of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) practice of automatic rebudgeting. The current practice at CSUN requires a request from the PI, which is approved by ORSP and then action by TUC Sponsored Programs. While, in certain situations, this practice may ensure control over expenditures, it does not recognize the flexibility afforded by the expanded authorities granted under OMB Circular A-110. It states that, cost-related prior approvals are generally waived. Most federal agencies, under the expanded authorities, allow for the re-budgeting of project budgets provided the expenses do not exceed 25% of the original awarded budget or cause a change in scope to the project. Change in scope includes (but is not limited to) a new sub-award entered into after the start of the project or a 25% reduction is the effort of the principal investigator. TUC might also review the other expanded authorities offered by the federal agencies to take to take advantage of some more of them, such as pre-award spending and no-cost extensions.

67 California State University, Northridge 67 The National Science Foundation provides a link to the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) prior approval matrix on its Federal-Wide Research Terms and Conditions website, located at: Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs should consider revising its practice requiring PIs to request a budget revision in PeopleSoft except in situations where there are specific prohibitions to over- and under-spending budget line items or other sponsor imposed requirements for complying with approved budgets. In addition to the NSF website mentioned above, many universities have posted excellent resource information about the expanded authorities, including: Northeastern Illinois University Expanded Authorities Overview Tufts University Expanded Authorities Actions The TUC Sponsored Programs has an excellent website which contains fiscal management policies and procedures. The site includes policies on cost sharing, effort reporting cost transfers, NIH salary cap, signature authority, as well as close out and subrecipient monitoring. This site is easy to manage and has effectively all the necessary policies and procedures for managing sponsored projects awards. Notable Practice: The TUC Sponsored Programs website is a great tool and easy to navigate. It contains most of the important policies and procedures necessary to management sponsored projects activities. As referenced earlier in the report under the section Information Systems Supporting Research Administration, TUC Sponsored Programs has fiscal data that are available for faculty and department administrators; they are the following: Project Budget Status (BBA) Report. The BBA provides information on the budgeted, committed, spent and available funds of a project on an account level. The Detail Trail Balance (DTB) Report, the most detailed project reports showing individual accounting entry made in a project. Faculty are provided monthly fiscal status reports to assist with the fiscal management of their research portfolio. TUC Sponsored Programs also provides special ad hoc financial reports to facilitate award management to faculty and college administrators.

68 California State University, Northridge 68 TUC Sponsored Programs staff were familiar with federal-wide and agency specific processes for award management and reporting. The TUC Sponsored Programs staff appeared to have had a sufficient level of understanding and a level of proficiency to ensure effective operations. TUC Sponsored Programs Certification of Effort Report (CERT), provides the basis for certifying salaries charged to accounts in accordance with the relative activity applied to various programs and projects. The report reflects activity applicable to each sponsored agreement and to each account/fund in instruction, general operations and other indirect activities including department administration. TUC Sponsored Programs were familiar with the effort report requirements and it was demonstrated they were able to detect instances where certifications were missing or incomplete. Notable Practice: Although it is a paper based process TUC Sponsored Programs staff were familiar with the elements of effort reporting and were in compliance with the reporting requirements.. TUC Sponsored Programs is looking into a commercial system for effort reporting to ease the burden of a paper-based system. XI.B. STANDARD for Administrative Management. The institution has established management systems for the non-financial administration of awards. The institution has established processes to monitor and report program performance. As previously discussed ORSP is responsible for the non-financial post award management functions at CSUN. Post award management incorporates many tasks beyond financial oversight and accounting. ORSP provides the oversight to ensure that progress reports are submitted. TUC Sponsored Programs is responsible for the closeout of awards. ORSP works with TUC Sponsored Programs to ensure all financial activity and reports have been completed and correspond with the programmatic/technical reports ORSP also serves as the intermediary between the Principal Investigators and the sponsors in all communications pertaining to administrative changes, including but not limited to budget revisions, renewal awards, no-cost extensions and changes in key personnel. Record retention policies were noted and documented. ORSP maintains award records for five years beyond the expiration of the project unless otherwise required by the funding agency. At that time, ORSP will dispose of all its records that are no longer needed, e.g., records not of historical value, unless specifically instructed otherwise by the awarding agency. The retention schedule for grant and contract records maintained by the TUC is ten years unless otherwise required by the funding agency. At that time,

