Job no: 515765
Work type: Staff Full-Time
Location: Main Campus (Gainesville, FL)
Categories: Engineering/Computer Science, Research/Scientific/Grants
Department:19010800 - EG-FISCAL / PERSONNEL

Research Administrator II

Post Award Management & Reporting:

The employee will work closely with Associate Director and assigned subset (portfolio) of faculty/PIs to provide comprehensive award management and daily monitoring of post award activities, including but not limited to: payroll distributions/effort, budget transfers, incremental funding releases, budget modifications and adjustments, advance funding requests, supplemental funding requests, subaward monitoring, no cost extensions, cost sharing, cost transfers, non-financial report submissions, etc.

This position will assist AD with proactive and concurrent post-award management. This requires routine, careful, and detailed fiscal analysis in order to forecast each award’s financial trajectory for their portfolio. The incumbent should review their financial analysis and projections with their PIs on a consistent (a minimum of bimonthly) basis to ensure accuracy and budget adherence.

Additional duties include:

• Reviewing award documents for post award requirements and assisting with the interpretation of policies, procedures, rules and regulations based on research and knowledge of sponsor terms and conditions, University policies and procedures, and federal and state rules and regulations.
• Ensuring timely follow through on all changes or additions made to new or existing projects. This includes ensuring expenditures (salary and non-salary) are made according to the budget awarded by the sponsor and all applicable rules.
• Working closely with the Associate Director, Research Administrators, PIs and departmental staff to ensure proper allocation of expenditures to sponsored research projects.
• Monitoring encumbrance balances on a monthly basis and ensuring that the balance reflects current purchase obligations for the award and that purchase orders are closed out on a timely basis.
• Assisting the PI in their subrecipient monitoring responsibilities, including reviewing subrecipient invoices to ensure invoices are within the parameters of the subaward budget and questioning expenditures if necessary, ensuring subrecipient invoices are approved by the PI and returned to C&G in a timely manner, and requesting clarification from the subrecipient regarding any unusual or excessive charges invoiced by the subrecipient.
• Assisting with reconciliation of projects on a monthly basis through the use of reports and queries from the University financial system and internal records to ensure the timely identification and correction of errors.
• Working closely with PIs and AD to ensure the accuracy of the final expenditure figures and proper closeout of awards.
• Facilitating close-out procedures, including making certain all expenditures are appropriate, open encumbrances are closed, the award does not have a negative balance (will investigate and rectify if so), expected effort commitments have been met, and all cost sharing requirements have been satisfied.
• Following up with PIs and facilitating the timely submission of final technical, patent and property reports.

Payroll/Effort Management:

The employee will be responsible for managing payroll distributions and effort for the assigned PIs. This includes providing payroll distribution/LOA information to the HR office for entry in myUFL, providing college with PDRRs for payroll distributions shared by more than one department, reconciling payroll on a timely basis to ensure payroll charges are consistent with information provided, preparing payroll cost transfers as necessary.

Effort duties include working with AD to ensure project effort commitments on Faculty Assignment Reports (FARs) are accurate, monitoring effort commitments and coordinating changes with Cost Analysis, understanding current federal and university Effort Reporting policies , reviewing and distributing effort reports in myUFL per faculty input, notifying PI or key personnel specifically named in the notice of award if effort is reduced by 25 percent or more from the level that was approved at the time of award and facilitating requests to sponsor to reduce effort level, ensuring the reports are completed in a timely manner and certified by the appropriate individual, identifying and troubleshooting effort report issues, and ensuring committed cost sharing is captured on the effort report.

Pre-Award Administration:

The employee will be responsible for serving as a backup for all pre-award administration with proposal preparation and should be able to independently prepare and submit proposals, which includes but is not limited to knowing agency guideline requirements; advising faculty on required budgets and documents specific to each proposal; preparing budgets compliant with sponsor’s guidelines and applying appropriate indirect cost rates; preparing cover sheets, current and pending documents, conflict of interest documents and will assist when needed with the preparation of sub-awards and subcontracts that are issued to sub-recipients under prime federal or non-federal grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts.

Research Compliance:

The employee must develop an understanding of the OMB Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards (2 CFR 200) to effectively manage sponsored awards.

In addition, familiarity with a variety of other aspects of sponsored research administration will be required, including: cost accounting standards (CAS), Institutional Review Board (IRB) for human subjects in research, IACUC for animal subjects in research, financial conflict of interest (FCOI), export control, and other specific UF policies. 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.

In the event of a sponsored award(s) review or audit, this position would assist the AD and/or a higher-ranking Research Administrator within ECE in response to 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.

Other duties:

As the position evolves, other duties might include approving reimbursements, requisitions, travel and PCard expenses charged to sponsored accounts, including verifying that expenses adhere to UF policies, award terms and federal regulations with special attention to allowability, allocability, reasonableness and consistency with award objectives.

$50,000-$54,000 annually; commensurate with qualifications and experience

Bachelor's degree and two years of experience in grant and contract administration; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Ability to communicate well both verbally and in writing with faculty, staff and various funding sponsors.
• Ability to act as liaison and use communication skills with professionals of various contract and grant funding sources.
• Ability to evaluate and give technical assistance in the preparation and submission of proposals and to evaluate data relative to proposal submission.
• Knowledge of and accountable for all current rules, regulations, policies and procedures relating to the funding sponsors, the State of Florida and the University of Florida.
• Ability to understand and utilize problem solving techniques.
• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with others.
• Professional code of conduct becoming of a public employee.
• Ability to work independently with supervision and use good judgment to set priorities.
• Knowledge and understanding of the University Research Administration structure is a must. Proficiency in all office applications necessary for efficient execution of their duties. This includes at a minimum, PeopleSoft, Adobe applications, email clients, and Microsoft suite of applications like Excel, Word, PowerPoint.

This is a time-limited position.

In order to be considered for this position, applicant must upload a cover letter and resume with application.

Application must be submitted by 11:55 p.m. (ET) of the posting end date.

No

Advertised: 12 Feb 2021 Eastern Standard Time
Applications close: 26 Feb 2021 Eastern Standard Time