Assistant Director Research Administration- School of Chemical Sciences

Duties and Responsibilities:

Pre-Award Activities
• Provides expertise and guidance to faculty and principal investigators in the preparation and submission of routine and complex proposals to various sponsors, including but not limited to Federal, State, Industry partners, Non-Profit organizations, and foreign entities.
• Reviews and interprets sponsor regulations and guidelines, as well as Illinois policies and procedures, and oversees proposal application packages for a wide array of submission systems.
• Coordinates the development of proposals, budgets, expenditure forecasts and ad-hoc financial reporting for sponsored projects to ensure compliance with specified requirements. Acts as lead research administrator on large, complex grants that include multiple collaborators.
• Assists SRBA’s in coordinating with multiple investigators and their staff, including Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Research Associates, and Visitors on budget formulation, expenditure forecasts, personnel effort obligations, and reporting requirements.
• Serves as a liaison with Sponsored Programs Administration (SPA) and assists with agreement negotiations, as necessary. Follows up on pending agreements and works with SPA to ensure they are finalized and sponsored project funds are established in a timely manner.

Post-Award Activities:

• Facilitates fiscal management activities with faculty members and principal investigators which includes financial projections; projections are utilized to provide advice and guidance to research teams on hiring and other major spending decisions such as large equipment purchases.
• Manages personnel budgets and expenditures through regular review of proposed appointments and account reviews; directs the execution of labor distribution changes for principal investigators and research staff in response to changes in research effort communicated by the principal investigator or faculty participating on the project.
• Ensures the timely completion of the semi-annual confirmation process for principal investigators reviewing and confirming research expenditures.
• Coordinates the review of sponsored project expenditures and ensuring integrity, accuracy and allowability of transactions in accordance with project budgets and agreements as well as University and Federal guidelines; oversee the account reconciliation process; ensures all account reconciliations are performed and necessary accounting corrections are performed timely.
• Manages the completion of sponsored project close-out reviews and works with SPA to close completed project accounts in a timely manner for assigned research portfolio.
• Requests and monitors anticipated accounts, sub-award agreements, and other agreement extensions.
• Performs monthly review of financial statements for unallowable expenditures, deficits, accuracy

Leadership Duties
• Supervises and leads grants management staff to achieve success and foster a culture of innovation and high-level performance at both individual and organizational levels. This includes allocation of workload, ongoing performance management with coaching and feedback, career development planning, travel approval, as well as conducting annual performance reviews.
• Collaborates with SCS leadership team members to evaluate and continue to enhance service levels to our customers and design strategic professional development plans for team members.
• Serves as Primary Contact for all sponsored research activity in the SCS business office.
• Trains and serves as an ongoing resource for new SRBA professional staff.
• Develops and implements departmental policies and procedures for research administration, ensuring compliance with UIUC and funding agency requirements.
• Analyzes the pre- and post-award business processes and develops operational strategies that ensure efficiency, accuracy, and effective communication and customer service.
• Oversees agency requirements as they change, at least annually, to ensure continued compliance and update departmental policies and procedures as necessary.
• Collaborates with department contacts to ensure faculty teaching, research, public service, costsharing, and other efforts are correctly reflected in ARS and cost-sharing obligations are met.
• Develops, implements, maintains, and oversees systems for monitoring principal investigator efforts on sponsored projects to ensure the investigators meet their effort obligations on their awards. Recommends changes in investigator effort and appointment requests, as necessary, to ensure compliance with effort obligations. When necessary, obtains sponsor approval for deviations from budgeted effort.
• Monitors the SCS research portfolio to allocate the workload as necessary among the SCS Grants team members, keeping in mind the differing requirements of the various agencies, the range of complexity of certain pre-and post-award activities, and providing opportunities for staff development, cross-training, and efficient and effective operations.
• Ensures proposals are submitted and completed projects are closed timely.

Research Administration Duties
• Manages the chart of accounts, requesting Banner account segments when necessary, and ensures accuracy of information in BA4 finance and departmental accounting and reporting.
• Assists SCS purchasing and payables functions by coordinating the review and approval of purchasing transactions, review and approval of iBuy system transactions, and subaward invoice processing.
• Designs and maintains various reports, spreadsheets, and/or databases to effectively manage sponsored project funds.
• Participates in the campus research administration community by attending RAAB, BMG, and Sponsored Programs and Research Compliance (SPaRC) meetings, and serve on various committees to enhance and improve administration efforts

• Serves on search committees and acts as committee chair, as needed, for open searches within the school.

• Assumes additional grants and contracts duties to further the mission of SCS.