.
Materials and Supplies – are expendable items with a useful life of less than two
years and individual items that do not fall into the equipment category (above).
The costs
are generally provided via a vendor quote.
If you are applying for a federal contract,
please note that you may need to prepare a Small Business Plan and you can get further
information
here.
Patient Care Costs – There are two types of patient care costs: inpatient and
outpatient.
This category is for the cost of laboratory tests and ancillary services being
performed at the hospital.
The full definition of patient care costs as defined by NIH can
be found
here.
These
costs are NOT for tests that are Standard of Care.
All Standard of Care tests should be
charged to third party insurance and not charged to the budget.
The prices for patient care
laboratory tests and ancillary services can be found on our
Chargemaster
or by contacting our
budgets group.
Consultants – A consultant is generally an individual that CU contracts with for a
specialized skill, expertise or knowledge.
List each individual and their rate of
reimbursement on the project.
Further information can be found at
RA’s website .
Once the the
award is made, the consulting contract will be prepared by Purchasing and you can access
further information at
procurement.columbia.edu.
Travel – Domestic and Foreign travel should be listed separately.
List the
destination or the travel reason, and include the transportation costs, registration fees,
accommodation fees and other related expenses.
You can find more information about
Columbia’s travel policies at
finance.columbia.edu.
Funds can be requested for travel to scientific
meetings, to collaborating laboratories, and for consultation with the funding agency or
with colleagues concerning project research. Please note that PHS policy dictates that
travel be on US carriers.
Other Costs – This category is generally for items such as patient reimbursement,
patient travel, pharmacy costs (please contact the pharmacy directly and submit a cost
estimate with your budget), lab work being that is being done at an outside lab (i.e. Quest,
Bendiner & Schlesinger, etc.), central computer charges, shop charges, core facility
charges, publication costs, copying and telephone charges, professional fees, maintenance
contracts and the rental of equipment.
Consortium costs / Subcontracts – The budget for a subcontracting/consortium
institution should be developed in the same manner as Columbia's budget. The only
difference is (at least in the case of PHS grants) that the institution's indirect costs are
included as part of the budget. Foreign institutions cannot submit indirect costs as part of
their proposals unless they have a indirect cost rate approved by the federal government.
U.S. institutions which do not have a negotiated indirect cost rate can use 10% until a rate
is formally approved.
You can access further information at
RA’s website .
Indirect (Facilities & Administrative Costs):
F&A rates are negotiated with Columbia University’s cognizant federal agency,
the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS).
Currently the F&A rate for
federal submissions is 61%.
The DHHS rate agreement can be found
here.
If the sponsor has policies restricting or reducing the F&A rate (i.e. foundation,
etc.), the budgets should reflect those policies.
Columbia University’s F&A rate is based on the Modified Total Direct Cost
(MTDC).
To calculate the MTDC, subtract the items excludable from F&A from the
Direct Costs (i.e. Patient Care, Equipment, Tuition, Consortium IC).
This calculation is
the MTDC and the 61% F&A rate should be multiplied by the MTDC to calculate the
federal F&A rate.
Cost Share
The Cost Share policy at Columbia University can be found
here.
There are three types of cost
share: Mandatory, Voluntary Committed or Voluntary Uncommitted.
Mandatory cost share applies when the cost share is required by the sponsor as a
condition of the award.
Voluntary Committed cost share is applicable when sponsor doesn’t require it but
the PI promises it to the sponsor.
Voluntary Uncommitted cost share applies when the costs are not conditional by
the sponsor and not promised by the PI but are being applied to a different funding
source.
Required Documentation / Approvals:
Rascal Proposal Tracking should be prepared for every submission.
An approver
needs to be listed for each department/school, so if you have staff on your proposal from
three separate departments or schools, an approver needs to be listed for each one.
The
personnel listed should be everyone on the project, regardless of whether or not they are
key.
If cost-share is applicable, please check the box and put in the cost-share amount.
