ARRA Reporting: Vice Chancellor for Research Notice
See American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) for additional guidance.
UC Berkeley CALmessages Notice
Date: September 8, 2009
From: Graham Fleming, Vice Chancellor for Research
To: Deans, Directors, Department Chairs
Subject: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) research
funding
Dear Colleagues,
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) will provide a significant amount of new research funding to the Berkeley campus. To date we have received over $35.7M and expect that amount to substantially increase over the course of the upcoming year. This new funding is in addition to the substantial levels of federal research support we would expect to see based on historical trends, and represents a major new investment in the nation’s research efforts. As you would expect, this has been welcomed by the research community. However, the ARRA support also brings with it a new set of reporting requirements that I want bring to your attention. This reporting reflects the intention of Congress and the Administration to provide ARRA funds accompanied by new standards of transparency and accountability. These new reporting requirements are not unique to the research community or higher education but we are expected to do our part to show that the funds are being used responsibly.
I am writing now to alert you to the campus preparations for the new reporting requirements. A small (cross-campus) working group is currently developing a process to address the new ARRA reporting guidelines. In brief, the act calls for quarterly reporting on ARRA-funded projects, which will require brief input from principal investigators, departmental research administrators, and other campus units. Sponsored projects funded by ARRA will require the PI, with help of their research administrators, to provide a description of the project or activity; an evaluation of the completion status of the project or activity; and an estimate of the number of jobs created and the number of jobs retained by the project or activity with a brief description of each job.
The workgroup is also collaboratively working with another UC campus to produce a web portal at Berkeley for easy entry of needed departmental information and guidance for its use. Part of the guidance will be provided through in-person workshops that will be announced shortly. The portal is being designed to pre-populate much of the required data to ensure accuracy and efficiency, and the group has been working to minimize reporting tasks for principal investigators and departmental research administrators to the greatest extent possible. It is expected that much of the required reporting information will be taken directly from campus financial and reporting systems.
The current federal guidelines require that institutions receiving ARRA funding report within ten days of the end of a calendar year quarter. Therefore, Berkeley’s first report for ARRA awards received through September 30, 2009 will be due to the federal government on October 10, 2009. Extramural Funds Accounting will report this information through FederalReporting.gov, the central government-wide data collection system for Federal Agencies and Recipients of Federal awards under Section 1512 of the Recovery Act.
The federal government will then publish all ARRA recipient reports for public viewing on the recovery.gov website. These short deadlines coupled with increased transparency in reporting will mean that responsiveness by all stakeholders will be critical to our success in meeting these new compliance reporting requirements.
I look forward to your assistance with these efforts.
Best regards,
Graham Fleming
Vice Chancellor for Research
source: 9/8/2009 CALmessages: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) research funding