Contracts, Grants and Clinical Trials
Contracts and grants in the School of Medicine primarily refers to the process of applying for outside funding to support research, teaching, or patient care initiatives. Many grant opportunities are highly competitive and ensuring the timely submission of the application materials is critical. In School of Medicine departments, contracts and grants accounting requires specialized knowledge to manage.
Pre-Award:
The UC Davis Office of Research, Sponsored Programs is the office of record for all research proposals. Sponsored Programs reviews and submits research proposals, negotiates and accepts awards on behalf of the UC Regents and drafts, negotiates and executes (outgoing) subawards for collaborative research. Per UC policy, all proposals for extramural funding must be submitted through Sponsored Programs, with the exception of limited submission pre-proposals and pre-proposals that do not require an institutional signature.
The School of Medicine Office of Research is our school-local Office of Research. School of Medicine Office of Research reviews and signs off on proposals before they route to the UC Davis Office of Research, Sponsored Programs Office.
Key systems:
- Pre-award processes are administered in the CAYUSE-SP form system for grant proposals.
- For National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposals, use CAYUSE SFF424 form sets federal agencies and CAYUSE-SP form – essentially two proposals must be submitted for NIH proposals (must do SP and SF424).
Timing:
The time frames for pre-award proposal submissions must be taken into account prior to submission. All signatures must be in place at the time of submission, including signatures from the department chairs of each all participant. In the School of Medicine, the Assistant Dean for Research must sign, which requires a five-day turnaround. The Office of Sponsored Programs on campus needs to receive a proposal at least five days in advance of the submission date.
Post-Award:
When a sponsor awards a grant or contract, the UC Davis Office of Research, Sponsored Programs is responsible for award acceptance and moving it through the final approval process. Once accepted, the award information is forwarded to Contracts and Grants Accounting on the main campus to set up the account to receive the funds and to allow the principal investigator to begin spending. Contracts and Grants Accounting validates the budget and assigns an analyst to monitor the award. The department Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) or Financial Analyst typically provides monthly or quarterly financial reports to the Principal Investigator.
Key systems:
- Use Decision Support report 2 for monthly financials.
- Use Decision Support report 11 to find out who your account manager is in Contracts and Grants Accounting.
A clinical trial is a research project conducted with men, women or children to determine if an investigational drug, device or procedure is safe and effective. Some other words that describe clinical research are study, protocol, survey or experiment.
Get more information about clinical trials at UC Davis Health, including a searchable database
As opposed to a grant, in which the university is funded a full or partial amount by the sponsor for work, clinical trials typically operate on a cost per patient schedule, and patients will need to be enrolled before funding is provided from the sponsor via an invoice process.
Key systems:
- Decision support report 55 is key when running clinical trials.
- DS report 2 will show expenses, but not how much money has actually been received.
School of Medicine business and consulting contracts that are negotiated for services to the department or unit are managed by UC Davis Procurement and Contracting Services on the main campus.
The Procurement Services team issues Purchase Orders for the provision of commercially available services. The Business and Revenue Contracts team issues Purchase Orders for other types of service agreements, including Performance Agreements, Consultant Agreements, Non-Disclosure Agreements, and Equipment Loan Agreements. In many cases, business and consulting contracts require following the RFP/B (request for proposal or bid) process. For the best guidance in this area, please reach out to the Business and Revenue Contracts team.
Purchasing guidelines, FAQ’s, and other policy and procedural guidance may be found on the Procurement and Contracting Services website. A full list of training opportunities may be located via the Procurement and Contracting Services Training site.
- Complete the Intro to Pre-Award and Intro to Post-Award courses via the LMS.
- Contact the Assistant Dean, UC Davis School of Medicine Office of Research regarding School of Medicine local training sessions.
- Meet with your mentor regarding grants administration and financial reports.
- Meet with your Contracts and Grants Accounting analyst.
- Review the UC Davis Office of Research Sponsored Programs website.
- Meet with contracts and grants accounting staff in your department.
- Join the research managers quarterly forum.
- Consider enrolling in Research Administrator Certification series of courses.
- Ensure your access to CAYUSE is active.
- Ensure your access to Decision Support (DS) is active.
