Accepting an Award

Processing a Contract or Grant Award

All contract or grant awards (including initial awards and subsequent amendments) from extramural sponsors, from UC campuses, or from UC-managed DOE laboratories, for research, training, or public service projects to any Office of the President unit must be approved and accepted by RPAC.  Upon receiving an award document, RPAC reviews the terms and conditions in the award to ensure that they conform with University policies. RPAC negotiates with the sponsor any clauses which are not in conformance with University policy, business practices, or would disadvantage the University. The Principal Investigator also reviews the award to make sure that the statement of work and budget are appropriate.

RPAC will also confirm that the project has received all necessary compliance approvals (such as for animal use or human subjects research).  If the award is for research from a non-governmental sponsor that is not exempt from COI requirements, a Statement of Economic Interests, Form 700-U (PDF) must also be completed at the time of the award.  The list of exempt sponsors can be found here.

When all the conditions of an award are acceptable to the University and the Principal Investigator and all compliance approvals are in place, the RPAC Contract and Grant Operations Officer signs the award document, accepting it on behalf of The Regents. When RPAC receives the fully-executed agreement, it makes it available to the Principal Investigator and the UCOP unit’s contracts and grants administrator and the UCSD Office of Post-Award Financial Services.

Advance Spending

Spending Prior to the Award Period of Performance Start Date

Pre-award spending occurs between the date when the sponsor issues the award to UCOP and the project period of performance start date.  There are times when it is in the best interest of the project to spend funds prior to the award period start date, such as when equipment needs to be ordered so that it is available for use at the beginning of the project.  Some sponsors automatically allow pre-award spending during a certain period before the start date.  In other instances, one-off approval is granted by a sponsor.  The unit and PI should consult the award terms and conditions for the requirements particular to their award, and if the sponsor does not require prior approval, the department should forward the PI's request to RPAC for processing internally.  In instances when prior approval from the sponsor is necessary in order to spend funds before the start date, the unit or PI should forward the prior approval request to the RPAC Contracts and Grants Officer for review and submission to the sponsor.  

Spending Prior to the Receipt of an Award

Under limited circumstances, Principal Investigators (PIs) may request authorization to spend funds in support of a sponsored project in advance of RPAC receiving the fully-executed award from a sponsor. This is called a Request for Advanced Spending or RAS. 

A request for advance spending will only be approved after the Principal Investigator and the Associate or Assistant Vice President acknowledge and accept the liability, respectively, that their unit will be subject to should the award ultimately not come to fruition.

In order to determine whether it is possible to receive approval for advance expenditures, the administering unit should discuss the particular circumstances of a pending award with RPAC. If it is determined that an advance expenditure authorization is reasonable and that there is no reason not to expect an acceptable, fully executed award from the sponsor, the administering unit can request a RAS via Kuali.  If approved, RPAC forwards the RAS information to the Extramural Fund Management Office, which assigns a fund number to the pending award so that the UCOP unit can begin charging expenses.