Changes to the Policy on Principal Investigator (PI) Status

I am pleased to announce changes to our Policy on Principal Investigator (PI) Status that expand PI privileges for several categories of faculty and staff and update our processes to better align with proposal development and submission practices. The full policy can be found on our Office of Research website, and below I highlight key changes to PI status privileges for some classifications of faculty and staff:

• Those in an unmodified instructor position on the Medical Campus now have automatic PI privileges. However, those in an instructor position and all its modified forms on the Charles River and Fenway Campuses do not have automatic full PI privileges.
• Professor of the practice has been added to the category of modified faculty positions that have automatic PI privileges, provided they are serving at 50 percent or greater effort.
• Across campuses, adjunct faculty will no longer have PI status. Exceptions will be made for faculty with previous blanket status who are temporarily appointed as adjuncts to complete their work on BU grants.
• In addition to awards that are postdoc-specific fellowships or career advancement grants, postdocs may now also apply for PI status approval to lead research proposals that are small in scope (less than $250,000 total direct costs) and do not require the direct supervision of research personnel or student progress.
• Non-research administrative staff may apply for PI status for facilities grants, construction grants, administrative grants, or other infrastructure grants with the approval of the relevant provost (for a campus-centric project) or of the vice president for research (for University-wide projects). They also may apply for research grants if the proposed research meets a programmatic need of the University and is well-aligned with the individual’s job responsibilities.

If not summarized here, all prior PI status privileges remain unchanged and are defined in the current version of our policy.

For faculty and staff categories that require prior approval, we have also updated our process for requesting PI status. Rather than requesting PI status approval at the time of proposal submission, PI status approval requests should be submitted four weeks prior to a proposal submission deadline. The application must include the completed PI status request form as well as a letter of recommendation signed by the department chair or center director. The specific criteria for the letter of recommendation are identified on the Office of Research website under the section “Application for PI Status.”

These changes to policy and process apply to new PI status requests moving forward but will not affect individuals with PI status on current projects. For questions, please reach out to Sarah Hokanson (sch1@bu.edu), assistant vice president and assistant provost for research development and PhD & postdoctoral affairs.