69 California State University, Northridge 69 the TUC will dispose of all its records that are no longer needed, e.g., records not of historical value, unless specifically instructed otherwise by the awarding agency. Property Control and Asset Management is tracked by TUC Sponsored Programs. On a quarterly basis TUC Sponsored Programs reviews the asset related accounts of all sponsored projects to ensure that all asset purchases are included in an Asset Management List. It was not clear if that list was shared with ORSP. The policy and procedures were well documented on their website. There was no evidence of ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs having a mechanism in place for verifying compliance with salary cap obligations. The salary cap information listed on the TUC Sponsored Programs was outdated. The salary cap information should also be noted on the ORSP website. Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs should review and revise the information on the salary cap. There was no evidence the staff knew of sponsor salary cap obligations. There was no evidence of ORSP having a means of validating and following up on all compliance requirements and approvals for annual updates such as IRB and IACUC protocols. Recommendation: ORSP should develop a system where the required approvals related to the regulatory committees will be distributed to TUC Sponsored Programs to allow spending authority at the appropriate time of the funding cycle. In accepting awards, CSUN has the responsibility for meeting all of the technical and financial reporting requirements of the sponsor. Specific interim and final report requirements are usually included in the sponsor s terms and conditions or other award documents or in a policy guide or manual. These requirements vary from sponsor to sponsor. Timeliness of final reporting is crucial to sound post award management of a sponsored award to ensure compliance with sponsor requirements and reimbursement for costs incurred. Inability or failure to submit reports within the stipulated time frame can result in the suspension of funding, non-payment of incurred costs, a loss of the ability to submit future proposals and/or a delay in the release of future funding for the investigator and/or the University. TUC Sponsored Programs has documented procedures on closing out sponsored projects on their website to ensure sponsor compliance is met. These were primarily financially focused; there was little mention of the role of ORSP except to ask for a no cost extension.

70 California State University, Northridge 70 Recommendation: ORSP and TUC Sponsored Programs should review all shared institutional procedures and policies on award management and document the shared procedures and procedures. Those procedures should be documented on the website of both departments. XII. Institutional Integration of Obligations Made with Sponsored Programs Activities XII. STANDARD for Institutional Integration of Obligations Made with Sponsored Programs Activities. The institution has developed mechanisms to interface separate oversight research areas within the institution that may be related to sponsored program activities. The institution provides appropriate linkages to and tracks commitments made with the acceptance of sponsor funding. The communication and coordination of data between the sponsored programs functions and the compliance functions contained with ORSP is vital to a successful compliance program. Much of the information about particular research compliance issues for a project is collected at the proposal stage on the Grant Data Form. Specifically, the Grant Data Form, originated by the Principal Investigator and submitted for approval through the Department Chair and College Dean, identifies the use of animals subjects, human subjects, and other compliance considerations such as use of radiation, carcinogens, infectious diseases, recombinant DNA or hazardous materials. At the time of the submission of the Grant Data Form, the PI must also submit a COI form along with the proposal. The support for the compliance function resides within ORSP. There are two compliance officers, one is assigned to Human and Animal Subjects Committee (IACUC and IRB), and the other is assigned to the Conflict of Interest, Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), Research Integrity and worked with the Environmental Health and Safety officer. The Review Team noted there was very little communication between the two officers, and with the officers and the rest of the ORSP staff. It appeared that ORSP compliance staff were not verifying institutional commitments made to sponsors before a proposal was submitted. In fact, there was little knowledge of what proposals were submitted with compliance issues. ORSP staff must begin to communicate at the proposal stage in order to assure that all compliance issues can be met. It would be beneficial if copies of any proposal identified with compliance issues were forwarded to the appropriate compliance staff for action immediately after the proposal was submitted.

