Award Review, Negotiation, and Set-up
Research awards made to Georgetown University include grants, contracts, research agreements, and cooperative agreements. JORA is responsible for receipt and negotiation of all research-related agreements to Georgetown University, in consultation with other relevant University offices. JORA is Georgetown University’s Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) and the only office authorized to bind the University to sponsored research agreements.
A sponsored research award is any externally funded grant, contract or cooperative agreement in which the sponsor requires financial reporting, invoicing or auditing. All government awards are considered sponsored research, along with many corporate and foundation awards. JORA must sign any sponsored research award document that requires financial reporting, invoicing or auditing.
JORA receives and reviews award notices, establishes spending accounts in GMS (Georgetown Management System) to bill costs against research awards. JORA handles all post-award “pre-financial” issues and assists investigators with administrative issues related to setup, maintenance and closeout of sponsored research awards. Day-to-day fiscal management of awards is handled by the grants manager. Financial oversight, reporting and compliance is the responsibility of the Sponsored Projects Financial Operations (SPFO) Department in the Office of Financial Affairs
All externally funded sponsored research agreements (grants, contracts, cooperative agreements) must be received by JORA and routed to the appropriate Cluster Research Administrator to review the award for compliance with University policies and to set up a GMS (AWD/GR) spending account to manage sponsored research funds.
JORA is the primary contact and conduit to University administration and external sponsors for questions or issues including establishment of sponsored research spending accounts, budgets, pre-award “at-risk” accounts (spending prior to receipt of award notice), re-budgeting, no-cost extensions, or any other administrative or contractual issues that require University compliance review and approval or prior approval from the sponsor.
National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR and RCR) Training Updates
NSF regulations have been updated to require RECR (formerly RCR) for all principal investigators and key personnel on awards resulting from proposals submitted on or after July 31, 2023. Training will be completed through the CITI platform and first time users of CITI may self-register using the link.
Existing users should login to CITI, select “My Courses,” and then select “View Courses” (next to Georgetown University), scroll down to “Learner Tools” and select “Add a Course.” New and existing users will then be asked a series of questions. Select “yes” to question 4 and select “not at this time” for the remaining questions. The RECR training module will appear in your queue.
Faculty and key personnel listed on NSF proposals are encouraged to take these courses in advance of the grant being awarded. Training must be completed prior to award set up. If you have any questions or require additional information, please contact Kenya Carter, Office of Research Oversight, at kenya.carter@georgetown.edu.