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Date: June 1, 2009 I am writing to inform you of a change to the VCR Policy on Late Proposal Submissions. As you know, the original policy required complete proposals to be submitted to SPO five working days in advance of a sponsor’s deadline. Since this policy was announced on October 22, 2008, we have collected data on the impact of the policy and I am pleased to report that it has had a significant and positive effect in reducing the number of proposals at risk for missing sponsor deadlines because of a late submittal to SPO. During this time, my office also has received a number of very helpful suggestions from the faculty community concerning the operation of the policy. We have reviewed the policy with the Academic Senate’s Committee on Research and other faculty members. Our goal has been to find a way to offer flexibility to the faculty and prevent duplication of effort by research administrators, while still allowing a high degree of confidence that we can submit proposals that meet sponsor deadlines and content requirements. With the modification described below, we believe we will more effectively meet this goal. Effective today, a proposal will not be considered late if the principal investigator submits a proposal that includes all administrative components in final form and a draft copy of the statement of work or technical section to SPO at least five days before the applicable deadline. The PI/department should indicate that the technical section is draft form and must work out a due date for the submission of the final technical section with the research administrator at SPO assigned to the PI’s department. At the time the new deadline is established for the final technical section, the PI will be offered the option of having SPO submit the draft technical section if the new, revised deadline is not met. If the PI does not choose this option and is unable to submit by the revised deadline, SPO will accept the late proposal without requiring the PI to go through the late proposal exception process but will process the proposal in the normal queue after other on-time proposals. For this approach to work, the PI will need to either highlight in the revised statement of work/technical section the portions that have changed or inform SPO that only editorial changes were made to the technical section. Changes to the technical section should not impact:
Of course, if the changes in the revised technical section are inconsistent with what the PI has submitted in the administrative section, SPO will have to return the proposal to the PI so that the PI can make sure that the administrative and technical sections are consistent. This will result in the proposal being processed by SPO after the other on-time proposals. This policy modification should provide greater flexibility for the faculty members responding to often very short deadlines and reduce the number of late proposals. I recognize that there still will be cases in which proposals must be submitted late through no fault of the PI and that exceptions to five day policy may be required. To ensure that such exceptions are processed as quickly as possible with all of the needed information, my office has established a new process for obtaining an exception to the five day policy. Requests for exceptions should now be submitted to vcrlateproposal@berkeley.edu using the revised Late Proposal Submission Instructions that appear on the SPO website. Thank you for your comments and your cooperation. If you have any questions concerning this policy modification, please contact Pamela Miller, the Director of SPO, or myself. Sincerely, Graham Fleming source: 6/2/2009 CALmessages: VCR Policy on Late Proposal Submissions |
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ORIGINAL POLICY Wednesday, October 22, 2008 From: Beth Burnside, Vice Chancellor for Research To: Deans, Directors, Department Chairs Re: VCR Policy on Late Proposal Submissions to SPO I am writing to alert you to a new policy that I am putting into practice for contract and grant proposals that are submitted after the SPO deadline. As you know, UC Berkeley policy is that complete proposals must be submitted to the Sponsored Projects Office five working days in advance of the sponsor's deadline. In consideration of the volume of proposals and the growing complexity of the proposal submission process, it is essential that principal investigators observe the SPO deadline to allow adequate time for staff members in the Departments and in SPO to work through the many issues that arise before a proposal can be submitted for the sponsor's deadline. Very often a high number of proposals are received by SPO at one time, and because there are difficulties with grants.gov and other on-line submission systems, late proposals create great stress for all staff members and jeopardize timely submission. Further, late proposals often delay the proposals of principal investigators who have submitted their proposals to SPO on time. Late proposal submissions are a significant problem for the campus. In the last 12 months SPO received 2,909 proposals with a stated sponsor deadline. Of those, about 27% (782) were received by SPO less than 2 days before the sponsor deadline, and nearly 14% (401) were received on the same day they were due to the sponsor. This ongoing problem with late proposal submissions creates a “log-jam” that jeopardizes SPO's ability to transmit to funding agencies those applications that have been submitted on time. Hence, the PIs that have been ignoring the SPO five-day deadline are placing in jeopardy the more numerous PIs who are submitting in a timely fashion. I have on several occasions urged the campus faculty to observe the SPO submission schedule. That has not had a noticeable effect on the volume of late submissions. As a continuation of the current situation is simply untenable, a new policy is required. The following policy will become effective Monday, November 3, 2008. • Any proposal that is to be submitted to SPO less than five working days before the sponsor deadline will require the prior approval of both the Department Head or Director of the submitting unit and the Vice Chancellor for Research before it will be processed by SPO. • I have asked SPO management not to approve proposals received after the SPO deadline unless this policy has been followed. • SPO will no longer have authority to grant extensions on its own to principal investigators to submit proposals after the five-day deadline. All extensions must be approved by the VCR to be processed. This policy applies to paper and electronic submissions of new, competing renewal, continuation and re-submission proposals regardless of sponsor, if the sponsor specifies a deadline. If no deadline is specified, SPO will expect to have five working days to process the proposal from the time of receipt. • Sponsor requests for annual progress reports, revised budgets and other requests such as this are not subject to this policy. • To obtain approval to submit a proposal after the SPO deadline, the Principal Investigator must send a request via email to the appropriate Department or Lab Head and lead administrative officer, with a copy to Pamela Miller, SPO Director*. The request must explain why the proposal is late and describe the reasons why it could not or cannot be submitted on time. The justification will need to be very compelling for it to be considered for exception to this policy. (NOTE: Please see Late Proposal Submission Instructions for current procedures.) • If the Department or Lab Head or designee approves the late submission, he/she must notify Pamela Miller* and forward the proposal to my office for consideration and approval. Once we receive the Department approval, we will try to respond to the Department, the Principal Investigator and SPO within one day. Please note that if I approve the proposal for submission, it will be processed by SPO in the order it was received. (NOTE: Please see Late Proposal Submission Instructions for current procedures.) I ask that you inform all principal investigators in your unit of this policy. Please reinforce to principal investigators the importance of this policy so that they are aware that as a result they may be prevented from submitting a late proposal. I also want to note that although every effort will be made to submit approved late proposals by the sponsor's deadline, there are no guarantees that they will make it through the system in time. My staff and I appreciate your cooperation as we work through the implementation of this new policy. If you have questions or would like to discuss the policy, do not hesitate to call Pamela Miller* or myself. * was Marcia Smith, AVC-RAC in the original memo source: 10/22/2008 CALmessages |