Frequently Asked Questions

Dependent upon the number of proposals received, there may be up to two review committees. Each committee will consist predominantly of faculty.

• Center Directors may apply.
• Vice Provosts may apply.
• Co-PI may include academic or research faculty or research staff
• No overhead will be charged.
• No graduate student support.
• You can be involved in more than one proposal. Example would be PI on one and Co-PI on another. You cannot be a PI on more than one proposal per category.

• Not all applicants in a collaboration need to be untentured faculty. The PI should be untenured with any tentured faculty listed as Co-PI.Research staff/post-docs may be included as Co-PI....but remember that the purpose is to build research programs of untenured academic faculty so that they are more able to attract external support, and to build the capacity for supporting graduate students.You can be involved in more than one proposal. Example would be PI on one and Co-PI on another. You cannot be a PI on more than one proposal per category.You can partially fund a post-doc.In budget preparation, there are no restrictions regarding equipment, technician support, and some summer support. NOTE: If necessary, summer salary is limited to 2 weeks; summer salary needs to be strongly justified to be considered.
• No academic year faculty salary support.
• No graduate student support.
• No overhead will be charged.
• Matching funds are not required.

• Only newly hired, untenured academic faculty. REF-MG awards are intended for untenured academic faculty who are in their first two years of their tenure probationary period. Matching funds not required. No overhead will be charged. In budget preparation you may include travel and accommodations to work at another institution and a stipend for the mentor.
• The goal of the mentoring grant is to establish a new research relationship with the mentor or expand an existing research relationship collaboration. The mentoring grant should support the development of a true mentoring relationship with a senior figure in the discipline.
• No graduate student support.
• You can be involved in more than one proposal. Example would be PI on one and Co-PI on another. You cannot be a PI on more than one proposal per category.

Budget: Please work with the Sponsored Programs Office (487-2225) on your budget. You do not need to include a copy of the approved budget now. The Sponsored Programs Office will submit the approved budget to the VPR office and it will be attached to your proposal.

COS or DIGITAL MEASURES PROFILE: An up-do-date COS or Digital Measures profile is a requirement and an expectation of the selection committee. A complete proposal packet must contain a copy of your current COS or Digital Measures profile.

The Sponsored Programs Office will send an email notification that your proposal has been funded. Within five business days, Sponsored Programs Accounting will assign an index number or numbers for the project account and email you with the index number(s) and budget.

A portion of your Michigan Tech salary/wages will be charged to the research account. The percentage is based on the sponsor agreement and the amount of your effort spent on the project. Please refer to the payroll section of the award management link.

Travel that directly benefits your research project, and was included in the proposal budget, is reimbursed from the research account. Fill out a travel expense voucher and submit it to Accounts Payable for reimbursement.

This may vary, depending on the expense. There are several sections of the website for you to review: non-salary expenditures, allowable/unallowable expenditures, and “expenditures exceeding the award amount." You may also want to review the “what form do I use?".

In this case you need to fill out a reallocation of expenditures form. Keep in mind that reallocations must be made within 90 days of the original charge (unless there are extenuating circumstances). Please review the guidelines for reallocation of expenditures.

The Sponsored Programs Accounting office prepares and submits invoices to the sponsor to collect the funds. Please do not submit anything financially to the sponsor yourself. We will contact you if your assistance is needed in preparing invoices or other financial documents.

The university is required by federal regulation (OMB Circular A-21) to verify an employee’s percent of effort on a project and verifies this with after-the-fact payroll certifications. The certifications are done on a semester basis for faculty and monthly for staff and students. It is essential to review these forms for accuracy and return the signed form to Sponsored Programs Accounting. If you notice a discrepancy between the percentage of effort on the certification and the actual effort for the various accounts, see the next question. See the forms section under “payroll certifications” for more information.

The far right column on the payroll certification form includes the budgeted percentage of time worked on a project. Please review this column to verify that the percent of effort listed represents the actual percent of effort. Percent of effort is defined as the verification of the ratio of payroll charged to sponsored agreements in relation to the employee’s effort on that project.

If there is an error on your payroll certification, complete a payroll reallocation form to correct the error. Attach a copy of the reallocation to your payroll certification with an explanation of why the reallocation is necessary.

These are overdrawn expired notices that are sent to principal investigators once a month to assist with the financial administration of the project. The financial reports section describes these notices in more detail.

In order to continue spending when your account is overdrawn or has expired, you will need to request an advance of funds and/or time. This is done on the Request for Advance form. Submit the request to the Sponsored Programs Office.

You must fill out a Request for Modification form requesting a time extension and submit this form to the Sponsored Programs Office. SPO will determine if the request can be internally approved for if sponsor approval is required. Once approved, your end date will be adjusted.

You must fill out a Request for Modification form stating the reason for the change in the original proposed budget. Submit the form to the Sponsored Programs Office. SPO will determine if your request can be internally approved or if sponsor approval is required. Once the request has been approved by SPO and the sponsor (if required), Sponsored Programs Accounting will modify your budget to accommodate the purchase.

The fringe rates and the overhead (indirect cost, facilities and administrative) rates are available in PDFs.

If the end date of your project is approaching you need to work with Sponsored Programs Accounting to ensure all of the charges related to this project are processed in a timely matter. Typically, projects require all final documents 90 days after the end date. However, it is not uncommon for final documents to be due 30 to 60 days after the end date. It is important to anticipate that your end date is approaching. Sponsored Programs Accounting will send you notices that let you know your account is about to expire and advising on a plan for close-out. Visit the Project Closeout section for additional information.

Another aspect of project close-out is the technical reporting and final deliverables. If you feel that the deliverables may not be completed by the end date, a time extension may be required.

Peter Larsen in the Vice President for Research Office is available to assist principal investigators with all aspects of proposal development. Depending on the sponsor (federal, state, foundation, corporate) other people may also be available to assist; however Pete is a good place to start. He can provide samples of successful proposal, examples of outreach and education plans, collaboration ideas with existing campus resources for project enhancements and guidance for new investigators on navigating the internal research process at Michigan Tech. Pete is also available to help coordinate logistical aspects of large, interdisciplinary proposal development. In order to enable Pete to help you the best, please contact him early on in the proposal development stage. He can be reached at palarsen@mtu.edu or by calling 487-2906.

Sponsored Programs Office staff are trained in preparing proposal budgets and are willing to assist you. For assistance please contact the following:

• Government sponsors, call 487-2226.
• Associations, Foundations or any other non-Government sponsor, call 487-2225.
• Industrial/Corporate sponsors, call 487-2228. (Jim Jackovich)

The current Facilities & Administrative (F&A) rates can be found at the following links:

• Provisional F&A Cost Rates FY10
• F& A Rates MTRI (FY2008)

The current Fringe Benefit rates can be found at the following link:

• Provisional Fringe Benefit Rates FY10

To register in NSF FastLane, please contact Jennifer Bukovich, Staff Assistant, in Sponsored Programs Office, at 487-2226, or via e-mail at jlbukovi@mtu.edu with the following information:

Full name
Department Name, phone number, fax number and email address
Highest Degree Earned
Year you earned that degree

The Sponsored Programs Office requires that you fill out a Request for Modification form. This form is used for a no-cost time extension on research projects that require additional time to complete your project. Please be sure to include a brief technical description specifying what work will be accomplished during the extension period.

This information is found on the Research Integrity & Compliance web-site under Review Boards. This information covers the Introduction to the Responsible Conduct of Research (IRB) for Animals, Human Subjects and Recombinant DNA.