Research Administrator II
Job Description
This position is in the College of Public Health and Health Professions' (PHHP) Research Administration Core, reporting to the Research Administration Manager. This position is responsible for assisting PHHP faculty with primarily post-award administration for the sponsored activities.
This position requires in depth and up to date knowledge of the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), state, and university regulations, policies, and procedures as they pertain to externally funded research grants. The incumbent must be able to work both independently and within a team construct.
Post-Award UFirst Responsibilities:
This position is responsible for the financial management of sponsored research awards for an assigned subset of PHHP faculty. The incumbent must be very adept in navigating UFirst for all post-award activities. This 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 PHHP 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.), this position will be responsible for the entry of these transactions into the UFirst system and the appropriate navigation and justification for the changes. This 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 and approval of all financial transactions 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 myUF Marketplace, MyInvestiGator, other UF accounting systems, and UF PHHP Internal systems. It is expected that this position maintains accurate post-award reports and files on the research core and departmental drives.
On at least a quarterly basis, this position is responsible for reviewing and approving, with their faculty, the charges on the sponsored awards under their supervision to ensure that expenditures are necessary, reasonable, allowable, allocable, and consistently treated. This includes drafting reports and projections as required by college policy, to inform faculty of their current charges and future projected balances. 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, this 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 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 maintain 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 and Department Administrators 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 also assists with monitoring their appropriate charges on the college contingent pay 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.
Pre-award Responsibilities:
While this position assists the research core in post-award duties, this may include the submission of updated budgets, supplements, corrected budgets, non-streamlined progress reports, and other traditional pre-award duties. In that role, this position would be responsible for reviewing the request for application (RFA) selected by the faculty member(s) for administrative requirements and to support the proposal submission. After reviewing the RFA, this 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, this position is responsible for identifying and ensuring all administrative requirements of the sponsor's RFA are met, which may require coordination with several internal UF offices.
Accurate preparation of proposal budgets and budget justifications are paramount 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, include 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 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.
Team Leadership and Mentorship:
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 Director of Research Administration, Research Administration Managers, and the Research Administrator IIIs in the Research Core.
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