Contracts & Grants: Award Management

Award Management Overview

Fiscal management of grants, contracts, and other funding agreements is the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (PI) or Project Director (PD) and the Administering Unit. The ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG) can provide liaison services with funding agencies.

The PI is the individual with primary responsibility for: 

• the scientific integrity and management of the project
• the financial management of project funds
• adherence to all University policies
• adherence to externally-imposed sponsor terms and conditions including reporting and record keeping requirements contained in the award document. The award document is the funding agency's official obligation of funds for a project. Many awards cover a multi-year project period made up of several shorter (usually 12-month) budget periods. Funds often are awarded in budget period installments, and
• monitoring a Subrecipient’s performance and expenditures prior to approving their invoice.

It is critical that the PI review and understand the contract or grant requirements and restrictions of each specific award. If any of the award terms are unclear, it is the PI’s responsibility to contact the OCG for clarification and guidance. If the terms of an individual award are more strict than federal guidelines and University policy, the terms of the award take precedence. For example, travel expenses are allowable under federal and University policy, but may be specifically excluded or limited by your specific award. 

It is important upon receipt of the fully executed award for the PI and the Administering Unit to review the terms and conditions, make note of important conditions including, but not limited to, reporting deadlines, unallowable costs, areas that may require prior approval such as rebudgeting or no cost time extensions, publications may require sponsors review prior to dissemination, etc...  

Interim Reporting Requirements 

The PI is responsible for submitting all required interim and final technical or project reports to the awarding agency or sponsor. The PI should review the award terms and conditions and make note of the following items in order to ensure timely completion of the reports as required by the Sponsor:

• What technical or program reports are required?
• What are the deadlines for reports?
• What format and submission methods are required?

Report content requirements as well as specific formats may be spelled out in the award terms and conditions. Typically the report content requirements may include:

• Project identification information
• Significant results of the project
• Project difficulties and solutions
• List of publications resulting from the project, including articles in progress (Please note some sponsor may require publications be submitted to the sponsor for their review prior to public dissemination.)
• A discussion of “milestones” and “deliverables”

The OCG monitors compliance with all final contract and grant reporting requirements. Please see the Closeout page for more information on final reporting requirements. 

Expenditures

The offices of record for expenditures is the Extramural Funds Accounting office which may be either Davis, Berkeley, Merced or UCOP as applicable. Upon receiving a fully signed and executed award from the office of contracts and grants, Extramural Accounting will establish a specific account and fund number for the project. The administering unit charges all costs to this number at the direction of the PI or PD. The budget for expending funds is allocated to sub-budget categories based on amounts in the proposal budget agreed to by the university and the funding agency.

As the project progresses, the project should be monitored monthly to ensure adherence to award terms and conditions. Financial Ledger Reviews should be performed at least once a month.  Please see the Fiscal Oversight link for more information.