Frequently Asked Questions

Office of Sponsored Programs Administration 310 Jesse Hall Columbia, MO 65211 573 882-7560 phone 573 884-4078 fax

• If a grant application has a budget with 1 faculty Principal Investigator, 6 faculty Co-Investigators, and 5 staff persons who are not faculty, who has to sign the PeopleSoft Grants Module signature pages?
• What is the general procedure for situations where an organization outside MU is submitting a grant application and would like MU faculty to be involved as a subcontract partner in the grant application?
• What should be submitted to OSPA and when?
• What determines whether a grant proposal must go through OSPA? For example, what if the funding agency just wants a letter of intent and no budget and not MU authorized signature? What if they want a letter of intent with a estimated total budget cost but do not require an institution authorized signature?
• What happens to a grant application after it is delivered to the OSPA satellite office?
• If the budget details that PeopleSoft allows are not required, how do we go about entering a proposal without doing all the budget details?
• I'm interested to know more about reporting capabilities. I used to use the information from GIS to prepare reports about what's been applied for and awarded, shared credit, effort etc. I'm concerned that we will not have historical data available to us for this purpose. I would like to hear this topic addressed and hear about plans for queries of current & historical data.
• A faculty person is included on a research project and not as a Co-Investigator but as a member of a Scientific Advisory Board for the project with 0% effort. Is a signature required for that faculty person (and department head and Dean)?
• Can you extend a grant to cover layoff benefits and what's the procedure if so?
• Can you submit an extension to cover TAP severance pay?

If a grant application has a budget with 1 faculty Principal Investigator, 6 faculty Co-Investigators, and 5 staff persons who are not faculty, who has to sign the PeopleSoft Grants Module signature pages? All 7 faculty and their respective chairs and dean/director need to sign.

What is the general procedure for situations where an organization outside MU is submitting a grant application and would like MU faculty to be involved as a subcontract partner in the grant application? The outside organization would be submitting the application to the grantee agency.

What should be submitted to OSPA and when? These are treated like a regular proposal.

What determines whether a grant proposal must go through OSPA? For example, what if the funding agency just wants a letter of intent and no budget and not MU authorized signature? What if they want a letter of intent with a estimated total budget cost but do not require an institution authorized signature? A letter of intent without budget information does not need to be processed through OSPA. Anytime a budget or dollar amount is included, it will need to be processed through OSPA.

What happens to a grant application after it is delivered to the OSPA satellite office? The proposal is checked for due date/submission deadline, and mailing process. If terms and conditions are included, these need to be provided to the satellite a week prior to the due date. Sponsor guidelines are reviewed and proposal is checked for accuracy and compliance with both the sponsor and the University. Budget is reviewed. Panels in PeopleSoft are checked for completion and accuracy. Signature pages are prepared and the proposal is forwarded to the main office for signing and mailing.

If the budget details that PeopleSoft allows are not required, how do we go about entering a proposal without doing all the budget details? At the proposal stage, PeopleSoft does not require any more budget detail than the sponsor requires. A detailed budget may be required at award time for account setup in PeopleSoft.

I'm interested to know more about reporting capabilities. I used to use the information from GIS to prepare reports about what's been applied for and awarded, shared credit, effort etc. I'm concerned that we will not have historical data available to us for this purpose. I would like to hear this topic addressed and hear about plans for queries of current & historical data. Historical information is available in GIS and current/future information is available in PeopleSoft.

A faculty person is included on a research project and not as a Co-Investigator but as a member of a Scientific Advisory Board for the project with 0% effort. Is a signature required for that faculty person (and department head and Dean)? Yes. That individual's credentials are being used in determining if the project is being funded or not. It would be unethical to use someone's credentials without their permission.

Can you extend a grant to cover layoff benefits and what's the procedure if so? No. Expenses after the end date of the project are not allowed.

Can you submit an extension to cover TAP severance pay? This not an allowable expense.