| Job Description: |
The College of Dentistry seeks a motivated, service-oriented professional to support faculty, postdocs, predocs, and college administrators in contract and grant administration for our Research Administrator II position. This role involves comprehensive research administration for faculty and principal investigators, ensuring effective coordination of services, policies, and compliance. Key responsibilities include managing the full lifecycle of pre- and post-award research administration for three institutional training grants, as well as various other complex awards. This includes proposal development, award management, and completing NIH fellowship appointments. The Research Administrator II is a mid-level role that requires prior experience, the ability to work independently with general supervision, and the capacity to handle moderately complex tasks.
Pre-award Responsibilities:
This position is responsible for assisting the subset of faculty with pre-award process. This includes reviewing the request for application selected by the faculty member(s) for administrative requirements and to support the proposal submission. After reviewing the proposal announcement (PA), position works with the faculty member and their proposed research team to develop an accurate budget that is compliant with federal, state, sponsor, university, college, and departmental policies. Throughout the proposal period, position is responsible for identifying and ensuring all administrative requirements of the sponsor’s PA are met, which may require coordination with several internal UF offices.
Accurate preparation of proposal budgets and budget justifications are important in the role of a Research Administrator (RA) during the proposal process. This requires that the RA verify current salaries and fringe benefit rates of key and other personnel involved in the proposal, including appropriate tuition rates based on the student’s expected department of employment, and includes the need to specify details of other proposed expenses (supplies, equipment, participant support costs, research animal costs, human subject participant costs, patient care costs, etc.). It is also imperative that the correct indirect cost rate (facilities and administration) be applied, including special applications of this rate per the budget requirements and the sponsor’s instructions (e.g., modified total direct cost, total direct cost, or any other).
This position is responsible for the entry, approval routing, and submission to the Division of Sponsored Programs (DSP) for review and final submission to the sponsoring agency through UF’s UFirst module. Establishment and entry of a proposal in UFirst includes providing necessary demographic information for research personnel, sponsor information, budget entry, and uploading multiple documents to the proposal in UFirst, UFirst SF424, and/or other sponsor-specified portals.
Post-Award UFirst Responsibilities:
This position is responsible for the financial management of sponsored research awards for an assigned subset of College of Dentistry (COD) faculty. The incumbent must be very adept in navigating UFirst for all post-award activities. Position will be responsible, upon receipt of the notice of award, grant, or contract, to coordinate with the Division of Sponsored Research and Contracts and Grants to establish the award within UFirst and Peoplesoft for the appropriate administration of the project during its lifetime. This includes the establishment of subproject and subcontracts as applicable, ensuring that the chartfield and combination code are correctly established, completing the initial effort commitment in UFirst to allow for the proper tracking and monitoring of commitments, and tracking and following cost-sharing per agency, University, and federal regulations. This also includes transferring grants into and out of COD as appropriate based on faculty transfers.
When notice of a change of the award is received (budget transfer approval, incremental funding, no cost extensions, supplemental funding, non-financial reporting, etc.), position will be responsible for the entry of these transactions into the UFirst system and the appropriate navigation and justification for the changes. Position will also be required to assist the faculty with the appropriate communication to the sponsor, if applicable. This can include drafting new budgets to reflect cuts, changes, and approvals, completing standard agreement and subaward forms, and routing the review of said documents through the appropriate offices/departments at UF.
Post-award Fiscal Review:
Additionally, this position is responsible for the review expenditures directly charged to sponsored awards to ensure their compliance with cost principles are defined in the UF Cost Accounting Standards and the appropriate sponsor guidelines (including the Uniform Guidance, if applicable). The incumbent must be proficient in the use of MyInvestiGator, and other UF accounting systems. It is expected that this position maintains accurate post-award reports and files on the research core and departmental drives.
This position is responsible for providing monthly reports to their assigned faculty. This includes reviewing reports and projections as required by College policy, to inform faculty of their current charges and future projected balances. Additionally on at least a quarterly basis, position is responsible for meeting with their faculty. The employee will ensure a proper understanding of the award parameters and any special requirements of the award that need to be brought to the faculty member’s attention due to programmatic and/or compliance restraints.
This position will also work with faculty and other officials as necessary to answer reporting and compliance questions. In the event charges are incorrectly assigned to a sponsored award, position is expected to coordinate the necessary transfers to correct the assignment.
At the culmination of each sponsored award, the incumbent will facilitate close-out procedures. This task often includes making certain all expenditures are appropriate, open encumbrances are closed, reoccurring charges are closed or transferred appropriately, that the award does not have a negative balance (investigate and rectify if it does), expected effort commitments have been met, and all cost sharing requirements have been satisfied.
In the event of a sponsored award(s) review or audit, the RA would work with the principal investigator, department staff, the Associate Director of Research Administration, the Division of Sponsored Programs, and Contracts and Grants to supply requested documentation. For this reason, it is imperative that the incumbent maintains sufficient documentation for all expenses of sponsored awards under their management. Documentation should justify the benefit, appropriateness, and allowability of expenditures to a sponsored award.
Effort Management and Internal Fiscal Management:
This position will be responsible for ensuring effort commitments are entered and updated correctly over the life of each sponsored award in UFIRST and myUFL. Further, this individual will be responsible for coordinating entry of payroll allocations for faculty and staff working on their sponsored awards into myUFL Department Budget Tables. This will require coordination with other RAs, Department Administrators, and faculty in the college and across the University, to confirm faculty effort on sponsored awards is consistent with original effort plans and does not adversely affect other funds.
This position will also monitor appropriate charges on the faculty/department/college contingency funds. This requires assistance to ensure that all expenses charged to the contingent fund accounts are correctly charged to the account and timely transferred to the appropriate sponsored award and/or other account.
Research Administrator II:
The position of a Research Administrator II reflects someone who has experience in the field of Research Administration, who is working to develop expertise. It is expected that this individual will be able to start taking leadership in finding solutions to new policies and problems as they arise in the department, with guidance from the Research Administrator Manager and Associate Director Research.
Additional Information:
This position may offer a one-day remote work locations after initial training time and demonstration of minimal competency. Work schedules may fall between the hours of 6:30AM – 5:00PM; Monday-Friday.
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| Preferred Qualifications: |
-Thorough knowledge of UF and NIH research funding guidelines, federal regulations and procedures.
-Training grant management experience, including detailed knowledge of NIH fellowship appointment processes.
-Ability to work on the internet dealing with grant submissions, online forms and referencing information.
-Knowledge of MS Access database software, MS Word, and especially Excel software (manipulating spreadsheets), and sound financial practices.
-Experience with PeopleSoft fiscal and grant modules.
-Experience with NIH Commons procedures.
-Knowledge of UF personnel & payroll policies and cost accounting procedures.
-Ability to work within strict deadlines, under pressure, and the ability to prioritize.
-Attention to detail and organizational skills are also strongly preferred.
-Must have drive to complete tasks, problem-solve, and be able to operate effectively and independently in a high traffic office.
-Must have the ability to interact with staff, faculty and college and University level contacts with professionalism and use time efficiently.
-Excellent phone and organizational skills.
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