71 California State University, Northridge 71 Recommendation: Communication between the ORSP Sponsored Projects staff and ORSP compliance officers needs to be strengthened. This will eliminate the potential of not following appropriate regulatory practices and assure that all compliance issued raised can be met. Separately, for subawards that are issued by ORSP, the Subrecipient Commitment Form collects information on conflicts of interests as well as the use of humans and the use of animals. It was not clear to the Review Team that consistent controls were in place to ensure that funds were not expended before appropriate approvals are in place. Recommendation: ORSP should review that all requisite compliance approval are in place prior to an award being sent to TUC Sponsored Programs for set-up. The review should include required PI trainings such as RCR training. XIII. Export Controls XIII. STANDARD for Export Controls. The institution understands the scope of export controls, embargoes and trade sanctions in the context of their institutional activities and in particular to their sponsored programs. Policies and a compliance program for export controls have been developed and are appropriate to the scope of research activities within the institution. CSUN has a clear guidance on export control issues posted on the TUC Sponsored Programs page; however, there is no link on the ORSP page. In most cases, the information need regarding export controls are at the proposal or award stages and should be under the auspices of the pre-award office. Export controls are very challenging (and mostly not understood) requirements placed on universities. Understanding these laws and applying them correctly require a knowledge about national security and commercial regulations that can directly conflict with academic freedom including the publication and dissemination of research findings and results even via a website. Knowledge regarding export controls and deemed exports is critical, in avoiding situations that trigger these regulations and in complying with those that are absolutely necessary. The federal government imposes severe criminal and civil fines for noncompliance. Terms and conditions on research awards, procurement agreements, and licensing agreements can all create an export control issue. It is essential that all parties

72 California State University, Northridge 72 involved in any of these activities be aware of, and are trained in, this area. CITI has a training module on Export Controls that could be useful. Recommendation: The AVP Research along with the Director of ORSP should review the Export Control regulations with an eye towards understanding what is required to protect the institution from noncompliance. Training on the CITI module would be one approach to gaining basic familiarity with the requirements. CSUN might consider including questions on the Grant Data Form inquiring about participation of foreign nationals; shipment of equipment, technology, software, materials, data, involvement of a foreign subcontract or other foreign contractual agreement, and whether foreign travel is involved. Given foreign travel is commonplace in today s internationally connected universe, this question can respond to both export control concerns and any sponsor restrictions on foreign travel. Recommendation: The ORSP office should revise their Grant Data Form to include questions that might trigger export control issues and concerns. Questions such as foreign travel, development of materials and software for shipping might be queried at proposal stage to avoid potential risk to the institution. Also mention elsewhere in this report, there is the concern that the CSUN Foundation might be accepting awards private foundations and corporations. Often found in those awards are restrictions on publication rights and ownership of intellectual property. Restriction on both of these items creates a deemed export situation and a potential risk of serious liabilities to the campus. XIV. Research Integrity XIV.A. STANDARD for Research Misconduct. The institution has policies and procedures that govern research misconduct. The research misconduct policy and procedures follow established federal standards, providing notification to sponsors, communication to the parties involved, and protection for whistleblowers. CSUN had a policy for handling research misconduct that was approved in February The policy addresses the internal disclosure, reviews and protections during the investigation into possible misconduct. The policy includes notifications by the Associate Vice President for Research who is the CSUN s Institutional Research Integrity Officer

