Award Setup

OSR is responsible for preparing, interpreting, negotiating and accepting grants on behalf of The Regents of the University of California (UC) for sponsored projects. Awards given to UCSF and its researchers are awards to The Regents of the University of California. As a constitutional corporation, The Regents are responsible for the commitments made in their name by accepting grants and executing contracts.  

Award Intake

The OSR Triage team receives proposal and grant award matters, identifies the required action and assigns matter. Forward all awards to [email protected]. 

Set-up in the Research Administration System (RAS)

The award acceptance process ends when a fully executed contract, grant or amendment is received from the Sponsor and all compliance requirements are in place. 

OSR routes to Contracts and Grants Accounting (CGA) in CACTAS for Research Administration System (RAS) setup and Chart of Accounts (COA) assignment.

CGA completes complete the award setup by:

  1. Entering the entering the financial (e.g. F&A rates) and award information (e.g. terms) in the RAS. 
    • Uploading award documents
  2. Transmitting award information PI and department
  3. Notifying the Department and PI once the award set-up is complete
    • CGA will provide the award# (e.g. A121300), the primary project ID (e.g. 121300A), and Posting Level Dept ID. 
    • Departments have 1 business day to request changes to the assigned Posting level DeptID.
    • For multi-project award, the Department must make a request to [email protected]. CGA will then generate additional ProjectIDs linked to the fund (e.g. 121300B, 121300C, 121300D, etc.)

Data entered into RAS is used to generate reports and track funding.

Award Advance

An Award Advance (also known as At-Risk Fund or Advance Fund) is a request for the advancement of funds prior to the receipt of funding from the extramural funding source. PI and Department must complete and submit the Award Advance Request form to OSR. OSR will verify all compliance requirements in accordance with the applicable regulations and will create an Award Advance CACTAS record that is submitted to CGA. 

An Award Advance requires the PI and Department Chair (MSO signature accepted on form) to certify that the department will pay any expended funds from the departmental discretionary account or other department-designated account in compliance with UCSF policy if the award is not received by the University.

Dean’s signature is required if the award advance request is greater than $500k total costs. 

For a period advance of an existing award, if there are future years in RAS, advances for the next activity periods are automatic. 

If the award does not have future years in RAS, then the department submits a ServiceNow ticket to CGA ([email protected]), including:

  1. Commitment to fund from contracting officer at sponsoring institution for the subsequent budget period
  2. Confirmation of active certifications in place or in progress

CGA will authorize the award advance:

  1. No past-due receivables older than 90 days
  2. Not a clinical trial
  3. Record the intent intent to fund letter in CACTAS; a new agreement will be created if needed.

PHS-Funded Awards

Due to the new federal COI rules, if you are submitting an advance for PHS-funded awards, you must complete your required COI disclosure in COI-SMART (available via MyAccess) before the funds can be released

NIH Rules

NIH permits up to 90 days pre-award spending.

Special rules apply on funds for State and City and County of San Francisco require additional signatures.

Resources

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