GCP, COI and HIPAA Training should be done by each employee that works
with patients either directly or with patient data.
These courses can be done in Rascal by
clicking on the Administration tab once logged in with the UNI and Password.
For NIH
submissions, a GCP letter is typically required.
This should be submitted with a hard
paper submission at the time of submission or at the JIT stage for an electronic
submission.
This form can be found on RA’s website on the
Forms Repository Page.
Effort Reporting Certification – This is a federally mandated process that requires
certification that salary charged to a sponsored project is reasonable in relationship to the
effort on that project.
For more information, the ECRT policy can be found at
http://effortreporting.columbia.edu/policy.html.
IRB Approval can be pending at the time of submission but must be approved
prior to an account being opened post-award or a contract ready for signature. Further
IRB policy can be found at
http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/irb.
Submitting a Sponsored Proposal
The review and submission of all proposals must be reviewed and approved by an
authorized official at Columbia University. Clinical Trial submissions will need to be
reviewed and approved by one of the pre-award project officers at CTO.
The approval is
generallymade by signing the application regardless of whether the application is being
submitted via paper or electronically.
Paper Submission – Although NIH and other federal agencies are moving towards
electronic submissions, not all submissions are accepted in this format.
The guidelines
for each specific proposal will clearly indicate how the proposal should be submitted.
In
this format, once reviewed, one of CU’s authorized signatories will sign the proposal and
return to you for copying and mailing to the sponsor.
Electronic Submission – If the proposal is being submitted electronically via InfoEd,
Proposal Central, Grants.gov using PureEdge or any other electronic portal, the approval
is in the form of an electronic signature or by clicking the submit button. This action of
submitting a proposal can only be done by an authorized signatory of the University.
Some small foundations, however, might require the PI to submit directly, usually with a
signed facepage or letter included in the submission.
Just In Time (JIT) Submission
Prior to receiving a Notice of Award (NoA), a JIT submission is typically requested by
NIH. This request does not guarantee an award but always preceeds one. If all the
information requested is prepared and there are no problems, the NoA is typically
forthcoming. This request usually consists of IRB approval, Other Support pages for key
personnel and GCP certification (if not already submitted), The JIT may also include a
revised budget and justification if the reviewer had found an error or the PI was asked to
make a change. Ultimately, the JIT request can include anything. If this is a federal
contract, typically the Small Business Plan is due at this time, as well.
An Awarded Proposal
A federal award is generally made public via email to Research Administration, the
Clinical Trials Office and the Principal Investigator. In addition, the notification of an
award is available on the eRA Commons website, at the
Status page.
Notice of Award – When received by the PI or administrator in the department, it should
be forwarded to the pre-award office for processing. Most sponsors recognize the
acceptance of an award the moment that money is drawn down, meaning that expenses
have been pointed to the account. Therefore, an account will be delayed if there are any
problems with the terms and conditions of the award or the budget differs from the
proposed. These will be addressed with the PI or administrator to resolve.
Award Letter – An award letter is typically issued by Foundations.. The same rules apply
as above in that an account will be delayed if there are any problems with the terms and
conditions or if the budget differs from what was proposed. These items will be
addressed with the PI and/or administrator to resolve.
Setting up a Sponsored Account
Once the NoA or the Award Letter has been accepted, the budget will be setup in OPG
and an account will be created. An SPBA will be generated by the system) and will be
distributed to the department along with the backup documentation (i.e. NoA, Award
Letter, Amendment, etc.)
The budget will be entered into the OPG system as it appears on the NoA. The
consortium line item will be for all subcontracts until they are fully executed and at that
time, an individual subcode will be created for each contract and/or each PO.
If the account is for a fee-for-service subcontract, the account will be opened but no
budget will be entered. As checks are received by the sponsor, they will be deposited
into the account and a cost breakdown will be requested by the post-award group to
determine how the budget will be disseminated (i.e. other, supplies, etc.) NOTE that IC
will be calculated in the budget as each check is deposited.