73 California State University, Northridge 73 It is not evident the staff with responsibilities for research integrity are knowledgeable and current with their understanding of applicable regulations, policies and practices. There was no evidence of positive disclosures of a research misconduct being relied to the sponsor. Recommendation: The Associate Vice President for Research should develop a process to be informed if a misconduct finding results in either reporting or limited sponsored program activity. XIV.B. STANDARD for Financial Conflict of Interest. The institution has policies and procedures that govern individual financial conflict of interests. Conflict of interest policies require the disclosure and review of financial interests as defined, at a minimum, by federal regulations and policy. The institution shares information on financial disclosures and review outcomes across administrative and academic offices as appropriate. CSUN has a Conflict of Interest policy in place approved December 4, 2013 for faculty and staff to determine whether their financial relationships and interests conflict with their primary research responsibilities, regardless of funding source. In accordance with state and federal conflict of interest (COI) regulations, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) instituted a COI policy to manage, reduce, or eliminate any actual or potential conflicts of interest involving activities conducted under the authority of the University or its auxiliary organizations. This policy requires investigators supported by external funds to disclose significant financial interests that may constitute conflicts of interest. In the event an investigator discloses a significant financial interest, the Associate Vice President, Research and Graduate Studies will determine whether a conflict of interest exists and will work with the investigator to develop a plan to resolve the conflict of interest. In addition, another policy was approved on February 21, 2014 regarding CSUN s Policy on Financial Conflict of Interest pertaining to Public Health Service-Sponsored Projects. In addition, CSUN utilizes the Conflict of Interest module from Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). All investigators, co-principal investigators, project directors must complete the training prior to engaging in sponsored research. The Conflict of Interest policy and procedures are well documented on the ORSP website. Recommendation: None

74 California State University, Northridge 74 XV. PROTECTION AND OVERSIGHT RELATED TO RESEARCH ACTIVITIES Not Included in Review XV.A. STANDARD for Use of Humans in Research. Not Included in Review The institution has effective systems in place that comply with federal and state regulations for the ethical protection of human subjects. XV.B. STANDARD for Use of Animals in Research. Not Included in Review The institution has effective systems in place that comply with federal and state regulations for the ethical protection for the humane care and use of animals. XV.C. STANDARD for Biohazards and Select Agents. Not Included in Review The institution has policies and procedures in place governing the safe handling and use of biohazards, including rdna, infectious agents and blood-borne pathogens, and select agents in research, clinical and teaching activities. The accepted biosafety level at the institution is explicitly addressed in policy and guidance. The Institutional Biosafety Committee is clearly defined in policy and operates effectively with other administrative offices. XV.D. STANDARD for Radiation and Laser Safety. Not Included in Review The institution has policies and procedures in place governing the safe use of radiation and lasers in research and sponsored activities in compliance with federal and state regulations. Adequate staff and other resources are dedicated to training, oversight, and preparedness for laser or radiationrelated emergencies. XV.E. STANDARD for Specialized Research Activities. Not Included in Review The institution has appropriate safeguards in place for research activities that are a part of research and other sponsored activities and require specialized oversight such as diving, boating, flight safety, or mining. XV.F. STANDARD for Maintaining Currency in Field. Not Included in Review

75 California State University, Northridge 75 Institutional expectations are clear that the staff involved with protection and oversight related to research activities maintain currency in their understanding of governing regulations and policy.

76 California State University, Northridge 76 Appendix A: National Standards for Effective Sponsored Program Operations The National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) developed these National Standards to represent the institutional baselines that provide a supportive environment for the conduct of research and other sponsored activities as well as the broad operational and core functional areas of sponsored programs management. Unlike an audit, this peer review performs an assessment of your research administration program that goes beyond merely highlighting deficiencies in process. The assessment contains three interrelated features: senior and experienced research administrator Reviewers, the National Standards, and a philosophical approach that provides consistency in the review process with an understanding of institutional culture. These key features result in an assessment of effectiveness of sponsored research environments at the institutions undergoing peer review. The NCURA National Standards are used by experienced and senior research administrators to assess the effectiveness of the research administration program. While recognizing that institutions differ in organizational structure and institutional priorities, these Standards reflect how the institution integrates the resear ch enterprise with its institutional goals and expectations and operationalizes effective sponsored programs administration. The Standards allow Reviewers to assess how closely that integration relates to institutional and stakeholder goals and expectations. The Standards contain a list of over 165 features that are utilized by the Reviewers during their assessment and that are used as the basis for the written report.

77 California State University, Northridge 77 Appendix B: NCURA Peer Review Team Bios

78 California State University, Northridge 78

79 California State University, Northridge 79

80 California State University, Northridge 80 None provided. Appendix C: Charge Letter

81 Appendix D: Site Visit Itinerary California State University, Northridge 81

82 California State University, Northridge 82 Appendix E: NCURA Resources

83 California State University, Northridge 83

84 California State University, Northridge 84

85 California State University, Northridge 85