How do RAS responsibilities differ from what was formerly handled by the department?
Emory’s research funding has grown dramatically over the last decade, propelling us into the top tier for federal funding among research universities. As a result, Emory’s research administration infrastructure and practices have had to expand in order to meet these growing needs; however, this has not always occurred systematically.
There are also a number of other external factors that have impacted research administration at Emory:
1) In recent years, funding levels for sponsored research are flat or declining
2) The cost to support research is increasing
3) The level and complexity of compliance is rising
The proper administration of sponsored programs requires significant effort. Resources for staffing are limited. Both local and central units have a significant amount of work required of them. As the structure for the RAS Units was laid out, particular attention was paid to removing the redundancies that existed under the past structure where both local and central units were required to complete the same or very similar tasks.
In 2012, School Chief Business Officers, the Vice President for Finance, the Associate Vice President for Research Administration and a consultant worked together on a coordinated effort to document the distribution of responsibilities between local and central units. These were finalized and posted to OGCA’s website and communicated to schools and departments through ERAZ and in Emory’s Research Administration Newsletter. They can be accessed at http://www.ogca.emory.edu/documents/policies/RolesResponsibilities01_17_13.pdf.
Due to the implementation of the RAS Units, the roles and responsibilities have been revised as noted in the Attachment 1. These changes are being implemented as RAS Units roll out.
Why did it originally sound like more work would be moving from the OGCA to the RAS Units?
The initial plan for delegation of duties for RAS Units was designed based upon feedback from researchers, school, central and departmental level research administrators and others with expertise in service center administration and business process design. During the initial roll out period, the RAS pilot activities were carefully evaluated and changes were made to the original plan in an effort to best address the goals of this project. The goals were to allow research administration to occur as efficiently as possible while addressing both the needs of our researchers and compliance requirements of our sponsors. See Attachment 1 for more information regarding changes in roles and responsibilities.
Will OGCA staff be moving from OGCA to the RAS Units when the roll out?
Each RAS Unit will be assigned an FTE who has been trained by and worked in OGCA.
How can people not currently in a RAS Unit best prepare for the move to a RAS Unit?
The best way to prepare is as follows:
- All staff should complete the RAE Certification program which provides a comprehensive research administration education including training on Compass.
- Work with the FIRA team to address the outstanding cleanup work.
- Ensure you are reconciling your projects on a regular basis and that you have not overspent budgets.
- Complete AART/PACT Training (use of AART tool became required for all sponsored projects ending 4/1/14 or later – RAS and non-RAS)
- Listen carefully to leadership for updates on the RAS implementation plan for your unit.
What impact has the RAS Implementation had on OSP and OGCA?
As a result of this new structure, it is anticipated that over the next 2-3 years, OGCA will experience a decrease in staffing once RAS Units are operating at expected performance levels.
The implementation of RAS has demanded significant time and participation from the staff of OSP and OGCA. Members of these offices worked closely with others in BPI, schools, and various departments to develop the RAS structure and the SOPs. OSP and OGCA have been very much involved in the development of training materials as well as the facilitation of training sessions. The staff also provides guidance to the RAS Units. While the responsibilities on these offices have increased due to the implementation of RAS, the expectation is that this will be temporary for the transitional period. Following this period, it is anticipated that OGCA will experience some decrease in workload due to the transition of FSR and many FFR related activities, in addition to more efficient processes.
As part of RAS implementation, the processes they will be responsible for were reviewed and revised to be more efficient. Has a similar review of processes occurred in OSP and OGCA?
Yes. The review of research administration conducted by the BPI Office highlighted several areas of opportunities for improvement in overall research administration activities. As part of the process following that review, processes and activities planned for RAS as well as others planned to remain in OSP/OGCA were reviewed and many were revised. Some revisions related to Compass were identified and completed and some were held for review as part of the PeopleSoft Upgrade. That review has begun and will be occurring over the next three months. Research Administration practices at Emory are continually reviewed to identify the most efficient strategies. Examples of some of the recent process enhancements in OSP and OGCA include, but are not limited to:
- Development of milestone pages which allow detailed management, tracking and reporting for invoices and FFRs
- Development of a central Kiosk for the Emory Research Community to submit and track common requests to OSP and OGCA (SAM Kiosk will be rolling out Summer 2014)
- Development of electronic retroactive salary transfer (RST) tool
- Development of the AART (Account Analysis and Reconciliation Tool) and PACT (Project Analysis and Closeout Tool)
- Reorganization of OGCA into a team structure with central help desks to assist and track follow-up communications
In addition to providing support to RAS Units as they roll out, over the next few months, OSP, DMG and OGCA will be very involved in the Compass Upgrade Project, in leading the roll out of the new federal agency guidelines issued as a result of Uniform Guidance and managing the HHS payment management system transition.
Please click the chart below to review an outline of the up-to-date roles and responsibilities.
