Departments News & Features Sports Research Briefs In the News Health Matters BU Yesterday Contact Us Advertising Rates

Week of 2 April 1999 Vol. II, No. 29 Feature Article A guide to grantsmanship Videoconference focuses on hows and whys of award administration By Hope Green Federally sponsored academic research -- whether it's for a cancer study or an investigation of sibling rivalry -- must comply with a labyrinth of regulations that affect a scientist's funding long after the proud moment when a grant award is announced. Academic deans, department heads, and administrators, who are required to monitor research expenditures down to the last petri dish, frequently find themselves mired in paperwork. To help grant managers sort out the confusing array of policies and procedures, BU's Office of Grant and Contract Accounting will screen a National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) satellite videoconference entitled Straight Talk: A Primer on Award Administration on Thursday, April 8, in the School of Law Auditorium. The conference, to be broadcast live from Washington, D.C., will run from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. "We recommend that all administrators who have anything to do with grants and contracts attend," says Emile Beauchamp, associate comptroller in the grant accounting office, who initiated the idea of screening the conference on the BU campus and has sent invitations to several hundred faculty and staff members. This will be NCURA's first on-air training session, he notes, and approximately 80 to 100 institutions are expected to tune in. Emile Beauchamp, associate comptroller in the Office of Grant and Contract Accounting. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky Grants and contracts account for approximately 20 percent of the University's total business, according to Beauchamp. The seminar will focus on federal awards, which made up more than 70 percent, or $120.4 million, of BU's research funding in the last fiscal year, and is intended as a primer on such issues as costing, compliance, approvals, and procedures that must be followed during the life of an award. Among the day's distinguished speakers will be Julie Norris, director of sponsored programs at MIT, and Geoffrey Grant, associate vice president of research and administration at Stanford University. A former executive at the National Institutes of Health, Grant "has been a real friend of universities over the years and is an excellent speaker," says Beauchamp. Norris, a past president of NCURA, "is probably the most knowledgeable research administrator in the United States." A telephone hookup in the auditorium will allow a limited number of audience members to query the speakers. Questions can also be submitted to the presenters ahead of time from the NCURA Web site (www.ncura.edu). Rules governing federal awards are notorious for their complexity and tend to change from one year to the next. Of special concern this year are new limits on the reimbursement of clerical and administrative costs. The grant accounting office handles approximately 800 awards annually, many having a life span of several years, so Beauchamp and his staff of four must rely on academic departments to monitor how the money is spent. A misunderstanding of allowable expenses on a grant or contract can result in a costly audit. "The job of facilitating an award puts an administrator in kind of a precarious position," Beauchamp says, "because audit findings may require the University to return the money to the sponsor." For more information about the videoconference, contact the Office of Grant and Contract Accounting at 353-4555. E-mail reservations can be sent to emilbeau@bu.edu. Box lunches will be provided.