The Award Lifecycle

Brown’s Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) has adopted a lifecycle management approach to research administration. The Pre-Award team negotiates and accepts all sponsored agreement ensuring Brown’s academic freedoms are upheld. At this stage Pre-Award staff prepare the award for setup by verifying approval for applicable IRB and IACUC procedures. The Research Subcontracting team is responsible for creation and issuance of subaward agreement and subrecipient monitoring before passing the award to the Post-Award team for account creation.

Throughout the life of the award, Post-Award staff provide assistance to faculty and staff in managing sponsored awards that support scholarly activities. The Post-Award team provides guidance to assure proper stewardship of funds that are received and work closely with faculty and department administrators to ensure financial compliance and proper accounting of externally sponsored funds. OSP’s financial management responsibilities include cash management, financial reporting, award closeout, and effort reporting. In addition, the Pre-Award staff work closely with department administrators to prepare, review, and submit non-financial post-award changes (e.g., No-cost extensions, Rebudgeting, Change of PI, Award transfer, etc.).

A comprehensive description of each stage of the award lifecycle, along with applicable forms and policies, can be found at the links below.

Obtaining regulatory approvals & Maintaining compliance

Brown’s Office of Research Integrity (ORI) partners with investigators and staff to ensure that all requisite protocol approvals for human and animal subject activities are secured prior to the start of research.  ORI also works with OSP to facilitate compliance with conflict of interest assurance, disclosure and training requirements, and to identify any potential export control compliance requirements at the proposal submission stage, and throughout the lifetime of an award.

ORI continues to support investigators once an award is made, by providing education in the ethical and responsible conduct of research and handling allegations of possible research misconduct.  ORI’s primary goal is to facilitate research at Brown and its multidisciplinary team offers a variety of resources tailored to investigators’ needs.